A few months ago I moved house — that was the easy part. I wanted to transfer my landline, but according to Telkom this was not possible as I was moving from one suburb to another and so would have to apply for a new line and number.
On March 4 I phoned the Telkom call centre on 10219, and the operator informed me that my line would be installed within seven to 14 days from the date I paid for it. She told me there were no lines available in my suburb but that I should make the payment anyway.
Now I realise how naive I was to assume I would have a phone in the week or two promised. In fact, it took no less than 67 days — that’s almost two full dog years!
Clutching my receipt, I phoned the grossly misnamed Telkom “helpline”. It should be renamed the “hold-line” because that is all I did. After listening to a disembodied voice intone “Your call is important to us; Please don’t hang up; Your call will be answered,” over and over again for 15 minutes, the message is imprinted on my memory.
As I sat there, I had lots of time to wonder how people without phones of their own are expected to hold on endlessly. What happens to old people or poor people or young mothers who are expected to use a public phone to enquire about their service (assuming they can find one in working order)? Or do they assume that we all use cellphones? And does the irony of this escape them entirely?
At that stage I was still reasonably cheerful and decided not to challenge the mysterious workings of mighty Telkom.
I was told a technician would be despatched to my house the following week. The technician arrived, walked around with his buzzing gizmo for a few minutes and then declared that there was a problem with the underground cables and he would be back in a few days to sort it out.
This visit was replayed several times over the next few weeks, with me having my ear welded to the phone trying to sort it out, and no fewer than three technicians arriving at my house at unscheduled times — once while I was at work and once when I was out of town on a public holiday — and still the mysterious cable fault persisted.
Apoplectic with rage, I called the “customer services” line and (after the obligatory brainwashing from the electronic voice) spoke to someone who had obviously been very well trained in dealing with angry customers — she simply put the phone down in my ear.
After a triple dose of Rescue Remedy I calmed down sufficiently to call back, do the holding marathon and speak to another person who promised that a technician would come to see me on May 9.
Finally the technician arrived and scaled our wall, shinned up various telephone poles and shortly I had a line installed. He seemed puzzled when I told him about the “cable failure” his colleagues had reported, and told me there had never been a problem with my cables.
Two months and one week to fix a problem that doesn’t seem to have ever existed. Now that’s a good old-fashioned monopoly for you.
Telkom knows, and we know, that consumers have no choice but to put up with its shoddy service because there is simply no alternative.
I take comfort from the fact that there are now so many disgruntled Telkom customers that some have created a website dedicated to its poor service (www.telkomsucks.co.za).
Like most other visitors to the site, I can promise that the second another fixed-line service becomes available I will sign up faster than you can say “please hold”.