Telkom is not a Phone Company

Everyone thinks that because Telkom supplies them with a phone (aka land line) they are a telephone company. Wrong. Nor are they a service company. Their "service" is confusing, contradictory and downright dreadful. No, they are a Call Centre company.
If you go to one of their stores to get a phone, they don't have stock, or you may have to "come back later" a few times until one of the paid drones who "services the queue" actually has a flash of inspiration and can actually do something to help. "Tomorrow starts tomorrow. Or next month. We can't help you today".
If you have a life to live and don't fancy standing in queues in their store, then you will encounter the heart of the beast: the Telkom Call Centres. Don't try phoning the store you visited. They don't answer the phone. Incredible, but true: the people who work in the phone company store do not answer the phone. If you call the "number" assigned to that store (Cresta 011 478 5396, Greenstone 011 452 6430, etc) it doesn't actually ring in that store. It gets forwarded to a Call Centre. The "front line agents" in the call centre can't actually tell you the progress of your request. All they can do is promise to phone you back. Or they give you a different number to call.

Update 16 March 2021: Telkom sent me a customer satisfaction survey via email. I only noticed it because it landed in my junk mail folder. So I dutifully told them I am no longer one of their customers and I really don't care if they improve their service or not. They are on my "do not do business with these clowns" list, and will remain there until I get my money back.

Telkom's R500 per month ripoff on a R229 FreeMe mobile contract

On 31st August I went to the Telkom store in Cresta to get a new FreeMe 1GB cell phone contract. I had seen the advert in the City Press newspaper and noted the "Terms and Conditions" and "While Stocks Last" disclaimers. But a much bigger surprise was in store: R500 per month "extras" that are not mentioned in the Mobile Terms and Conditions or the Telkom Product Terms and Conditions for FreeMe Postpaid and TopUp or the Standard Terms and Conditions. But I digress.
Chad the helpful store assistant told me that he didn't have stock of the specific model, but he could offer me a similar deal on a Huawei P9 Lite black instead. That was fine, since it was only R10 per month more. He kept the phone aside for me and told me the credit check would take 72 hours. Since it was Thursday afternoon I figured that I would hear from them on Monday or Tuesday. Not a chance.
I tried calling the store. No answer. Do a google search for "Telkom Direct Cresta" and click on the Google Reviews. Most of the 67 reviews complain that they don't answer the phone. The manager of the store confirmed to me that it is company policy for them to not answer the phone. You have to go there in person. Never mind having to travel there and pay for parking. Imagine that: a telephone company that doesn't answer the phone! You can't make this s**t up.
So after getting no response from the store I contacted @TelkomZA on Twitter. The first time that didn't work. You have to put a hashtag in the Direct Message. Huh?

Finally I could go back to the store on Friday a week later. That's 72 hours if you only count the store opening hours, not the normal idea of 72 hours being 3 working days.
So now I'm back at the store and I figure that I've overcome the hurdles of getting a phone model I like and getting the credit check done. All we have to do is fill out the paperwork, sign it and take the phone home. I told Chad that I was only interested in the contract price, and wasn't prepared to pay for extra charges. No problem, we would set the credit limit to zero. He said nothing about a "Spend Limit" of R500 per month, nor did he say anything about the fact that the default is R500 for the first month and you can't change it for the first month. I only found that out in November.
Chad explained that the first invoice would be pro-rata for September and the full month of October. No problem, I said, that would be around R460. He printed out 4 pages for me, including an invoice for the handset with its serial number, and 3 pages of my credit application. He had transposed my name and surname, so we fixed that and I left with the phone.
By the end of October I hadn't received a bill from Telkom Mobile, so I called their automated enquiry line and was told that my invoice was R447, payable on 5th November. That sounded like the right ballpark figure so imagine my shock when on the night of 6th November they deducted R931.90!
I called Telkom at 7.30am to find out what was going on. That's when they told me about the R500 "Spend Limit" and I told them that I had insisted that it be set to zero. He also said that I would have to go back to the store to sort it out, because he couldn't help me with store matters on the phone. Surreal.

So I went to the store on Tuesday morning 7th November. The store opened late because they were too busy taking a group selfie inside than worrying about the queue of customers waiting outside.
Chad wasn't there (how convenient) but I spoke to another assistant and called the store manager over. I started by asking him why his store doesn't answer their phone. He mumbled something about it being company policy and gave me a different number to try. It doesn't work. I complained that I had still not received the October invoice via email, but the November invoice had arrived and it was for R1667.90. How was this possible on a contract for R229 per month. He tried to tell me about the R500 Spend Limit and I pointed out that I had specified a ZERO credit limit when I signed the contract. We opened case number 21643735 and I told them I wanted a refund. They also printed out the October and November invoices. They told me that they could only adjust the Spend Limit effective on 1st December, because it was now already November. I told them that I was not paying for any of the extra expenses because I had specifically instructed Chad to set the credit limit on ZERO, and the documents he gave me showed that this had been done.

So the first case number gets "resolved" but all they did was pass me a credit for R500. No refund, no explanation. I had to call them again to find out what was going on. That phone call took 20 minutes and achieved nothing. Basically the call centre's attitude is that you must go to the store. And the store's attitude is that you must contact the call centre. Imagine that. The "S" in Telkom definitely stands for Service.
Consider how the whole "deal" is structured: You sign up for a R229 per month contract, but you get a R500 "Spend Limit" that is in place from day 1 and you can't change it for the first month. It's not mentioned anywhere in the terms and conditions so if the salesperson doesn't tell you about it you get caught for the second month too. Invoices are issued dated 1st of each month, but my 1st October invoice wasn't ever sent. Even if I had seen it on the 1st October and realised that they were charging me for R500 usage that I didn't authorise, by then it's too late to stop it for October, you can only stop it for November.

In my case the first I knew about the R500 Spend Limit was on 6th November when it was rudely grabbed from my account. By then it was too late to do anything about September or October, and they could only stop it for 1st December. In onne of my many calls to their call centre I learnt that there is a default setting on their web site that would help reduce the extra charges. But it is turned off by default. That's because the whole scam is designed to catch the unwary or ignorant customer. It's been cleverly crafted by the crooks at Telkom to fleece their customers.

The "Out of Bundle Redirect" is switched off by default. If you switch it on then when the phone runs out of data, it redirects you to a page where you can buy more data. The default is "Never redirect, carry on browsing using my airtime. OOB rates apply", instead of "Always redirect service to OOB page". So when I found out about this page in November I was able to prevent the phone using additional data, but this didn't stop it from generating extra billing items by making calls. And it turns out that calls from Telkom Mobile to 1023 Directory Enquiries, are charged at R5 per call. That's a VAS rate call, but of course you don't find that out until the invoice arrives. Another part of their evil scheme.

Then they try the oldest trick in the book with mobile phones: you were using the phone so you are responsible for the charges. Or variations on the theme. What they fail to grasp is that I am not the user of the phone. The phone is used by a sales rep who works for commission only. I am merely the account holder. So I will not be held responsible for charges that I didn't authorize and are not part of the contract.

One other thing: unlike a Telkom land line contract, which you can pay in every month, the Telkom Mobile contract only works on a debit order, where they deduct the money from your account. And they think they can deduct whatever they like. And if you reverse a deduction they can claim that you have invalidated the contract. We'll see. I reversed the R931.90 amount because they were not authorized to deduct that amount. Let's see what they do next.
Today I went back to the Telkom Store in Cresta, and spoke to the manager again. I explained (again) that I wanted a refund of the remaining R510 charges that I had not authorized, and asked why they weren't refunded the first time. He wanted to blame the billing department but I was having none of it. So now we have another reference number and another round of waiting.
I also challenged him to produce the part of the terms and consitions that specify the R500 Spend Limit but he was unable and unwilling to do so. He said he would get the Telkom Legal Department to send it so me. This should be interesting.
In the meantime I am drafting a letter to the Advertising Standards Authority to put a stop to this nonsense. If they don't advertise the R500 Spend Limit, they should be forced to withdraw it, and refund all those who inadvertently got ripped off in the process.
Update 12th December: Logged case number 22057592 with the Manager of the Cresta branch
Update 13th December: I discovered two different versions of the Telkom Mobile Subscriber Terms and Conditions. Neither one uses the term "Spend Limit".
Update 22nd December: Case number 22057592 still not attended to. Got a demand to pay R1160.90 to avoid the service being suspended. @TelkomZA responds to inquiry:

Update 2 January 2018: You can't make this stuff up. I dialled their help line and this is what I get:
There's always a pleasnat surprise on my Telkom invoice. This month its the outrageous R200.94 debit order "Payment Rejection fee". They think they can just deduct whatever they like.

Dear @TelkomZA where do I find the list of fees and charges for #mobile contracts? I can't find "payment rejection fee" anywhere on your web site. What is the URL or document name?

— Donn Edwards 🇿🇦 (@donnedwards) January 2, 2018

Update 2 Feb 2018: It turns out that I was given a postpaid contract instead of a TopUp contract, so I had to go back to the Telkom Cresta Shop for a third time to fix it. And "Chad" doesn't work there any more. Why am I not surprised?
Update 8 Feb 2018: If you reverse a debit order, or the debit order fails, they charge you R200.94, even though this amount is not listed on their Tariff Card. If you pay in the R200.94 during the month, the balance of that month's invoice isn't deducted by debit order at the end of the month as it is supposed to. Instead, nothing is deducted, but the balance is carried over to the following month. Of course the Terms and Conditions are silent about this too. Nothing makes sense with the Telkom Accounts department.

Vumatel and Cool Ideas: A setup guide

Vumatel has done what Neotel should have done 10 years ago. It has got internet fibre to my home. And the big losers are going to be Telkom, MTN and MWEB. But I digress.
The frustrating thing is that the office park next door to the flats where I live has had fibre since the beginning of the year. I have been struggling with a bad Telkom ADSL line that manages to lose 7% of my packets. I've been measuring it for months. I even tried buying a new ADSL modem, but the line quality was so bad the new modem never managed to maintain a connection for more than 2 minutes. So I exchanged it for a wireless hub instead, saving lots of mobile data in the process.
The Aldara Park Residents Association managed to get enough enthusiasm in our small suburb to persuade Vumatel to install FTTH cables in our area. They started in late August and our area went live this week. I also helped to get the cable and distribution equipment installed in our block of flats. I'm fortunate that I ordered my installation early, which is why they arrived today to install the last 50m cable.
So far everything has run pretty smoothly, with the exception of their tech support. Emails to info@vumatel.co.za seem to go into a black hole and replies aren't forthcoming. Getting a manual for the CPE (Consumer Premises Equipment) has proved to be a mission. I don't know why why can't just email it to me. It's only 4 pages. It turns out the CPE is not router at all, and can't be used as a firewall or to do port forwarding.
Everyone (including Vumatel Tech Support) kept going on about a WiFi router, and I kept saying that I don't need a WiFi router because I want to connect PCs to the network, not laptops or phones. One bright spark then tried to tell me I needed to buy a Linksys router. Actually it turned out to be a lot simpler. And quicker. I called Cool Ideas on 010-593-2665 and spoke to Bheki. They are based in Parktown North, which is not far from where I stay. He explained what I needed and was very helpful. they would supply me with a WiFi router that also has Ethernet ports that can accommodate normal PCs without WiFi. Simple.

So by the time the Vumatel technicians left at 2pm and the blue (power) light and the orange (FX) light were working, I was ready to go to the Cool Ideas office. All I needed was my bank details, and I took my ID book and proof of residence just in case. Cool Ideas are at Suite 207, Parktown Quarter, Corner 3rd Ave and 7th Ave, Parktown North, Gauteng. Its very confusing having a suburb where numbered avenues intersect with other numbered avenues, but I digress.
The receptionist helped me fill out the online form and issued me with a brand new TP-LINK TL-WR840N 300Mbps Wireless N Router. And a single page of instructions, shown below. (The user manual for the router is here.)
Important note: the TP-LINK router comes with old EU firmware. When you update the firmware, the router loses all its settings. So it is best to do this before you make any other changes. You can backup and restore settings using the web interface, but don't try this using the WiFi connection unless you absolutely have to. It's a 3.8MB download, so your old ADSL connection should manage that ;-) Extract the ZIP files to a folder, and then use System Tools in the web interface to create a backup file, config.bin. Then use the Firmware Update procedure, and select the newly extracted wr840nv2_eu_3_16_9_up_boot(160406).bin file. Once the firmware is updated, the router will reboot back to its default settings. Connect once again and restore the config.bin file. If you do the update before changing any settings, you don't need to create the backup file, or restore it. But remember to make a backup file once you have got everything to work correctly.

I got to step 4 of the Cool Ideas instructions and the wheels fell off, because the instructions assume you can connect to the WiFi part of the router. But Bheki had assured me that I could also connect using one of the 4 Ethernet ports on the router. So I plugged in a network cable from the WAN port on the router to the LAN1 port on the CPE, and then connected my PC's network cable to the LAN1 Ethernet port on the router. With my network connection set to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically" I assumed I would be able to connect. No such luck. So I called Bheki.
It turns out there is a bit of a trick to do first: unplug the PC cable from the router and plug it directly into the LAN1 port on the CPE. And wait. Eventually the CPE assigns you an IP address and then when you type in www.vumatel.co.za it redirects you. Except Chrome complains bitterly about this and you have to click "advanced" and then tell it to go ahead and redirect you anyway. Now you can follow Step 6 by clicking on the "register" button on the Vumatel portal. It's a step-through process during which you get to choose your Cool Ideas package and so on.
After that Bheki could check that I was registered and the package was set up. Then I connected the router's WAN port to the CPE, and connected the PC to the LAN1 port of the router, and restarted everything. Again, the router took its sweet time about assigning me an IP address, but eventually I could connect to 192.168.0.1 and log in to the router. I confirmed with Bheki that I was now able to connect the internet, and tested it by logging in to Twitter. All was well.
Now for the fun part. I can't use the default LAN address of 192.168.0.1 because my network setup is a bit more tricky. I have to use 10.100.10.1 instead. And then I have a port forwarding list that has 12 entries in it. And an additional routing entry. Fortunately it's all set up in my old ADSL modem, so with one PC connected to the new router, and another PC still connected to the old ADSL modem/router, I could copy the settings across. I also disabled uPnP and changed the password on the router, and set up the WiFi hotspot to work with my phone. A quick test on https://grc.com/shieldsup to test that the firewall was working, and we are good to go. I could at last unplug the old ADSL modem and connect the new router in its place. And what a difference! 20Mbps for both upload and download speeds is awesome.

Here's and example with the old MWEB speed on the left of the graph. Then the connection is broken, and then the Vumatel connection is made. Carbonite (my online backup software) took off, and the upload speed went off the top of the graph. I actually had to tell Carbonite to throttle back its internet usage for a while. One of the "joys" of my MWEB connection was that they restrict P2P traffic at certain times of the day, particularly early evening. They call it "shaping". I call it annoying. No such restrictions with Cool Ideas, which is great.
Another noticeable change: when I use DropBox on my Android phone to upload pictures, it often displayed a "waiting to upload" message, even when connected. Those "waiting" messages simply don't appear any more.
Warning: don't put your WiFi router in or near your bedroom. Put it as far away as possible, or switch it off when you sleep. Put your cell phone in "flight mode" when you sleep too. That radio radiation isn't good for you, and you don't need it for 8 hours.

What About MWEB?

All my emails go to the mail servers at MWEB, and I have used their ADSL service for years. So it would be simple to just upgrade my ADSL contract to an uncapped FTTH contract, surely? Actually, no. Firstly, they would have to send me a router from Cape Town via courier. Which means that I would get it sometime next week. And then they want to charge me R699 for an "uncapped" product that is only 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up. And it's still "shaped" which is not good. Granted, its a bit cheaper than the R769 I'm paying now for 4Mbps down and 0.5Mbps up, but that defeats the whole point of fibre in the first place. And it would take 14 months to pay off the R999 connection fee. By contrast, the R899 fee with Cool Ideas gives me an uncapped, unshaped connection that is five times faster with downloads, and twenty times faster with uploads. For an extra R130 per month.
MWEB could offer me a shaped 20Mbps package, that includes 500GB of data, but that would cost an extra R100 per month, and it's shaped and capped. Its R150 more expensive that a 200GB capped product, which works out at R50 per 100GB of data. Yet if you go over the cap you pay R89 per 10GB for a "booster", or R890 for 100GB. They couldn't give me any assurances as to what would happen if I went over to 500GB cap. Would I be downgraded to 4Mbps, or disconnected?

Given that I upload about the same as I download, thanks to Carbonite's online backup running on 3 different machines, and given that my upload speed has just increased by a factor of 40, I'm not willing to risk going from 300GB per month to "only" 500Gb per month. Especially not on a "shaped" package at R999 per month.
On Monday I will downgrade my ADSL package to a capped package of 75GB at R149 per month, which I will share with my in-laws who are still on ADSL and use less than 5GB per month. If the fibre stops working I can connect via ADSL and use the data sparingly for a few days. That's assuming the ADSL line doesn't stop working altogether. At some point in the near future I will cancel my phone line and port the number to VOIP, so I don't have to pay Telkom any more.
If it wasn't for the fact that I am paying for my in-law's ADSL connection, I would just have to downgrade my MWEB ADSL account to email-only so I don't have to change my email address. But the cost of this is outweighed by the fact that my new fibre connection is "unshaped". Worth the money.
I really don't understand why MWEB has adopted such a weird approach to FTTH. Maybe they are just too big and too arrogant to realize that they will lose customers. They have lost R600 per month from me. Not a good business model.

Update Sunday 9 October: Cool Ideas don't offer POP, IMAP and/or SMTP services, so if you don't use Gmail or some other webmail service, you'll need to have an email-only account with your old ISP. I also did some random speed tests:

Not bad for a busy international cable connection. The one below is to the local Rosebank test server.

Compare those to the ones I did in May when my ADSL line started playing up. Both to the same Rosebank server:

This one, done at 6pm, didn't even finish:

Update Monday 10 October: It turns out that MWEB can send me my ADSL password in plain text. They claim it's encrypted. That's really not good from a security point of view. They also neglected to tell me that their new Capped packages don't allow for concurrent connections. They just don't specify whether they are or not. Bad advertising. But then they keep a lot of secrets these days.

Update Wednesday 12 October: It seems that Cool Ideas is a little less cool than I thought. If you have a complaint, you have to send it to "complaints@cisp.co.za", except that when you do, the mail bounces because there is no "complaints" mailbox at cisp.co.za. Weird. Or extremely devious. You decide which. They have now created the mailbox.
My complaint refers to their claim of "free installation" on the Vumatel website. They say this refers to a technician coming to my house and setting up the free WiFi router. Seriously? They gave me the router with the cellophane still sealed on the box. Nothing was set up, and the firmware was not upgraded. What I thought it meant was that they would cover the cost of the Vumatel installation, of R1710, like other ISPs do. There is no clarification on their web site either, but they do claim to pay the Vuma monthly line rental.

@donnedwards please email us your address & contact details to social@vumatel.co.za so that we can follow up.

— vumatel (@vumatel) October 12, 2016

@donnedwards @coolideas_ZA @vumatel That's not cool at all. Explains why Vumatel trying to bill me for installation. Misleading advertising.

— Justin J Williams (@jjza) October 12, 2016

They claim that their "free installation" wording was put on the Vumatel site before the other entries, which followed later. I guess that's plausible, but still its not exactly clear advertising. They say they aren't like other ISPs. I'm starting to wonder what that means, exactly.
[Their reply deleted as per their demand]
Their internet speeds and service may be better than MWEB, but the support ticket system is still broken, and my support ticket from last Friday remains "Open" and ignored. I'm not sure if the "take it or leave it" approach is going to earn them any friends in the long run.

Update Thursday 13th October: I decided to write to the co-founders of Cool Ideas:

Dear Paul Butschi and Andre Jooste
I am writing to you to register my complaint about the misleading term “Free Installation” in relation to your Cool Ideas packages on the Vumatel portal site. I think the explanation that it refers to “free router installation” is unsatisfactory and misleading advertising. I am not the only new Cool Ideas customer who thought that it refers to the R1710 Vumatel installation fee.
I’m also perturbed by the “take it or leave it” attitude that seems to be part of your support culture. While I got great support while setting up my router, I am not at all impressed with the responses below. Nothing seems to have been done, other than fixing the mailbox for complaints.
I am therefore asking you guys as the founders of the company to intervene and fix the problem so I don’t have to go to the ISPA or ASASA to report false or misleading advertising.
Thanks in advance
Donn Edwards

Update Monday 17th October 2016: Still no reply via email, but They have changed their entries on the Vumatel portal. Nothing on their own website though. They did eventually manage to close my billing support ticket after over a week.

Update Friday 21 October: After two weeks eight days I have received a reply from Paul Butchi, in which he writes: "I ... request that you remove Lee-Roys email from the public page as it does have a legal disclaimer stating it is solely for the addressee which is yourself obviously". I'm really not sure what to make of that, since the legal disclaimer is so small it is illegible. Can you read it? It's only 8 pixels high.

Dear Paul
Save yourself the legal costs. I have removed the “offending” email from my blog. Unfortunately you now look even more bolshy than before. And please cancel the R1710 credit. I wasn’t asking for money. I was asking you to treat your customer with respect. You have only partially succeeded.
Best wishes
Donn

I called Paul. They refuse to update their own website to clarify about the Vumatel installation cost. He seems to think I'm the only person who was "misled" and doesn't think it's worth their time to clarify matters and be honest with the public. After all, he's too busy running a business to actually care about the customers. How very sad.

I'm not sure that Paul's "dont't f**k with me or my business" arrogance is going to earn him much respect either. It certainly hasn't earned mine.