Eskom: Hallelujah!

Eskom’s service is generally up to shit (only Telkom is worse), and in my specific case I cancelled my Eskom account on the 7th September 2007 and have been impatiently waiting for the refund of my R 1,800 deposit.

It has been a long road: After 9 months, 4 different service calls, 48 calls (during which I spoke to 43 different people and managed to waste 8 hours of my time) Eskom finally managed to get my refund processed. This did not go smooth either as they decided to post me a cheque although in 13 calls I had to give them my banking details (which have been logged against those pesky service calls).

But today is my luck day – Nonhlanhla Shabalala, perhaps the only dedicated debit-controller at Eskom not just phoned me back after I sent Eskom head-office an email, she also personally resolved the issue and confirmed via phone that the refund will be processed within 7 days.

Perhaps Elton, Nomhale, Mercy, Nomzakaza, Gregory, Joyce and the other 36 people at Eskom’s call-centres should learn from Nonhlanhla and actually do their job properly.

(For the math-geniuses: Interest lost on the above, had Eskom done the refund in time, would have been R 130,00)