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Message: [QUOTE="Queen, post: 90778, member: 27"] Every fault report ZETDC accepts is issued a unique reference number, and a report without one is effectively invisible the moment you try to follow it up. Most people never ask for theirs. They describe the problem, hear a sympathetic voice, and hang up with nothing they can quote later. WhatsApp has quietly become the route that works. The national fault lines run on 0715 519 387, 0715 519 389 and 0719 219 977, with Bulawayo handled on 0771 902 403, and the toll-free 704 line and 0242 704 040 still take calls alongside them. Written channels have a second advantage. A message timestamps itself, so the clock on ZETDC's own service commitments starts running whether anyone acts or not. [HEADING=2]Six details decide how fast your power comes back[/HEADING] ZETDC asks for the same information every time, and a report missing any of it goes to the back of the queue. Your full name. The account number or prepaid meter number. The physical address with suburb, street, and house number, plus the nearest landmark, because crews navigate by landmarks in areas where street signs vanished years ago. Then the part people rush. Describe the fault and say what time it started, rather than saying the power is off, since a fault that began at 4am on Sunday and one that began ten minutes ago get triaged differently. Add a callback number that will actually be answered, and stay reachable, because a crew that cannot reach you often closes the ticket as unlocated. [B]A prepaid meter with a completely blank display[/B] deserves a specific description too. Say whether your neighbors have power, whether the trip switch has moved, and whether the display went dark during a storm or simply never came back after load shedding. That detail decides whether ZETDC sends a metering technician or a line crew, and sending the wrong one costs you days. If the meter is alive and only the numbers are missing, you are not dealing with a fault at all, and [B][URL='https://business.goldmidi.com/how-to-retrieve-zesa-tokens-online/']the token records kept by whoever took your payment[/URL][/B] will sort it out faster than any fault line. [HEADING=2]Rural addresses run on a slower clock[/HEADING] ZETDC's client charter sets different promises by geography, and rural customers should know theirs. Faults in rural areas are to be attended within 72 hours, with supply restored within 84, against much tighter windows in town. Same utility. Very different wait. The charter also contains a clause worth watching. Written queries that require investigation get 30 working days rather than the seven working days a standard reply attracts, so a fault that gets reclassified as an investigation quietly buys the utility six weeks. When you follow up, ask which category your reference number sits in. New meters have their own trap. Registration of a prepaid meter is meant to happen within three days of installation, and until that registration lands on the vending system, no vendor can sell electricity against the meter number. Families who move into a newly wired house and find that every channel rejects their meter number are usually stuck in that gap, not facing a broken meter. [HEADING=2]The inspection that turns a fault into a criminal case[/HEADING] This is the part that should stop anyone thinking about a shortcut. ZETDC employs loss control officers who inspect installations without warning, and in October 2025 a routine inspection in Rusape ended with a 55-year-old man jailed for ten years after he rewired his supply to bypass the meter. Section 60A(3)(a) of the Electricity Act treats tampering with electricity apparatus as an offense carrying imprisonment of not less than ten years where the court finds no special circumstances peculiar to the case. Not a fine. Not a suspended sentence by default. That matters when your meter dies, because the temptation is to find someone who can get the lights on tonight. An unregistered electrician who bridges around a dead meter leaves you holding a bypass you cannot explain, and the officer who finds it will not care much that the meter failed first. So photograph the meter and its seals the day the fault starts, keep the reference number, and let ZETDC be the party that opens anything sealed. If a tamper warning appears on the display and you have touched nothing, report that wording exactly, because a documented tamper alert on an untouched meter is the record that protects you when a loss control officer arrives months later with a different theory. [/QUOTE]

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