Sign up with GoogleSo my girlfriend has three contracts with MTN, two voice and 1 data.
One of the voice contracts she is no longer uses and subsequently destroyed the SIM card over a year ago. We only kept it for a phone upgrade and the 24 month payment was less than the total cash price of the phone.
On Wednesday we found out that this voice contract started making calls from October 20th, 2012. We didn't pick this up since the calls were probably within the free minutes until December. Then all hell broke loose.
I called her old number and spoke to someone who sounded like they were in a rural village/squatter camp. When I asked whose number this was - she said "someone". After that language/accent barriers made this a futile exercise.
We spent a frustrating few days with so called "customer no-service" on the phone and at a branch to discover a few things.
1. There is no history of the SIM being swapped so it can be activated. I believe that this could be inside job of someone giving out dormant lines en-mass to outside individuals.
2. The fraud department is an external company that logs fraud calls , logs it with MTN, receives feedback and gives said feedback to customer in 6-8 weeks.
3. MTN will block all your lines for 1 lines issue and will not hear of you refusing to pay for the excess of calls made fraudulently. Even though you can prove that the lines was totally inactive for over a year. Of course if you have a debit order that automatically deducts your account then tough luck to you. Especially if the fraud dept. takes 6-8 weeks (hopefully).
4. When asking for an itemised bill to check which numbers were being called, they have to unlock the account and leave it in that state until they can send you the bill for a cost of R20. This is for the privilege of investigating THEIR fraud.
5. Upon receiving that bill, all numbers called where 0 or *0. Nothing else. WTF does not that point to an illegal SIM?
6. No one at the "customer don'tcare" or stores has access to your itemised bill so they can't look up this information for you.
7. There is no way to get to MTN internal fraud department. No one at "customer don'tcare" or branches can call them. This means you can't trace your own fraud call.
Aside from logging this at the fraud department, we have given an affidavit at the police station and sent it to MTN.
My reason for this post is three fold.
1. Do any members out there know of what else can be done?
2. Warn anybody out there to watch your phone bill/free minutes, etc. I cannot believe that this would have been possible without inside help, and I am definitely not saying that this is only an MTN problem.
3. Let everyone know that should you consider joining the MTN family - don't. Not if you might have a problem and want would like them to look after existing contract customers.
I have stupidly been an MTN contract customer for over 15 years and this is what I have to say
F*** you very much MTN - been awful knowing you
One of the voice contracts she is no longer uses and subsequently destroyed the SIM card over a year ago. We only kept it for a phone upgrade and the 24 month payment was less than the total cash price of the phone.
On Wednesday we found out that this voice contract started making calls from October 20th, 2012. We didn't pick this up since the calls were probably within the free minutes until December. Then all hell broke loose.
I called her old number and spoke to someone who sounded like they were in a rural village/squatter camp. When I asked whose number this was - she said "someone". After that language/accent barriers made this a futile exercise.
We spent a frustrating few days with so called "customer no-service" on the phone and at a branch to discover a few things.
1. There is no history of the SIM being swapped so it can be activated. I believe that this could be inside job of someone giving out dormant lines en-mass to outside individuals.
2. The fraud department is an external company that logs fraud calls , logs it with MTN, receives feedback and gives said feedback to customer in 6-8 weeks.
3. MTN will block all your lines for 1 lines issue and will not hear of you refusing to pay for the excess of calls made fraudulently. Even though you can prove that the lines was totally inactive for over a year. Of course if you have a debit order that automatically deducts your account then tough luck to you. Especially if the fraud dept. takes 6-8 weeks (hopefully).
4. When asking for an itemised bill to check which numbers were being called, they have to unlock the account and leave it in that state until they can send you the bill for a cost of R20. This is for the privilege of investigating THEIR fraud.
5. Upon receiving that bill, all numbers called where 0 or *0. Nothing else. WTF does not that point to an illegal SIM?
6. No one at the "customer don'tcare" or stores has access to your itemised bill so they can't look up this information for you.
7. There is no way to get to MTN internal fraud department. No one at "customer don'tcare" or branches can call them. This means you can't trace your own fraud call.
Aside from logging this at the fraud department, we have given an affidavit at the police station and sent it to MTN.
My reason for this post is three fold.
1. Do any members out there know of what else can be done?
2. Warn anybody out there to watch your phone bill/free minutes, etc. I cannot believe that this would have been possible without inside help, and I am definitely not saying that this is only an MTN problem.
3. Let everyone know that should you consider joining the MTN family - don't. Not if you might have a problem and want would like them to look after existing contract customers.
I have stupidly been an MTN contract customer for over 15 years and this is what I have to say
F*** you very much MTN - been awful knowing you
