MTN’s SMS competition under fire

The Star newspaper recently reported that a source revealed that the “winners who have walked away with a Toyota Fortuner knew exactly how many SMSes they needed to send to win the vehicle.”

“The source said he was in a public place when he overheard an acquaintance talking on a Friday about how he was going to win a car that Sunday. The man told a group of people that someone had given him the source code and he was able to see people’s rankings on a URL, so he knew how many SMSes he needed to send to win,” The Star reported.

The newspaper further said that they were “in possession of a URL that lets you see the ranking of the person whose cellphone number you enter.”

These allegations come after widespread criticism aimed at MTN for launching a competition with very high SMS costs and encouraging consumers to ‘waste money’ with the unrealistic aim of winning prizes.

MTN responded, saying it views the recent media allegations regarding the 15-year anniversary promotion as unfortunate, and would like to assure its customers that the allegations are being taken very seriously.

“MTN will appoint a review panel consisting of external experts, including a consumer representative, to review the recent allegations and the promotion in its entirety,” MTN said in a media statement.  “The findings of the review panel will be released as soon as possible, hopefully within the next week. Any wrongdoing will be dealt with accordingly.”

MTN said that the promotion will continue as is and that it has no further comment on the matter.

MTN SMS Competition – give your views