{"id":449238,"date":"2022-06-23T09:59:40","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T07:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=449238"},"modified":"2022-06-23T10:01:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T08:01:32","slug":"mtn-nailed-over-double-your-bundle-advertisements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/449238-mtn-nailed-over-double-your-bundle-advertisements.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN nailed over Double Your Bundle advertisement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An MTN promotional SMS sent to a customer regarding its Double Your Bundle deal is misleading, the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) has found.<\/p>\n<p>The self-regulatory body has ordered MTN to withdraw the advertisement or offer the deal as advertised.<\/p>\n<p>This ruling comes after a customer complained over an SMS they received from MTN saying the operator was running a promotion on its voice bundles, claiming that it would double the minute allocation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pay once, get it twice! For only R27 get 60 Any-Net min + 60 Any-Net min free, valid for 7 days. Dial *142# and select DoubleYourBundle. OptOut dial *135#,&#8221; the message read.<\/p>\n<p>However, the complainant, Makhosini Kekana could not access the promotion and said he wouldn&#8217;t have purchased the bundle had it not been for the promotional SMS he received.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Complainant is of the view that the advertised offer was not available nor did it exist,&#8221; the ARB wrote in its report.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Complainant further stated that he purchased airtime which he would not have purchased had he not been misled by the SMS Advertisement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>MTN responded to the ARB, claiming that the advertisement was not misleading.<\/p>\n<p>However, the mobile operator acknowledged that there could have been database errors in the rendering process or an error in the message sent to the customer.<\/p>\n<p>The ARB deemed that the advertisement sent to Kekana contravened the Code of Advertising Practice.<\/p>\n<p>Clause 4.2.1 of section II states: &#8220;advertisements should not contain any statement or visual presentation which, directly or by implication, omission, ambiguity, inaccuracy, exaggerated claim or otherwise, is likely to mislead the consumer&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>MTN told MyBroadband that it had noted the Advertising Regulatory Board ruling regarding the complaints brought forward by Kekana, and said it would revise its advertising to provide better clarity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;MTN will revise its advertising to ensure clarity of all applicable contractual commitments,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;MTN will also honour the deal commitment to the impacted customer at the advertised price.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/MTN-ARB-ruling-3-Makhosini-Kekana.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"700\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/448956-millions-worth-of-data-disappearing-from-two-operators-in-south-africa.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Millions worth of data disappearing from two operators in South Africa<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MTN sent a misleading SMS advertisement to a customer regarding its Double Your Bundle promotion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":434522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[61905,79134,35,42],"class_list":["post-449238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-advertising-regulatory-board-arb","tag-double-your-bundle","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449784,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449238\/revisions\/449784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}