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.”<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
MTN said that the promotion will continue as is and that it has no further comment on the matter.<\/p>\n