MTN and Credit Limits [and their silly billing system]

D

diabolus

Executive Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
6,313
Reaction score
38
Location
Amsterdam, NL
This is just a comment since my account is AGAIN suspended because MTN is amazingly now worse in the billing dept than Vodacom . See the end of this post, someone got an answer? I can't load bundles larger than R100 on my account EVER ...!

First iteration

Credit Limit : R800
Invoice Date : 13th
Debit Order Date : 31st


Nov 13 : Account invoiced with R160 + Activation Fee ~ R300
Nov 31 : Not billed
Dec 13 : Account Invoice with R160 + R100 bundle ~ R300
Call Charges since Nov 13 : R300 [which isn't alot if you think about it]
Dec 28 : Credit Limit reached suspended.
Dec 31 : Billed for Nov 13 -> Dec 13


Second Iteration
Credit Limit : R800
Invoice Date : 13th
Debit Order Date : 15th

Jan 13 : Account Invoiced for R222
Jan 15 : Not billed [F knows why not, i phone and MTN said this is the way it works]
Feb 13 : Account Invoiced for R440
Feb 15 : Billed for R222 [so now they don't bill R440 + R222] AGAIN i'm now 1 month behind
Feb 16 : Account suspended, credit limit reached

Now i had to resort to pay CASH into my account to get it unbarred!!


What a bloody cockup. I can't even load a 500MB bundle because my account gets suspended the moment i get invoiced!!!
i.e. Jan 13th : Invoiced for R160 + R350 [the bundle]
Jan 15th : Billed for previous months stuff [NOT 13th jan stuff]
Feb 13th : Invoiced for R160 + R350

-->right here my account will sit R1020!! EXCLUDING phone calls.
---> Guess what! Account suspended because MTN can only bill me on the 15th .

How on earth is other people doing this? There is just no way i can load bundles on my contract????


Either MTN should look how they calculate your "outstanding bill" and NOT let it use 2 months of invoices or actually bill on the same date as invoice. I loaded 1GB bundles [R500 per month] on my Vodacom contract PLUS made phone calls PLUS got invoiced R160 for the contact itself and never ran into credit limits!
?
 
Last edited:
diabolus said:
This is just a comment since my account is AGAIN suspended because MTN is amazingly now worse in the billing dept than Vodacom . See the end of this post, someone got an answer? I can't load bundles larger than R100 on my account EVER ...!

First iteration

Credit Limit : R800
Invoice Date : 13th
Debit Order Date : 31st


Nov 13 : Account invoiced with R160 + Activation Fee ~ R300
Nov 31 : Not billed
Dec 13 : Account Invoice with R160 + R100 bundle ~ R300
Call Charges since Nov 13 : R300 [which isn't alot if you think about it]
Dec 28 : Credit Limit reached suspended.
Dec 31 : Billed for Nov 13 -> Dec 13


Second Iteration
Credit Limit : R800
Invoice Date : 13th
Debit Order Date : 15th

Jan 13 : Account Invoiced for R222
Jan 15 : Not billed [F knows why not, i phone and MTN said this is the way it works]
Feb 13 : Account Invoiced for R440
Feb 15 : Billed for R222 [so now they don't bill R440 + R222] AGAIN i'm now 1 month behind
Feb 16 : Account suspended, credit limit reached

Now i had to resort to pay CASH into my account to get it unbarred!!


What a bloody cockup. I can't even load a 500MB bundle because my account gets suspended the moment i get invoiced!!!
i.e. Jan 13th : Invoiced for R160 + R350 [the bundle]
Jan 15th : Billed for previous months stuff [NOT 13th jan stuff]
Feb 13th : Invoiced for R160 + R350

-->right here my account will sit R1020!! EXCLUDING phone calls.
---> Guess what! Account suspended because MTN can only bill me on the 15th .

How on earth is other people doing this? There is just no way i can load bundles on my contract????


Either MTN should look how they calculate your "outstanding bill" and NOT let it use 2 months of invoices or actually bill on the same date as invoice. I loaded 1GB bundles [R500 per month] on my Vodacom contract PLUS made phone calls PLUS got invoiced R160 for the contact itself and never ran into credit limits!
?
Click to expand...

@diabolus

I do apologize for the frustration but this sounds like your with MTNSP am I correct?

If so please PM me your cell number and I'll get the billing manager to look into the above and assist you immediately

Thanks MTNDD
 
kaspaas said:
Wait for Diabolus to actually confirm that the problem has actually been resolved before you get excited.

The bean counters at credit control might not agree with the Techie on the forum.:D
Click to expand...

:cool:
 
I do apologize for the frustration but this sounds like your with MTNSP am I correct?

If so please PM me your cell number and I'll get the billing manager to look into the above and assist you immediately

Thanks MTNDD
Click to expand...

PMed you, and yes i'm with MTNSP. I went to a dealership but all they can do
is help me make payments into my account. The guys at 808 refuse to unbar account and just refer me to the Credit Controllers [which the dealership can't
help with it seems] .

Main issue here is, this is gonna happen every month. With a R800 limit and the credit-limit being calculated with TWO months of invoices PLUS 1 month of "call charges" [assuming i use data bundles of R100+] i just see no way i'm
gonna remain below the limit . I will go over the limit without even making a single call, purely based on 2 invoices [2 data bundles + 2 monthly contract tariff is always gonna be over R800] . I just wondering what i am missing here, am i the only one with this issue?
 
Ok, my suspension was sorted out :). Credit limit was raised to R1000 . Although MTN can't do much about the issue i'm having with 2 invoices being used in the calculation of the credit limit.

I will still run the risk of being suspended betwen the 13th [invoice date ] and 15th [debit order date] . Since MTN can only bill me for 1 invoice on the 15th i'm screwed until i raise my credit limit to at least R2000 [not sure MTN just change this at any given whim].

Theoretically it's silly, since i'm not using more than R600 in a MONTH .

Seems it's standard MTN dates: Invoice Dates are 13th and 26th, and debit order dates is 1st, 15th and 31st? . While debit date > invoice date IN a month, everyone will get nailed with a double invoice [or outstanding amount] between the invoice date and the debit order date.....
 
diabolus said:
Ok, my suspension was sorted out :). Credit limit was raised to R1000 . Although MTN can't do much about the issue i'm having with 2 invoices being used in the calculation of the credit limit.

I will still run the risk of being suspended betwen the 13th [invoice date ] and 15th [debit order date] . Since MTN can only bill me for 1 invoice on the 15th i'm screwed until i raise my credit limit to at least R2000 [not sure MTN just change this at any given whim].

Theoretically it's silly, since i'm not using more than R600 in a MONTH .

Seems it's standard MTN dates: Invoice Dates are 13th and 26th, and debit order dates is 1st, 15th and 31st? . While debit date > invoice date IN a month, everyone will get nailed with a double invoice [or outstanding amount] between the invoice date and the debit order date.....
Click to expand...

The Bean Counters have a terrible logic it seems:confused:

Maybe they need a few lessons in logic from the techies:D
 
I had a similar problem today with my service suspended after reaching credit limit.

phoned 808 and they lifted the limit slightly. so problem sorted. for now.

I share your frustration.

Hanno
 
hanno p990i said:
I had a similar problem today with my service suspended after reaching credit limit.

phoned 808 and they lifted the limit slightly. so problem sorted. for now.

I share your frustration.

Hanno
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: Eish

MTNDD
 
Mr Diabolus
How about changing our invoice date to the 26th? Will that help?
Click to expand...

I think it will be same issue, in fact might be worse, as seen below. There seems to be this thing where MTN only BILL you for an invoice that is AT LEAST 1 month/30 days? old (which is thus never the "last invoice", resulting in having a "special" period where you WILL have 2 invoices without having being billed for any of them ). So it seems you are suppose to make the gap between invoice and debit order as little as possible AND ensure bill is right after invoice (so that "something" goes off your account very-soon-after-an-invoice).

In contrast, Vodacom works on calendar months. You get an invoice begin of the month and are billed end of the month for THAT invoice. Sure you are still going to ramp up costs after the invoice IN the month itself, but that is on your April invoice. Because you are billed BEFORE the 2nd invoice, you don't hit "virtual" limits . Imho MTN is doing their calcs "unfairly" as i'm being suspended for being invoiced IN ADVANCE for things like data bundles

Simply put, if i need to have a credit limit to "carry" 2 full months, then what's the point of a credit limit?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------BORING SPECULATIVE CALCULATIONS

I'm using an invoice amount of R500, this is basically say your Contract [i.e. R160 ] + Data Bundle [R100] + Call Charges [R240]
----------------------------------
Invoice : 26th
Debit Order : 15th

So now, lets say my contract started 20 January [thus i made some non-free voice calls as well ].

Jan 26 : Invoice 01 : R500
Feb 15 : Billed for Invoice on Dec 26, since there was none = R0
Feb 26 : Invoice 02 : R500

###UNBILLED AMOUNT = R1000 --> HERE YOU HIT CREDIT LIMITS ETC###

*19 days of pain here!

Mar 15 : Billed for ONLY Invoice 01 [now you go under the limit again]
Mar 26 : Invoice 03 : R500

###AGAIN..now it's Invoice 02 AND Invoice 03 on your account .....

Apr 15 : Billed for Invoice 02

-------------------------------------------------------------
My original setup was like this (which is similar to above):

Invoice : 13th
Debit Order : 31th

Jan 13 : Invoice 01 : R500
Jan 31 : Billed for Invoice on Dec 13, since there was none = R0
Feb 13 : Invoice 02 : R500

###UNBILLED AMOUNT = R1000 --> HERE YOU HIT CREDIT LIMITS ETC###

*15 days of pain here!

Feb 28 : Billed for Invoice 01 [now you go under the limit again]
Mar 13 : Invoice 03 : R500
Mar 31 : Billed for Invoice 02

--------------------------------------------------------------------
My current setup:
Invoice : 13th
Debit Order : 15th

Jan 13 : Invoice 01 : R500
Jan 15 : Billed for Invoice on Dec 13, since there was none = R0
Feb 13 : Invoice 02 : R500

###UNBILLED AMOUNT = R1000 --> HERE YOU HIT CREDIT LIMITS ETC###

*2 days of pain thus here

Feb 15 : Billed for Invoice 01 [now you go under the limit again]
Mar 13 : Invoice 03 : R500
Mar 15 : Billed for Invoice 02


As you can see no matter what, there's a period between Invoice -> Debit Order date where my account will show an unbilled amount of 2 invoices plus 1 month of call charges.

So if you use 'services' which are immediately reflected on the invoice [like data bundles] your unbilled amount suddenly hits all kinds of credit limits because you are in your second month but have not been billed.
 
Last edited:
snakepit said:
nvoice dates wont change a thing, pm me ure number and il see what i can do to get the credit limit raised.
Click to expand...

Thanks alot there for sorting me out so quickly!, and on a saterday too ;). Raising Credit Limit to cover 2 months of data bundles seems to be best solution [rather than moving around billing dates etc].
 
diabolus said:
Thanks alot there for sorting me out so quickly!, and on a saterday too ;). Raising Credit Limit to cover 2 months of data bundles seems to be best solution [rather than moving around billing dates etc].
Click to expand...

Well done Snakepit

MTNDD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X