Abysmal service from MTN despite their breaching terms of agreement; *****

MTN. Where do I begin? With so much having frustrated, disappointed and outright insulted me as a paying customer, I am quite sure that you will receive notification if this and still not manage to account for any of the reasons why I am going to briefly say what I feel needs to - because your lack of accountability to a customer paying in excess of R3,000pm, complete inability to abide by your own contractual obligations, abysmal internal communication and, to top it off, complete failure to acknowledge - let alone admit to - what in any court of law would constitute one of the most serious breaches of contract, has left me with disdain for your business.

I will not labour the points that I have already communicated - during the three weeks it took me to get a response from someone other than a contact centre agent informing me that the legal department only had an unmanned email address. Or the agent informing me MTN did not have a legal department.

In short, I was asked by MTN employees - including the manager of the Gateway store - to initial and sign an agreement that stated that I had submitted documents and information that I had not. I had offered, but they had been declined. MTN staff were made aware of this, and suggested that I sign and that they would omit the page from the agreement. MTN. Do you realise the implications of this? Apparently not, as, according to that agreement I had a right to terminate my contracts based on this astounding breach of contract, with 20 days notice. You had, according to said agreement, 20 days to remedy it. However, there is no remedy for such a breach. Nevertheless, I waited patiently for nearly 2 months. No reference number was attached to my account. My lines were suspended several times as a result, without prior notice. When contacting the call centre, and when calls disconnected, no calls back were received. I was told that "maybe" customers would be called back if a call hangs up. I was told that no MTN would not inform me that my lines were being suspended in advance. I was on holiday for four days, with four business lines operational because MTN had not had the decency to honor their 20 day commitment. All lines were cut, and my business was effectively rendered closed. I was told that I would need to pay the bill, despite this being 6 weeks after I provided notice. I returned to the nearest city to do so immediately, as I was told I couldn't do it over the phone. Yet on my way there, when i did try and call over the phone, I intended to make payment, but the operator permitted me a 7 day extension.

You very graciously credit my account at that point. Yet, now a month later, I am receiving messages telling me that my account is in arrears and that payment needs to be made. 2 months after I provided notice of my intention to terminate 20 days later.

MTN. Why did you not honor your contractual obligation? Why did I have to wait 2 months to receive a response regarding a matter of this nature? Why - as a remedy - was I contact by MTN Business attempting to upsell me packages to avoid early cancellation fees? Why you would even make mention of any cancellation fees is unfathomable. Yet, your remedy after 5 weeks was to migrate my lines to MTN Business - I assume in order to minimize your financial loss in having to terminate 4 existing contracts through a contractual breach on your part.

I was considering, upon cancellation without ANY penalty, including the return of devices - taking out a new package with MTN Business, not migrating and permitting you to avoid taking responsbility. But in doing this the way you did, you attempted to retain me as a client and reduce fiancial loss, but essentially underestimated the lifetime value I offered. at over R3,000pm for another 30 years, you would have been wise to have respected your contractual obligations and South African contract law - and respected your customer with a valid, rather serious grievance - and made a decision within 20 days.

And when you make a decision based on a complaint of this nature, where I have made it quite clear that my attorney intends to pursue it further, the least you could do is draft a formal response in writing, on MTN letterhead detailing the nature of the breach, the investigation that took 6 weeks, why it took 6 weeks, and what the findings were. Were you in breach or not? Do you accept responsibility? If so, an apology may in fact give me some inclination to perhaps have a positive word to say about your company, let alone consider utilizing your services ever again. Instead, I received a three line email saying you wold cancel the lines, and that I needed to return the devices owned by you - one of which I have had for nearly 18 moths. The other phone - though it was ****** if you recall - my insurance company contacted you for device information. Though that is clearly another detail that was never recorded on my account. That email is a slap in the face and I waited 2 months for that. Do you think that sufficient to present to my attorney in order to take matters further?

Do you not think it might have been appropriate for me to have been provided a reference number at some point? To receive communication from your legal department? To receive an apology for what happened, and some explanation for your failure to reach a decision within 20 days, nevermind it taking more than 20 days to actually have the complaint heard by you.

You did not account for a thing. And if that is what you deem to be an acceptable solution to this matter, I assure that with what has transpired, and the fact that it has fallen on MTN's deaf ears - that I will not only pursue this further, but also make it public knowledge exactly what procedures I had to follow to have this matter investigated - the emails to 20 different mtn addresses for day on end before I received a response. The fact that after not paying my bill seeing as though I had given notice to terminate after being coerced into signing of a contract with false statements - and that 20 days notice had long gone - when I called the contact centre, they divverted me to.... your legal department for collection. Is that the legal department with the un-monnitored address? Or the one that does not exist? Or the one that perhaps does, but could not so much as send me an email or a reference number for six weeks? Please do provide some clarity on that, because that is the most laughable matter of the lot.

MTN. You really have failed in every regard in this matter. And, please, stop sending me messages regarding suspending my lines due to non payment. You were legally obliged to suspend my lines at the beginning of December. Thank you ever so kindly for suspending them for those 4 days, and then generously crediting my account as a way of appology. Is that going to happen again tomorrow when you are yet again suspending services for non payment?

I would strongly suggest that someone from the legal department process a formal letter detailing this matter from start to finish as a two line email does not suffice, frankly. Perhaps someone could telephone me (while my lines are active, apparently the calls attempted to me were during the period my lines were suspended - so that highlights your superb communication between departments too). I emailed a manager informing her that my lines had been suspended and so couldn't contact her. She left a sms saying she was unable to get hold of me, the next day. Perhaps, just perhaps, that may be because my lines were suspended.

MTN, this is most definitely not resolved. Not when you send me a two line email saying you will cancel the lines but expect your devices returned. What about my expectation that you would honour your 20 day period for remedy of the breach? Or expectation that you would report on the matter investigated?

I will await a call. Though if I do receive one, it will certainly be the first in 6 weeks which perhaps might have some genuine, solid conversation take place beyond "We are looking into the matter".

Absolutely appalling, in breach of contract, and what really, resulted out of what one could quite clearly call MTN requesting a customer to sign false statemets. Shall we not call it, me comitting *****, had I signed that agreement. And I assume your store manager who looked on and suggested the page be removed from a legally binding AGREEMENT has provided a statement to this effect? I assume you have watched camera footage from that day and observed how two staff members assisting me, were in fact sitting their speaking Zulu in front of me, and had to print two contracts because the fist was compeltely inaccurate as they had not concentrated sufficiently to so much as take down the correct details.

I do not think I could possibly come up with more facts if I tried. And you have dismissed me entirely. Perhaps you might have offered me some reason to STAY with MTN in an attempt to rectify the damage done.

I shall leave it there. But you know full well the implications of many of these occurrences, and you failing to address them has not helped your cause in any way.

From a cosumer's perspective, I've now reached my limit. As a businessman, I actually have nothing to add because I cannot fathom that service of this level is something that could occur in a competitive industry. Customers will walk without hesitation. Something to consider.