Assault and threats to my life by MTN staff at the Sandton store

1- MTN’s Billing problems being projected onto customers Since September of this year, I’ve been having issues with MTN’s billing of my account. * A returned debit order resulted in my account being billed twice * The payments made did not reflect in my statements. * The debit order date was changed without my instruction or consent. * This resulted in further failed debit orders and my account being changed from a debit order account to a cash account. * Despite me having made payments, I found my account being suspended consistently on the 10th or 11th of every month. * This is not the first time as an MTN customer, that MTN’s flawed billing systems end up being projected onto me despite the fault being on MTN’s part. My attempts to have this resolved via MTN’s call centres were unsuccessful. Two such calls are with Nothile (call reference: ********** 29) and the other, which resulted in an escalation with Mohamed (call reference ********** 46).

2- Assault and threats to my life by MTN staff at the Sandton store On Sunday the 10th of December 2017, I had just been discharged from hospital, anticipating that my account would yet again be suspended the following day, between 7pm and 8pm, I went to the Sandton Store to have this resolved. This particular store is the one next to the Levis and Nike stores close to the Food Court. I made my enquiry with one of the 3 MTN consultants in the store. There is a certain hostility that I have experienced in my all interactions that has been consistent with MTN consultants when the perception is that the customer has not paid his account. I asked the gentleman for a statement, and to confirm whether the payments I had made reflected. He told me that the systems were upgraded and could not print statements. He asked me to go behind the counter so that he could show me my statements. The payments I had made were not reflecting on the statements. He was hostile and treated me like I was lying about the payments I had made. I went as far as logging into my banking app and showing him the transactions with the payments made out to MTN. A second of the 3 consultants joined the conversation and was extremely hostile and condescending in his interaction with me. I handed him my phone in an attempt to also show him the payments made, while he had my phone in his hand, he scrolled through my bank accounts and other applications on my phone without my consent. When I noticed this, I confronted him about it and he clicked his tongue, rolled his eyes and waved me off with his hand. As I began to walk out of the store, he continued to antagonise me and told me that I should be told where I am wrong. I asked him for his name so that I could escalate the situation, he asked me to go get a pen and paper so that he could spell out his name and all his details for me. He said that his name was Leroy. And that he would also spell it out for me even if he wasn’t wearing his MTN jersey and that I should not mess with him. I decide that I would take a picture of him as I did not believe that Leroy was his actual name. None of the 3 gentlemen were wearing name tags. He grabbed my phone out of my hands and threatened to stab me if I took a picture of him. His other two colleagues also got very tense and began threatening my life if I recorded them. I ignored them and took my phone back and when I tried to take a video, the gentleman who was assisting me initially grabbed a chair and started attacking me with it, he was waving it at me in an attempt to hit me with the chair and I backed out of the store. He chased me out of the store with the chair and this was witnessed by other customers in the mall as well as by the mall’s security. I managed to get pictures of the gentleman putting the chair down after he attacked me with it. I turned on the video on my camera and went back in to film the 3 consultants, one hid his face and the other two when to hide in the backroom. I went at the door to record them and the same gentleman who attacked me with the chair, grabbed a box and attacked me with it again. I managed to film him attacking me and swearing at me. A senior Sandton security officer came to see what was happening and I reported the incident to him.

3- MTN to take accountability for the abuse and damage caused by this incident I have opened a case of assault and harassment on the 3 gentlemen and I am in consultation with my legal counsel about doing the same against MTN. I noticed that there are surveillance cameras in the store and I encourage you to have a look at the footage. The level of abuse I have received from MTN over the past 3 months has been unlike anything I’ve seen before. Being attacked in Sandton, in one of MTN’s flagship stores, being sworn at and assaulted in public, after being discharged from hospital has ****** me of a sense of dignity no customer should ever have to experience. As a former MTN staff, I was system owner and built MTN’s Event Based Billing Platform, I contributed to building a over 30 products, including the converged price plan, the MTN Staff SIM price plans, the international calling bundles, 14 digit MSISDN for telemetry devices, the WOW promotions, to name a few. Being a former MTN employee I know that the amount of money I pay MTN every month has me in the high value customer segment. The level of service I have received however has been so appalling and insulting considering how much I have contributed to MTN as a company. At this point, MTN no longer deserves a cent from me and I would like to get justice and a formal apology from MTN for the way I have been treated. I would also like my contract to be terminated as the assault of MTN staff on me is a constitutes a breach of my contract with MTN by virtue of the violation on my personal rights as a consumer and as a citizen of South Africa. I await your response.