Beware - MTN is Fleecing Contract Customer

Please warn MTN contract customers of a dubious billing method by MTN, that could be taking more money than they should, from their accounts, especially if you are on a debit order payment method.

The background I have had a contract account for 24yrs with MTN. My account is billed on 17th of every month, for the period running from the 17th to 16th of the following month, but payable on the 7th of the following month, if you are a cash payer like I am. E.g. On the 17/09/2024, MTN would generate a bill for the period of 17/09/2024 – 16/10/2024, payable on 07/10/2024. If you are on the debit order, they would simply debit your account on 1st October 2024, making your account up to date. If you are cash, you then have up to 7th to pay. This info is clearly expressed on their statements of account sent to customers monthly.

The Complaint As it were, on the 17/10/2024, I was billed for the period of 17/10/2024 – 16/11/2024 (R2066,20 ex vat) and I dully paid on 07/10/2024. Because my contract had expired (SKY Supreme), MTN then transferred me into a new package SKY Platinum on 24 / 10 /2024 – 16/10/2024 – immediately raising a prorata bill of R1615.04. Then again, they raised a bill on 17 / 11/2024 – 16/12/2024 payable on 07/12/2024. This bill was now a combination of both prorata charge and a new normal monthly charge of R2086,09 ex vat. All this put together was that, I now needed to pay R4256,30 inclusive of Vat. Yet, the actual variance in the value of the old and new contract is just R19.80.

When, I investigated this, I realised that MTN had charged me twice in the month. In simple language, I was billed for 17/10 -16/112024 and again 24/10 -16/11/ 2024. This in itself is not a problem. However, what MTN failed to do, was to credit me with a refund calculated at about +/- R1590, that would have been the difference between what I already paid for that month in question up to the date of the new prorata billing being the 24th October to be exact. I have called their call centre and spoke to four different agents who had no clue how to resolve this. The last one just escalated the matter and gave me a reference number BO ***. She promised that MTN will resolve the matter in 48hrs. Six days later, I am yet to hear from them.

Conclusion Interestingly, if I was on a debit order payment system, MTN would have simply taken the value of R4256,30. Depending on how much money you have in your bank account, you might not even notice the extra charge of almost R2000. I wonder how many customers have fallen victim to this doggy billing - who even up to now, have not noticed how MTN had raided their bank accounts. Now scale this up given the total customer base of MTN. I suspect being on such top end package in the MTN offerings, many clients in this range might not even see the difference, unsuspectingly paying billion into MTN’s bottom line. I doubt MTN would give back the money until you complain. They will deal the issue on a case-by-case basis. You cannot convince me otherwise, that the brains in their IT and Finance departments would not have foreseen this error in the system. I suspect, they know very well what they are doing.