Check MATE

Well, seeing as I have been waiting for a response from your customer care center since Tuesday the 16th I took it upon myself to get to the bottom of the matter seeing as this generic response. I popped into the Beacon Bay Branch on Saturday the 20th and spoke to Angie the branch manager first and foremost my biggest gripe has been the lack of communication and lack of accountability for the manner in which your customers have been handled always remember your sales consultants and branch managers are your first line of customer care. I understand that deals are based around the stock that is available and MTN would have negotiated a special deal with Huawei to clear this model ahead of the Mate 20 series release. However, it is your duty to do a reccie with all your branches to establish how much stock is on hand before going ahead with said special and that needs to be made clear within your advertising brochure (IE only 250units available in SA). As mentioned no one else at the store was aware of the deal bar one sales consultant (who was interested in the deal for themselves) and the store hadn't even received the Oct edition of the Yello trader. To have someone walk in on the 4th or 5th day of the month have them sign the contract and then drag that process out for a further 2 weeks is just poor, then to have conflicting stories about the status of stock and availability and then after all of that the nerve to hide behind T's&C's without showing any initiative or ability at shop level to offer any compromise for the inconvenience I find that even more frustrating. So to cut to the chase I ended up having to go for a Mate 20 Lite I opted to also go for the better package (something I was going to do on the Mate 10 Pro) and I also had to pay for the sim swop (Manager was going to see if she could credit me for this expense) I also ended up taking a couple of accessories for the new device. On Monday I was informed via the store manager that your regional manager had approved that my first month's payment of R599 would be waivered for the inconvenience caused)- Finally we are getting somewhere. But understand you have a customer that has literally had to assist themselves through the whole ordeal, in the end, paying and committing to something that was not intended to be a first choice. I sincerely hope you stick to your word and decide never to bring back the Mate 10 Pro on any deal which as we now know is not EOL as per Huawei SA (not even by popular demand) because trust me when I say you will have a whole host of unhappy people rocking up in your stores.

So a Month down the line I decided to do a surprise inspection at another one of your East London branches and low and behold the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is still on display and when I spoke to the consultant and quizzed them about stock levels I was told that they have had stock since the end of Sept funny when I was told that this unit was EOL and would not be making a comeback at any point. MTN you have blatantly **** and misled your customers many of whom had to opt for a different handset on a more expensive contract your sales tactics and customer care is as sleazy as they come. I will be handing this matter over to the National Consumer Commission.