Elderly customer stranded without phone during lockdown

As I explained in my earlier post, the sim card for the phone my Mother carries for emergency use was unexpectedly deactivated, leaving us with no phone to use during a recent emergency.

In early March the “manager” at the Eastgate MTN store said she would try to get the sim reactivated and would get back to us on the matter, but she never did, so I was forced to send her a reminder. On March eleven she said she was waiting for feedback and would get back to me when she did. I heard nothing from her, so on March twenty-four I sent her another message explaining that my Mother was now unable to use her credit cards (needed for emergency online shopping) as her OTP was being sent to a number she had no access to. Finally a few minutes ago, after a further query, she rep**** that nothing can be done.

The private response to my previous Hellopeter complaint said “If the complaint is for the prepaid number you need to contact the prepaid department for assistance, 135 from a prepaid number option 0 to speak to a consultant.” That’s nonsense. How does she do that without a phone?

My response “How do I do that if the SIM has been disabled?” received no reply.

I’ve been slightly luckier on Facebook where it took three days to get a reply saying that the number could not be reactivated. As she’s not allowed to go shopping during the Coronavirus and cannot order anything online, that leaves her unable to buy anything. I’ve just confirmed that the number has not been allocated to someone else, so why can’t an exception be made? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Of course if adequate information had been given timeously, she would have been able to leave the house to inform the bank of the situation. It’s too late for that now. Unfortunately it can’t be fixed online either. What happens if her food and medicine run out?