If you want a contract from MTN, rather do t with Telkom

If there was an option to rate negatively. I’d give this store a negative 5 stars. I app**** for a cellphone contract with MTN Centurion in July and was approved 2 weeks later. I went to the store to get the phone and sign my official contract, this was on the 26th of July. I was assisted by a consultant who disclaimed that she had to buy some things at Checkers. We discovered that my SIM card was not compatible with the new cell phone, she then advised that I go to the PEP store next door to get it. So I bought and RICA’d it as instructed. I went back to the store and she took it and transferred it into her phone: “to perform the sim swap” she said. I am not well versed in their processes but I do know that the first attempt was failed and she was subsequently assisted by two of her colleagues. She was rushing to go to the store so she did not even tell me the terms and conditions, I had to read them and ask her about them. She did not inform me on the the progress of the sim swap until I asked. She gave me the phone in the box and my contract (which I read thoroughly) I asked about insurance and she just brushed me off and told me to get it tomorrow, implying still that she had things to do (in her work time). I went home and connected the phone to my WiFi to import my numbers from my google account. I then checked the balance on my phone to see if the contract had been loaded and it turned out that my sim was still under pay as you go. So I waited as I thought it would take a while to be activated. The next day the same thing happened and suddenly, the new sim stopped working, each time I would dial the USSD code to access my account, an error message would pop up saying “not registered on the network” so I called the MTN call Centre, the gentleman told me to check the old SIM card as it was still active. So I did, and it was true, the old SIM card was active and new one not. So I continued using the old SIM card on my old phone. Everyday, I called MTN to find out what was wrong and they advised I go back to the store where I got my phone. I went back and explained my story. They logged a call and gave me a reference number. 1. An email was sent to migrate my number to a contract which was successful 2. My old sim was still active (no one knew what to do)

I went to a different MTN service Centre to scope their expertise there and the consultant advised that I perform a complete sim swap on a contract sim instead of a pay as you go sim. I also app**** for insurance there since they were competent and professional. This was the 8th of August. They did what was supposed to be initially done in Centurion in an hour!

So the insurance was approved.

On the 10th of September, my new phone was ******, I went to the police station and did the process submitting to the insurance. The insurance stated that on their system, the phone was last used on the 31st of July! So I explain the sim swap story to which they asked for proof. I had to go to the MTN Centurion store to ask for reference numbers used. At this point, I had to re explain what happened and one of the ladies said she remembered and all I need to do was to get the reference numbers for the SR Requests... I did as instructed.

And now, I get an email saying that I did not communicate with the store about her progress of my phone and therefore they cannot help me with my issue. How do because it was THEIR FAULT that the sim swap process was done by someone who did not know what they were doing and secondly, they were witnesses to this tedious process.

If you ever look for a contract. Don’t go to MTN Centurion. Go somewhere else or go to a different provider.

Till this day, my insurance still does not have proof except those reference numbers. Service delivery in the telecommunications sector is poor and what makes it that was are the poorly trained employees.

Definitely going to contact the consumer tribunal.