Minus zero star for minus zero service at MTN

• In December 2021, the two year contract that I have held with MTN over the last 12 years was due for an upgrade.

• I was contacted by a representative of MTN advising that he is calling to assist with the arrangements of my upgrade. I advised him that I want to go to my store MTN Tygervalley for the upgrade to which he informed me that for my convenience he has been assigned to assist me with the arrangements and the phone will be couriered to me.

• We then proceeded with the type of phone I want and the delivery details.

• A few days upon receiving the phone within a few days I realised that the phone is problematic/ glitchy/ app compatibility issues/ unresponsive to touch commands ect. This was still in the same month I received it withing a few days of receiving , December 2021

• I took the phone to MTN Tygervalley to inform them of the faulty phone , I was advised to come back on a specific day later that week as the HUAWEI technician will be there , I went back to the store as advised an explained the issue to the technician, he did some updates of some kind and sent me on my way, to my dismay this problem persisted, sadly MTN and this technician did not log this or even give me a report. He said I have to take the phone to HUWEI centre but they will not swop it for me. My job does not allow me to take the time to drive to the city and go stand in ques.

• I have on numerous occasions reported this problem to this branch when I go pay my account and was not assisted, they kept saying I must go to HUWAI.again, My job does not allow me to take the time to drive to the city and go stand in ques.

• On the 19th of January 2022 I received a call from an MTN agent, this person had all of my personal details and advised that there is *****ulent activity happening on my account at MTN Menlyn mall, as this person confirmed my details to me I comp**** with what was asked and within minutes to my horror data amounting to excess of R10 k was loaded to my account. I acted immediately and reported the issue to to MTN, during the course of this case, it came to light that this new contract came with an additional simcard, this simcard I was neither informed of not received and it was this simcard that activated and *****ulently purchased on. My question is how a ******** can be aware of a simcard linked to my MTN account that I was not even aware of?. This issue was thankfully resolved but shockingly until recently this sim card was still linked to my account with some other persons name and details and has only been removed a few days ago when I brought this up to the Tygervalley store which is shocking that it was not rectified when this very serious matter was being resolved by MTN.

• As I was getting no joy from getting the glitchy phone repaired I decided to just struggle on until my upgrade and move on with my life especially after the ordeal I just endured with the *****.

• In August 2023 as it was getting closer to my upgrade and I went to MTN Somerset West branch to have a look at upgrade options and was then informed that this contract is on a 36 months contract. I dispute this as I have been on a 24 month contract all these years and I will most certainly never agree to a longer contract. The agent that called me never did any form of contract with me.

• Since the 14th of August 2023 it has been a nightmare trying to get any assistance from MTN to resolve my contractual dispute. I have been from agent to agent, had the phone dropped on us. An agent by the name of Sinovuyo Rom informed me that I need to contact the store that did the upgrage, I was not even aware that it was a store and this in in Johannesburg no less., I am based on Cape Town, who gave a Johannesburg store the authority to call a client based in the Western Cape?, then for the first time ever a subscriber agreement was sent to me, now this according to this agent is my contract. I informed him that this unsigned piece of paper that I am seeing for the very first time is in no way a contract and I want to listen to the contractual recording as is my consumer right and I also want proof that this document was emailed to me on the date this said recording was done with me. Again he said I need to contact the store. I had a look at this agreement and see store SABC2416, how on earth is this supposed to mean anything to me and how do find this number? I asked Sinovuyo Rom for the store number and to this day I am yet to receive an answer.

• Some days later we again called the call centre for assistance , after once again explaining this very long tiring ordeal the agent tried to assist getting us the contract, she informed us that there is no contract available and advised us that we first need to go to HUAWEI service centre for a report and then we can take it from there, this is no longer an issue about a faulty phone for me, My job does not allow me to take the time to drive to the city and go stand in ques and hand up my only way of communication for my work to wait for a report. This is a contractual dispute and I have been informed that there is no contract is place. I was advised that this will be escalated to the store manager, I am still waiting for this said manager to call me.

• Late October 2023 we then referred the issue to MTN tygervalley, we were informed by an agent Lisa that this is a ***** case (again) as the store did not have the mandate to contact us as we are not in their region. So once again off we go the police station for our second affidavit for our second ***** case for our same account with MTN. The documents were sent off and we were advised of a 3-5 working days for feedback…TWO WEEKS LATER we were advised that as we requested this type of phone the ***** department does not consider this a ***** case, se there we are back to square one.

• Lisa then advised that the store must be contacted and logged a request for the recording , so many escalations have been done regarding this request but that is where it stays, the manager Shireen has also been involved. On Wednesday the 8th the MANAGER of MTN TYGETVALLY informed us that there is no recording but pretty much stating that is that, there is nothing that she can do for us as we are not her clients… Then why do we pay at her store every month, up until this point most of the upgraded have been done at her store but she is now washing her hands of us and does not even offer the slight bit of assistance or direction on where to go now from here. This now needs to be escalated to the store but she doubts that anything will be done about it ( I have yet to receive a call from this mysterious store manager that came and ruined our lives who I still don’t know how to contact and it seems nobody has actually made contact with him or requested he contact us , his new clients all the way from Cape Town.

• It is disgusting how we have struggled to service in the last two years, we have been with MTN for 12 year without any issues, we have been loyal to the brand and these last two years has been despicable to how we have been treated even at escalated management level.

• I have spent hours on the phone with HUAWEI as the phone issues are so bad that I cannot get my data transferred to a PC, I now risk losing valuable data as the phone is full making it more inoperable but I cant transfer the data and even HUAWEI can’t help me.

• All we want is to either be accommodated for an early upgrade with no cost to us as there is no contract is place so that we can have a decent working phone again or as MTN has no interest in our business anymore cancel our contact as there is no contract in place so that we can take our business elsewhere.

I really hope that my very long letter is that last time I have to spend on explaining the hell that have been through that last two years and that this can be finally put to bed.