1 reviews | Active since Jan 2015
MTN 5G Infinite Overbilling | VPN blocked
I subscribed to MTN 5G Infinite in November 2023 at a cost of just under R1000 per month. The instore salesperson informed me that I had to pay two months upfront to cover the router cost, but that I would not be billed for December. Of course I was billed for December. Every time that I follow up, the store manager just says that they have many cases like this where people were overbilled and that he will start a new query. Then nothing happens. The second, and even greater issue, is that I can't connect remotely to my employer's server via a VPN. I have phoned all the customer care numbers that I could find for MTN and written numerous emails to ***. Everybody just passes the buck. Nobody at MTN seems to have a clue what a VPN is. Nobody seems to remotely care, some of the consultants just say that many people complain about this issue but that they don't have a solution to the problem.
As far as the billing goes, this is MTN's official response:
" Please note that your account was not overpaid, the first invoice has three charges which include pro rata charges, upfront payment plus the one month charged in advance. "
Now, bear in mind that the contract cost per month is advertised as R999. The marketing material doesn't state that additional costs will be charged to your account.
I was charged R2707 for the first month. So I had to pay a monthly fee which, according to a helpless MTN consultant, is just the fee that everybody has to pay. So this fee doesn't buy any product or service, MTN just charges it because they can get away with it. Then, I had to pay the monthly contract fee upfront. But the real icing on the cake is that, because I took the contract out on the second of the month, I was also charged a pro-rata rate for the data.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't buy the contract in the beginning of the month, because then you will be charged almost a full month additionally pro-rata. Ironically, this pro-rata fee is the only part of the invoice where my money actually bought something. The other two monthly fees of around R2000 are just what MTN takes from you because they can. These fees do not pay for anything tangible - no data or a router. When you think about it, it would make more sense to buy a contract from another provider where your R2000 upfront fee actually pays for your router.
Talking to their customer service produces around the same results as talking to a wall. I would just have saved myself a lot of time, phone costs and frustration by talking to my garden wall as opposed to talking to MTN customer service.
As far as the billing goes, this is MTN's official response:
" Please note that your account was not overpaid, the first invoice has three charges which include pro rata charges, upfront payment plus the one month charged in advance. "
Now, bear in mind that the contract cost per month is advertised as R999. The marketing material doesn't state that additional costs will be charged to your account.
I was charged R2707 for the first month. So I had to pay a monthly fee which, according to a helpless MTN consultant, is just the fee that everybody has to pay. So this fee doesn't buy any product or service, MTN just charges it because they can get away with it. Then, I had to pay the monthly contract fee upfront. But the real icing on the cake is that, because I took the contract out on the second of the month, I was also charged a pro-rata rate for the data.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't buy the contract in the beginning of the month, because then you will be charged almost a full month additionally pro-rata. Ironically, this pro-rata fee is the only part of the invoice where my money actually bought something. The other two monthly fees of around R2000 are just what MTN takes from you because they can. These fees do not pay for anything tangible - no data or a router. When you think about it, it would make more sense to buy a contract from another provider where your R2000 upfront fee actually pays for your router.
Talking to their customer service produces around the same results as talking to a wall. I would just have saved myself a lot of time, phone costs and frustration by talking to my garden wall as opposed to talking to MTN customer service.