MTN ADDS TRAUMA TO TRAGEDY… TWICE!

MTN ADDS TRAUMA TO TRAGEDY… TWICE! Some months ago, I was appalled to find out that, nearly a year after my sister-in-law’s death, my brother was still struggling to get her MTN contract cancelled. Being an MTN customer himself, Wilhelm wanted Caroline’s contract cancelled and their children’s phones put on his. Seemingly simple, one would think. Apparently not so for South Africa’s second largest mobile network busily extending its footprint across the continent. My brother was sent from pillar to post, including, of all places, to the RETENTIONS department where I can only assume they were going all out to retain his late wife as a customer from the hereafter. I contacted an MTN liaison person, Leigh-Ann Chetty and forwarded her all the necessary documentation. Shortly afterwards Wilhelm was contacted by one Dinesh and presented with the masterplan: That the children are put on prepaid and that he takes all the documentation (which he has been forwarding for almost a year) to the nearest MTN office. When he pointed out that he did NOT want his children on prepaid, nor was he prepared to go to the “nearest” MTN branch with documentation that he could scan and mail right away, the conversation ground to a halt for ten days… when I decided enough was enough and fired another missile; oops, I mean a missive to ms Chetty. This time round the issue was resolved. But it was not the end of the story. Some two weeks ago, Wilhelm called again: he had been to his local MTN branch earlier the day, wanting to buy additional data for a ****le to cover him during power outages. This, however, was out of the question as, according to MTN’s data, my brother himself was now deceased. And it was up to him to get the deceased status removed. To cut a long story short: I got hold of ms Chetty again, while Wilhelm sent an email to MTN’s legal department (they can’t be called). By the time ms C let us know that a customer care agent had been assigned to the case and will be in touch, the almost late, great mr Retief had effortlessly obtained his data bundle from Vodacom and, somewhat less effortlessly, ascertained that Home Affairs regards him as very much alive and well. He had also been informed by MTN’s call centre that the deceased status had been removed from his profile. Another 48 hours expired before the customer agent actually called, informing Wilhelm that, according to HER information, he was STILL deceased. Seemingly unconvinced by inconvenient little realities such as the fact that her own legal department and Home Affairs had confirmed that the deceased status had been removed, her master plan (second only to Dinesh’s) was that Wilhelm goes to the nearest police station for an affidavit verifying that he is indeed not six feet under. To say this is a tall order would be an understatement. He refused - as I refuse to believe or accept that this is the service norm, or that my brother is the only customer exposed to this kind of shockingly ***********, tone-deaf service.