MTN: Approximately 370% Increase in Monthly Fee on Data Contract

29th of March 2021

I have been an MTN customer for many years now.

I first took out a contract with MTN must have been some time in 2011 or 2012. At the time, data was much more expensive than it is now. MTN was offering a data contract for 3Gb a month, for about R300 per month. A 3G USB ****le was included in the price of the contract. This deal was so good that it was even in the press, at the time.

Fast-forward to 2019. I had a lot of trouble with my health in 2019. Without going into too much detail, I was out of action for a period of about nine months, much of that spent in hospital. When I got better, my finances were in a mess. I had obviously not been earning money for a while, and I had to make a plan to settle all of my debts. Part of that was my debt to MTN for this contract, which I managed to settle. But, for the time when I was ill, this debt negatively impacted my credit record.

I had not needed to use my MTN 3G ****le for some time, because I had a reliable fibre connection, and before that, I had a reliable wireless Internet connection with the company I used to work for.

When I got out of hospital, my fibre connection was down due to non-payment, but I had settled my debt to MTN, so I tried to use my 3G ****le. As I recall, all I could get was Edge, and then not for long, I kept getting kicked off the network.

So I went into MTN Greenstone with my 3G ****le and enquired about it. The agent informed me that my device was obsolete. Now, I am unable to find anything online about the exact date when the MTN network stopped using 3G technology, but I asked the agent why MTN had kept debiting my account for this contract, and never a courtesy email or SMS from MTN to inform me that my device was now obsolete, and to come in for an upgrade? I was understandably quite upset about this, but the agent told me there was nothing he could do.

At that time, things were very uncertain for me, I didn't know where I would be staying, or when next I would earn an income, but an Internet connection was something I absolutely could not live without, even if only for the purpose of looking for work.

So, I asked the agent about this. He told me that MTN had a special on, whereby I could get a portable WiFi router and data contract for about R89 per month. I was reluctant to enter into another contract at the time, but the fee seemed reasonable. I inquired about the possibility of paying cash for the router, and getting a prepaid SIM, but the agent insisted that that option would be more expensive.

So, I took out the contract.

That was in December 2019. I had a manual payment option, and I was being billed at R89.02 per month, as I expected, and for a while, everything was fine.

Come February 2021, my MTN invoice and statement arrived, and I saw that the amount I was paying had changed. The total due was now R329.01 per month. (That’s a 370% increase!)

I have been backwards and forwards to MTN about this since then. And today, I had had it with MTN!

Now, my contract only lists two figures for the fee. The ‘Offer’ section of the contract says the following: 24MTH MTN MTNCHOICE 10GB R329.00. And the ‘Package Type’ section says: R210 DISC + (30GB+30GB NIGHT, XTI10

Now, maybe it was careless of me, but I signed the contract without enquiring carefully what these values mean. I maybe thought R329-R210 discount was in the ballpark of what I would be paying. But I was going more by the price quoted to me by the agent, than what was on the contract I was signing. If a figure of R329 per month had been mentioned to me during that conversation, I would never have taken the contract. It was out of my budget at the time, and still is. I also never thought to recall the conversation with the agent. Who would?

So, up until February this year, my invoices had all contained the following entries:

16/04/2020 MTNCHOICE 10GB SUBS FEE 468.70 16/04/2020 CALL LINE IDENTITY MONTHLY FEE 8.21 16/04/2020 MONTHLY SERVICE FEE DISCOUNT -208.69 16/04/2020 MONTHLY SERVICE FEE DISCOUNT -182.61 16/04/2020 DATA BUNDLE 30GB 1086.09 16/04/2020 CLI MONTHLY DISCOUNT -8.21 16/04/2020 INT 30GB DISCOUNT -1086.09

These figures are all excluding VAT.

My February and March invoice look like this:

16/02/2021 MTNCHOICE 10GB SUBS FEE 468.70 16/02/2021 CALL LINE IDENTITY MONTHLY FEE 8.21 16/02/2021 MONTHLY SERVICE FEE DISCOUNT -182.61 16/02/2021 DATA BUNDLE 30GB 1 086.09 16/02/2021 CLI MONTHLY DISCOUNT -8.21 16/02/2021 INT 30GB DISCOUNT -1 086.09

Note that the following entry is now missing:

16/04/2020 MONTHLY SERVICE FEE DISCOUNT -208.69

Which makes a significant difference to the total.

When I enquired about this, I was told that R329.00 is the price of my contract per month, and that figure includes a R210 discount. So, the figures on the contract are misleading, to say the least. You would only pick this up by studying your contract and invoice carefully. What mainly interested me about my invoices, for a period of well over a year now, was that the final amount owing was only R89.02.

Now, MTN is claiming that the amount of R208.69 (which, including VAT, comes to R240), was a 'billing error', and 'apologies for the inconvenience caused'.

So, what I think MTN does, is use an ********* business practice to verbally quote a completely different sum for the monthly fee of the contract than what is actually stated on the contract, assuming most people (like me), won’t do their homework, then actually bill them for the amount verbally quoted for a long time, and then one day, when the customer is safely locked into a contract that they can’t easily get out of, remove the ‘discount’, and hope that most people will never notice. Most people would be paying by debit order, and probably wouldn’t notice anyway, unless they had gone through their bank statements carefully.

And, if anyone does notice and objects to it, as I did, they have a backup plan, claim that it was a 'billing error', refer you to the contract, explain what the amounts on the contract and the invoices actually mean, and bang! You are caught, like a rat in a trap. Surprise, surprise!

So, probably, MTN is not the only company that has this modus operandi, because I have heard of similar things happening to other people as well. If they did this to me, it's a fair bet that they are also doing it to many other people as well.

I at one stage wanted to cancel my MTN contract, because I have so far only used it once, when my fibre connection was down, as a backup. But when I enquired about how much it would cost, I calculated using the old fee of R80.02 per month, that it would be cheaper to keep the contract until it expired. So, I didn’t cancel it. A decision which I now regret!

I have been extremely angry with MTN today, but they have not rep**** to my last email yet, so I made this complaint. There is probably not much I can do, even if I could afford a lawyer, because, in a court of law, it isn't the truth that matters, only what can be proven. And the facts I have at my disposal aren't in my favour. It would be my word against theirs.

So, even though I can't afford it, what I have resolved to do is to pay MTN their thirty pieces of silver, until the two-year period of my contract is over, and then I will terminate my contract, and move all of my services to a different service provider. Maybe I will find an honest corporation. If that's not an oxy*****.

I am also very wary of ever taking out another data contract again. This experience has shown me that contracts are financial weapons of mass destruction. I will be prepaid all the way. Regardless of what any salesperson may tell you, it is much cheaper, in the long run, to pay cash upfront for your equipment, and then get a prepaid SIM, and only pay for the data and airtime you actually use. It will cost more upfront, but over the long–term, you will save a lot of money. That has been my experience with my phone. And so, that is my advice to anyone reading this.

I may not be able to do anything else about this, but at least, by writing this complaint, I can get the word out about this kind of thing, and hopefully prevent other people from falling into the same trap!

What I will say further to MTN, is that if you think that the bottom line matters more than anything else, and if you don't value customer goodwill as an asset to your business, that is pretty shortsighted, and you will lose out in the long run, at least in cases like mine. I will never do business with MTN ever again, after this is over. It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. I have learned my lesson this time! You have lost my business this time, forever!

Also, your Customer Care Department is badly named, at least as far as the ‘Care’ part is concerned. A more accurate name would be the ‘Customer Gaslighting Department’.

Do not bother responding to this complaint. The treatment I have had from you was so underhanded and despicable that there is nothing you can ever do to make it right. And I am not in the mood for more.