MTN customer care? More like MTN couldn't care.

I would hate to work for MTN in one of their stores or as a "customer champion", a laughable term. MTN does not care about the customer at all. They are just cannon fodder to keep unhappy customers away from the fat cats in their ivory tower, who are too busy imagining how to spend the millions they earn. Yes, the media was correct - the CEO was remunerated R80 MILLION in the last financial year.

I hate to think how much abuse the customer-facing staff get.

I was targeted by ******** on my phone. Fortunately, as far as I can assess, I blocked them before they were able to get away with major theft. Of course, MTN, while knowing about these ********** activities, has not bothered to put in a dedicated help line. You have to call the general customer care line. It took 27 minutes for someone to answer.

I was told by the "champion" that she needed to be escalate my issue to ***** section - I was not given a reference number nor have I been contacted by anyone since. The following morning I drove to a store where it was confirmed that there had indeed been activity on my account. I was told, however, that the store was just a franchise and could not assist me. In fact, apparently they also have to call the customer care line, 135.

So it was back to sitting on hold on for 135 and and being continuously bombarded with ridiculous marketing material, all starting with "did you know?", No, I did not know and didn't care. I just wanted to speak to someone. While waiting, I decided to try the online chat. Of course, it couldn't assist. (For anyone wondering, the companies are using us poor customers to "train" these bots.) There was an option to "chat with an agent". I chose that option and promptly got the following message "Hmm...I'm afraid I'm temporarily unable to process your request at this time. So...Is there any other thing you would like me to you with? And then a smiley face - a smiley face? Of course, that would make everything ok!

The average time that I have waited on the line is 35 minutes. After one dubious SMS came through, I waited so long that my husband had already driven me to the closest store (a fair distance) before anyone answered the phone. A staff member at the store checked my account and told me their hadn't been any transactions. I asked why then had I received the SMS, with which he shrugged and just said it's a mistake - that's just MTN.

To date, I have been to the store twice, spent approximately 4 hours in total holding for customer care, emailed customer care, emailed customer complaints and even couriered a letter to MTN head office. I have not had a single response.

As the old saying goes "don't complain about the service - there is isn't any".