MTN. It's nothing personal, it's just business.

After 25 years with MTN I have to finally call it a day, just because of pure theft. An agent phoned me 2 years ago to sell a router to me. After explaining to the agent that I stay in a poor service area, and that it won’t be any good, she kept going that my signal will improve. I can test it and send it back if it does not work. So I went for it. It didn’t work and I sent it back. MTN signed for receiving it. –ONLY to find out almost 2 years later that I’m still paying for it’s use. Fortunately MTN Garden Route traced the papers and showed that it WAS returned, -in time. Years down the line and various attempts for MTN to refund me was futile. Even with reference numbers! (***) (***) The number *** they gave me as a special quick access, is not even working anymore. The company acting on behalf of MTN disappeared. They come and go overnight. So the salespeople are nincom****s that just got out of school, getting trained to not let the victim put the phone down, at all costs. They absolutely get trained for that. Just listen how they hang on to you. They don’t even hear what you’re saying. They get pushed for sales. Once they have the sale they don’t even give a **** whether the product reaches you, or if it even works. After that, they and MTN are both clueless. But they got the sale. Personnel at MTN Garden Route told me there is nothing more they can do because the transaction was done through a secondary company acting on behalf of MTN. Two of them even gave me their personal numbers to help me, but to no result. Once you reach the plankton of other phone numbers you get referred to, it’s a dead end. When this case reached the local newspaper on 29 March 2021, Mthokozisi Ndlovu, MTN communications and public relations manager, said they are investigating the matter. Obviously that was just lip service, because nothing happened. Losing a customer is not important to MTN because many other suckers will follow the ones that they lose. MTN can only reach you if they have another ‘deal’ to pin down on you. It’s only about making money, and how much they can make. If they can only be as quick to refund you as when to deduct money. Do not ever entertain telephone sales. So I was informed by MTN the other day that it is time for an upgrade. They phoned me frantically almost every second day the past month. But not a peep about the money they stole from me. And I go in. Very nice lady there at Garden Route MTN. And she immediately find out that I am running TWO simcards. Why? So I told her that Vusi, if I remember correctly, said back in the day that I HAVE to take out a new simcard if I want the new phone, for my then upgrading. I protested, but he kept to his story as if it was normal. Well, the customer is the one being held at gunpoint, so I had no choice but to agree, otherwise: No phone. Furiously I signed. NOW ‘Vusi’ is gone and the lady at MTN say that ‘Vusi’ was just looking after his own pocket. When I asked her what MTN is going to do to refund me, she said: Nothing. MTN will only say: You signed. Now my upgrade is for my number-for- life, but I have to wait till February and then ‘she-will-see-what-she-can-do’ about the other sim. So, you read that contract, even if you hold up the entire queue. You ask the second agent. And the third. Waste their time. Be an asshole. THEY have no problem with it. Because once you signed, it’s over. As they say: It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.