MTN - Questionable billing system

<p>I have been an MTN client for >6years, and have always managed my data and call minutes with the utmost care. If I see that I am depleting any of my data/call bundles I purchase additional bundles. Within the >6year I have been an MTN client I have not once gone over +-R1200. However now I’m questioning the billing system of MTN. Now, at the end of usage period May 2016, I am told that I owe R2500 and for end of period June 2016 I owe R3900 for out-of-bundle data rates.</p> <p>This is despite me phoning in to MTN call centre on 14 July and confirming I have 1.51gb of data available, and that my data bundle is 500mb. How is this possible if my data bundle is 500mb that data can be carried over to the new month, if I am being charged out of bundle rate for a depleted data bundle in June??</p> <p>The reason for this from MTN is that I did not have a limit set on my account.</p> <p>Below is a serious of events leading to this escalation;</p> <p>11 June - Evening, received notification that I have reached over 95% of cap (>R3000) on account and that my account will be suspended.</p> <p>12 June – Morning, received notification that my account was suspended.</p> <p>On further investigation it seemed my data bundle had been depleted and I was charged out of bundle rates on 11 June, from 15:00 – 21:00. During this time I was visiting my father and I was not using my phone. I also saw that at the end of May 2016, I had gone over my data bundle and that I was charged out of bundle rates.</p> <p>13 June – Logged a query on the MTN website, for which to date I have not received any feedback.</p> <p>30 June – 9:59 – Ref ********** 85. Logged the query telephonically as I did not get any feedback from the website query logged on 13 June. Dispute # REQ- ********** </p> <p>14 July – 11:16 –Spoke to Given Bloem - Contacted MTN call centre and confirmed that I have 1.51gb of data available and that my data bundle is 500mb. After informing call centre agent of my dispute query, she advise that the feedback was that I was billed the excessive rates because I had no limit set on my account. Call centre agent agreed that this was not an acceptable answer, and that the billing seems to be wrong and added more comprehensive information to the dispute query. She advised that she would contact me later that day, but due to call centre agents not being able to contact clients (REALLY!?!?!?!) she sent an SMS indicating that she will still get back to me. (THIS AGAIN DID NOT HAPPEN!) During our call she also assisted with the number to set a limit on my account.</p> <p>(I contacted MTN on this date because I did not get any feedback from my queries logged previously.)</p> <p>19 July – After 15:30 - I contacted MTN call centre again, I was unable to speak to Given Bloem but the call centre agent advised that he would leave a message for her to contact me. The call centre agent also agreed that the billing seemed incorrect and escalated the dispute query (1- ********** 8978). The call centre agent that did not SMS his name as promised but only sent through the reference number.</p> <p>22 July – Still NO feedback from MTN. Spoke to Stembile Nzama that indicated MTN response was still that all this is due to my data being depleted. She was to request a URL report, with reference number ********** 32.</p> <p>2 August – Still NO feedback from MTN. Spoke to Lucky Selepe (ref ********** ). Again I advised that the answer given by MTN is not acceptable and he again requested a URL report be sent to me.</p> <p>5 August – 9:46 – Spoke to Nomsa (ref. ********** 17). Again phoned MTN call centre, to be advised that the query is still open. And that the URL report request was sent to the wrong department, she will correctly send this request through, and confirmed my email address to be correct, and advised that hopefully now I will be receiving a URL report.</p> <p>This is really getting ridiculous. I am a good MTN client and because I have never had a limit on my account I am being abused to payout-of-data bundle rates, whilst I get data carried over to a new month.</p> <p>No acceptable explanation, no customer service (and I believe it is not due to the lack of call centre willingness to help, but rather due to MTN management and processes), and a billing system that is questionable.</p>