MTN *********** OLD PEOPLE

I am writing this on behalf of my Aunt who is a 61 year old pensioner. She took out a contract phone with MTN last year. The contract agreement was that she would get a tablet phone and 500mb of data every month. The contract did not include airtime and upon taking this contract she emphasized that no airtime be loaded on the sim card as she is would only be able to afford the monthly amount agreed upon for the phone and data which is R108. She herself has since not loaded any airtime on the sim card either. She is a pensioner who receives a grant from SASSA and agreed to the fixed R108 per month for phone and data with that in mind as that is all she could afford. And the agreed contract with MTN did not include airtime anyway. Enter January 2018, she has been paying the R108 every month as agreed but now she apparently owes MTN R359. What for? When she calls MTN to find out why she owes R359 when she has been religiously paying her monthly installments for the phone and data. This is where it get interesting. They say that she apparently subscribed to a service that deducts varying amounts of airtime from her sim card, sometimes R7 or R2 etc. She does not know or remember how she subscribed to this service, which could have possibly happened when she was on some website while she was on the internet. Here is the problem: - How were they able to deduct the amount from the sim card when she did not have any airtime on it? And if they were able to do so this would mean that MTN has granted her a credit/overdraft airtime balance. However MTN is not a bank and she did not ask for it. If I do not have airtime I am unable to make a call, unless I either buy more or get an airtime advance which I would have to agree to before they credit my account with airtime. And if that is the case how is a third party company able to get airtime from my account when I have non for them to take. Hypothetically even if she did subscribe to this service and when they tried to deduct and found no airtime on the account the company should have taken it up with her. I repeat MTN is not a bank where they can give people airtime and bill it to them from a credit/airtime overdraft that the client is not only unaware of but also has not authorized. - Had she had airtime she would have been able to see the deductions and stopped it before it got to this but she did not even get any sms notifications from this company she apparently owes to inform her of the said subscription. So if they wanted to claim their money from her than they should have contacted her in the first place, I do not know why or how MTN decided to pay the company on her behalf without her consent or knowledge. - She did not request for any credit/airtime overdraft on the sim card or airtime to be credited on it, so how where they able to deduct it. THE CONTRACT ITSELF DID NOT EVEN INCLUDE AIRTIME!! - When she registered the account she specifically requested that she not be credited with any airtime as she was only able to pay the amount agreed upon when she took the contract. Anything over and above that was not requested or agreed upon by her therefore she will not be able to pay for it that is why she did not want it in the first place. - I am not aware how the subscription got on to my phone in the first place however as I did not ask for MTN to pay this company on my behalf I will not be able to pay MTN this money. If the subscriber wants me to pay them as they were unable to get the funds from my account then they should have been able to take it up with me and MTN should have not gotten involved as I did not have airtime for them to take on the account, so they should have not have received any funds from the deductions. - Is MTN a financial institution because if they are they have just given me a loan without my consent? This seems like a collaboration with MTN to ******* people unknowingly. What I want to know is if that same company had to bill me for let’s say R500 000 in airtime would MTN have paid the airtime to them? And if such companies, with the assistance of MTN are able to rip me off how many other people are being ********** with the assistance of MTN. Is MTN now a bank? As far as I know I have to buy airtime to use it and if I want an airtime advance (which is what this seems to be) MTN would first need to get my authorizations. Please explain how this company was able to take airtime from my account when I did not have any in it. And after clearly asking for that no airtime be credited to the account why would MTN put airtime on my account for such hacks and ********** to take it? What is going on here because none of the consultants that we spoke to were able to explain it?