MTN says no to R9,600, prefers R1,400

How is this for absurd. MTN sells my sister a R69 contract. This affords her a few minutes of airtime a month. So I take her in to get her a new phone and upgrade this silly contract to R400 a month for data and airtime. Sound easy ? Absolutely not !!! Cannot be done. She must come back in twenty two months when the existing R69 contract is finished. We are standing there with R9,600 in our pocket to pay and MTN insists it only wants the R1400 contract - nothing they can do. Unless we want a new contract and a new phone number, which we do not ! It gets worse, the MTN fellow behind the counter, in his yellow shirt with the logo kept on advising us to go to Vodacom where we can get a better deal. Branch ? Balfour shopping centre !!!