MTN - Whitelist before blacklist on a phone that could only be reported ****** after 08:00 the next morning.

My phone, MTN contract, was ****** at 23:30 last night. I googled "how to blacklist phone at MTN" and followed the instructions. The customer service person at MTN informed me that the blacklist team only works to 22:00 at night and that I needed to call back after 08:00 in the morning. I called back to confirm that the information I received was correct and was told that the blacklist team only worked to 23:00. Different times but neither helped me. I called after 08:00 this morning and was told that my phone first needed to be whitelisted. This whitelisting was never mentioned in the instructions on blacklisting a phone. The instruction from the customer service person was that the phone needs to be whitelisted before it can be blacklisted. The whitelisting would take between 3 and 24 hours and I need to call MTN to find out when the whitelisting has been done and if that has been successful it will be blacklisted. Worst case, 32 hours after my phone was ****** it will be blacklisted. I don't understand how a company like MTN can be this unhelpful in a process that happens many times daily. It feels like MTN want whoever stole it to get done what they need to do before the phone is blacklisted and for me, it's another example of ridiculously bad customer service from a SA corporate.