Number reallocated while in use!

I have an MTN Pay as you go sim card, that I use with Afrihost Mobile as per the recommendation from Afrihost and MTN. I bought and RICA'd the sim specifically to use Afrihost's APN service in my iPad, a device which by design cannot make or receive either phone calls or sms's.

This was a very happy arrangement for me, the service worked spectacularly well, the rates are the best I could find in South Africa without the need to sign a 24 month contract with some Draconian terms or anything to that effect. My allocated data for November was used up on or around the 20th (by me with full intent), so I disabled mobile internet on the iPad, in anticipation of the new monthly allocation that would presumably kick in on 1/12/2017. As expected, my monthly debit order was deducted on the last day of November, and on the first day of the month I activated my Mobile Internet again, reasonably expecting my data service to resume.

Instead, my iPad, in the top left corner which normally indicates signal strength and connection type (MTN-SA, as well as LTE, 3G, and so on), the message simply was "No Service". I thought this could maybe be because the new month's allocations had not yet been made, and the 1st being a Friday and all things South African proceeding at a distinctly South African pace, I decided to wait till Monday 4/12/2017 to try again.

Lo and behold, on Monday, same issue. I promptly sent an email to Afrihost client services (after confirming that my allocation for the month had indeed been made) asking them what the problem could be. I recieved a rather condescending cut and paste reply from them, telling me to reset my APN settings, with no invitation to reply if this did not work and no other potential sign of help. I am not technically inept and APN settings were the first thing I had checked, even though there was no reason why they would have been changed to begin with. Now I realise this all seems relevant more to Afrihost than to MTN, but bear with me. My review of Afrihost is coming up next.

I then, instead of getting myself stuck in the Hell-of-Customer-Service-Email-Back-and-Forth, decided to phone Afrihost instead. There a very helpful lady told me this was a known issue with Afrihost accounts linked to MTN PAYG simcards, as MTN requires at least one transaction to take place on the simcard per 90 days, or the number would be reallocated, which it seems like has happened here to me.

Now here is the thing. MTN does not recognise Afrihost internet activity as a valid transaction to keep a simcard alive, however since the simcard is being used to access the internet through the Afrihost APN, no other transaction is possible. Furthermore, as mentioned the simcard is installed in an Apple iPad, which again as mentioned cannot make or receive phonecalls or sms's. How, pray tell, should I endeavour to persuade MTN otherwise that I am, indeed, using the simcard, and quite actively at that?

The solution offered to me by Afrihost was to buy and RICA another MTN PAYG simcard and have my account transferred to it, and keep doing this every 90 days. This is obviously a ludicrous exercise, however since Afrihost are at the mercy of MTN for use of their mobile network, no more workable alternative exists.

As for MTN, when I went to the local MTN shop in the Grove Mall in Pretoria East, I was told that I should tell Afrihost to email MTN on my behalf to get them to agree to have the simcards not expire........ I will leave that thought for the reader to ruminate on.

The cherry on the icing of this ****cake is that I cannot for the life of me seem to get hold of a human operator on the MTN PAYG helpline (083173 when using a non mtn phone), so I have no option to even try and directly solve my problem with MTN.

Sort your stuff out. Either provide paying customers at least the courtesy of recognising that they are in fact customers, and don't cut them off for ridiculous bad IT admin reasons, or terminate your agreement with Afrihost, at least as far as the PAYG sims are concerned, because you clearly do not want the business, and this is harming both your reputations.