Refusal from MTN to resolve their own technical issue

Let me start off by saying that I am disgusted at the level of service MTN offers to a customer for over 20 years. Cell number *** was upgraded together with *** on 11 May 2022 by @Thandi Mthimunye [ MTN South Africa ] at Retentions. We were offered a sim only deal for R205 per month whereby we are on the Made for Me XS package but as a promotional offer, we get 50mins plus an additional 500mins, and 0.5GB plus an additional 15GB per month for 24 months. It was a great deal similar to the deal we signed up for on 21 August 2020. The problem is on *** which gets recharged/allocated minutes and data on the 17th of every month. Everything was fine with the allocation on 17 May, 17 June, 17 July, 17 August and 17 September. However on 17 October the promotional data was not allocated. And to my anger, it also was not allocated today being 17 November 2022. I have been sent from pillar to post for the last 31 days and no one can sort out the problem. Every time I call 135 I have to explain the whole problem again. No one at the call center can pick up the promotion upgrade that was done. I have reached out to @MTNZa and @MTNService on Twitter and constantly get the same response: we apologize for the inconvenience and delay in resolving your query, we have sent a follow up and will revert back to you once we receive feedback. I’m tired of being apologized to with no action taken. I was even told that no one can call me due to the telephony system being under construction. Then I get re-directed to 135 where no one knows what is going on. I finally managed to get hold of @Thandi Mthimunye [ MTN South Africa ] who informed me on 26 October 2022 of the following: Good day sir, I hope you are well and safe, Sorry for the inconvenienced caused My apologies on replying so late,We had a system error lately, all the data and minutes that disappeared will be reimbursed, Technicians are working on this matter, I will inform you as soon as it is resolved.

From then, I’ve been struggling to get hold of Thandi, she constantly reads my messages without responding and in some instances, deleted my mails without reading it. (Please see evidence attached) On 4 November 2022, I escalated to @Complaints and they too have not adhered to the to their turnaround time. No one contacted me regarding the complaint, I got this reference number: 26b504c4-3fb3-4df8-8070-9efaaa1f77c0 . I escalated again on 9 November 2022 and to my utter frustration I got another reference to start from scratch again: Reference number: 4f9ad8b0-c9f0-4956-bb45-b1b20b012d92. On 15 November 2022 I escalated again, not surprised that I got yet another reference number d06c994a-72d3-4491-b9c3-46bf54d223ba. And I guarantee you that I will receive yet another reference number now after sending this mail since @Complaints is on the mail trail. According to ICASA, MTN needs to resolve within 14 days or escalate to them, well it is 14 days today! Therefore I am now demanding that MTN be called out and exposed for breaching their SLA.

With bated breath, a full month passed and we checked this morning being the 17th of the month and as expected, the allocation HAS STILL NOT been made, contrary to @Thandi Mthimunye [ MTN South Africa ] saying that the technicians are working in the problem since 26 October 2022.

MTN gladly takes the monthly subscription of R205 but does not honour the terms of the contract. From 17 October, I had to use all up available yellobucks to purchase data just to stay connected. Over and above paying for the contract I had to load 500MB data @ R69 and a further 5GB @ R99 via the MTN App. Now, tell me, is it fair to be forking out for out of bundle data when we should have rightfully received the correct allocation. Is MTN going to re-imburse me for all the costs I had to incur due to its own fault? I even asked the several *********** staff you have on 135 to arrange for an Adhoc voice and data bundle to be loaded while MTN rectifies their error, but all requests have so far fallen on deaf ears. We even went into the Cresta store on 5 November for help and even they could not pick up the upgrade, we then got referred to *** but this number simply directs you back to 135 and back to square 1. We are told that the stores are privately owned and we need to find an MTN owned store. Other than seeking legal advice and driving into the 14th Avenue head office to demand answers and a resolution, I do not know what else to do with MTN. This is now the 2nd month in a row that the allocation has not been provided. One agent even went as far as to say that the promotion has ended and we need to upgrade the contract again. After 5 months???? Obviously yet another *********** staff member. When you dial 135 on choose upgrade, the IVR states we do not qualify for an upgrade and may upgrade on 27 January 2024, so who is lying here?

I want to know that after whoever reads this mail, is MTN going to contact me to discuss a resolution. I wont count on it. @Thandi Mthimunye [ MTN South Africa ] supposed to get her manager “Hadafile” to contact me over 2 week ago and I’m still waiting. Last Thursday, 10 November 2022, I went through to retentions and ended up at the Durban call center. Spoke to a Christopher who said that @Thandi Mthimunye [ MTN South Africa ]works in another retention office so he could not pick up my upgrade, utter nonsense since when you call retentions you expect a big company like MTN to have centralised systems to pick up all your information. He seemed to be helpful at first and said his manager Mumtaz will call me by 09h30. Well, guess what, it more than a week later and I’m still waiting for a call. So Christoper is another useless staff member that strung me along the way.

This morning it pained me to call 135 again, but I did anyway since I’m lost and can’t get any help. I spoke to Thandeka who could not help me because my wife whose number is affected was not with me to authenticate yet I have been the one fighting to get this resolved for 31 days. I asked to speak to her manager, “Lenisha Ramaothar”. I was informed that she will only contact me after 08h00.told Thandeka she is lying to me since no one ever calls back but she assured me I would get a call. But at almost 11h30 currently, not a chance of getting a call from MTN.

I have even contacted the Roodepoort Northsider this morning to place an article in the paper outlining the pure refusal of MTN to help rectify their own problem. @***, if this is actually your email address and you actually receive this mail, I know you won’t contact me, but please can you get someone of authority and with a mandate to resolve my issue to call me.

Please also feel free to peruse all my complaints on Twitter and my handle @Yuben_Za and look at all the useless responses I had to deal with.