What part of "Do Not Call" is it that MTN doesn't understand?

These are the people at MTN who are personally and collectively responsible for the failure of the company to observe even the most basic adherence to the concept of privacy or an understanding of what "Do Not Call" (for marketing purposes) means. Their names are:

• PF Nhleko;
• P Hanratty;
• S Miller;
• AF van Biljon;
• NL Sowazi;
• A Harper;
• KP Kalyan;
• NP Mageza;
• MLD Marole;
• AT Mikati;
• KC Ramon;
• J van Rooyen; and
• S Kheradpir

To give you an example of how bad it is, yesterday I had to send the following email:

Dear Rishen, Kaveen and Bridget
You seem to have missed the point. I am assuming deliberately but will give you the benefit of the doubt and put it down to sheer bloody-minded incompetence.
I have *ALWAYS* been on your Do Not Call list. I made it clear when I first obtained my MTN number, and have repeated it every time I have renewed my contract. I have also complained to MTN before about this matter. Many times.

• July 2011: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2011/07/mtn8-competition-greed.html
• May 2009: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2009/05/another-mtn-disaster.html
• Nov 2007: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/11/mtns-marketing-incompetence-again.html
• June 2007: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/06/mtn-direct-breaks-law-again.html
• Oct 2006: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2006/10/mtns-marketing-incompetence.html
• Aug 2006: http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2006/08/mtn-sends-sms-spam-and-breaks-law.html

Since your company has known since 2006 that I do not wish to receive marketing communications, the fact that you supplied my name for marketing purposes to a third party is a clear violation of the ECT Act, plus the more recent privacy laws.
So what is it going to take to get MTN and its affiliates, subsidiaries and third party call centres to get the message? You clearly don’t seem to think that the bad publicity from my blog is motivation enough, so what is it going to be?
I also fail to understand why it is so desperately important for MTN to get me to renew my contract. You only offer 24 month contracts, not monthly or annual ones. I have my own phone and I will stick to my monthly renewal until I decide otherwise. I know this makes MTN nervous, and so you should be.
I await a suitable explanation. MTN’s marketing division clearly do not understand the concept of privacy or the desire not to be interrupted during a busy day with trivial and annoying marketing messages.
Looking forward to your reply,
Donn

It all started earlier this year when my 24 month MTN contract came up for renewal. I have a working phone, which I bought separately, and I decided to let the contract continue on a month-to-month basis. I told the person who called me that I had no interest in talking to them and they should not call again. I also blocked the number 083-123-7355 on my phone. So they tried calling on a different number 083-011-0100 and leaving voice messages. I called back and told them to take me off their autodial list. I made it very clear that I was not in the mood to be called by their marketing people.

But they persisted. They started calling my land line too. Yesterday they called twice. I found out that the company making these calls uses a bogus number 083-123-7355 for their call centre. You cannot call them on that number. This bunch
of crooksis called CCI SA and they have another call centre number 0861-262-241. When I called this number and complained about unsolicited calls the call centre agent was completely clueless and had no idea how to remove me from their list. Her supervisor, naturally, was "in a meeting".
I call them crooks because they made no attempt whatsoever to comply with the ECT Act, and they are not members of the Direct Marketing Association. That tells me that they are unscrupulous and dishonest and not to be trusted. They called me (twice!) today from 031-830-7200 to apologize and tell me that they have removed me from their call list. I pointed out that my details need to be blocked, so they aren't added again. So much for marketing ethics.
Yesterday I sent them the following email, cc'd to MTN:

Dear CCI
Please confirm that you have removed my contact numbers from your call centre databases and that you will no longer call me for any reason whatsoever on my cell phone number [redacted], or my land line number [redacted]
I should point out that my details have been on the DMASA Do Not Contact database for 12 years or so.
I am sick and tired of being contacted by yourselves on behalf of MTN, who should know better, and who have clearly violated the DMASA’s code of conduct by providing you with my details without my permission, and without informing you of my DMASA Do Not Call status.
Thanks in advance
Donn Edwards

Needless to say I have not had a reply from their email. But I did get a response from Bridget Bhengu, Senior Manager: Public Relations & Internal Communications. She referred the matter to Rishendren Damodaram, who roped in Kaveen Kalicharran, who "manages CCI". Rishen notified their Marketing Department and my name "has been removed from MTN Marketing", whatever that means. Probably not much. Hence my email at the top of this post.
It turns out that MTN are not members of the DMASA.
This would explain their unethical and illegal behaviour. Why am I not surprised?
Update Friday 23 June: I made a mistake in claiming that MTN are not a member of DMASA. They are listed on this page as "MOBILE TELEPHONE NETWORKS (PTY) LTD - SOUTH AFRICA". In spite of that they seem confused about how the Doc Not Call list works. And they seem to be blissfully unaware (or willfully ignorant) of the provisions of the ECT Act. Section 45 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, no 25 of 2002. states the following:

45. (1) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer—­
(a) with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and
(b) with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer's personal information, on request of the consumer.

That implies that their call centre agents should be able to mark customers as "Do Not Call" by adding them to a do not call list maintained by the organisation. Clearly MTN doesn't know how to do this correctly. They should also be able to check their data against the DMA list before they hand over the data to third parties (it that is even legal any more). Clearly they failed to do this too. How convenient.
Update Friday 30 June: MTN called again, this time from 087-350-8555. They don't even have the ability to put my name on the do not call list, which is another clear violation of the ECT Act. Listen to the recording.
Update Thursday 10 August: My blocked call log shows that MTN called from 083-123-7355 again on 8th August and again today on the 10th August.

Dianetics Pays For Its Own Bad Publicity

From out of the blue, the Dianetics drones started sending me spam. It turns out that they bought an email list from "Database Solutions", whose owner Andy Quinan should know better, since he knows a lot about the Direct Marketing Association's "Do Not Contact" list. My email address has been on that list for many years, so he clearly should not have sold my address to anyone.
What he failed to mention to his client is that by taking their money he was violating the DMA's code of conduct, as well as exposing them to legal liability by repeated violations of the ECT Act. Furthermore, he failed to advise them of the bad publicity they would expose themselves to by annoying the public with their spam drivel.
When I pointed this our to the Dianetics receptionist in Kensington, she said they could do with any publicity (good or bad) raised by this blog. So here it is. I'd hate to disappoint them. After all, can you really trust an organisation that buys mailing lists from disreputable marketers in order to flood the mailboxes of the general public with marketing rubbish? That puts them at the same despicable level as the greedy con artists who sell "Viagra" or "Penis Enlargement Pills" or "Low Interest Loans" via email.
Can you trust the sales pitch of a marketer who knowingly sells bad data? Furthermore, how can you trust an organisation with an existing reputation for hard sell and misleading marketing (such as the Dianetics/Scientology folks). It seems that these marketing types just have no ethical or common sense boundaries. If they can't understand that most email users find spam marketing both annoying and despicable, then they need a reality check. DUH!

Update: Andy Quinan said he got the list from "Brownstone", but they have sent me spam before. This is getting more incestuous by the minute.

An Open Letter to Nedbank

Dear Nedbank
This is just a quick note to thank you for sending me unsolicited snail mail. I'm glad it was only snail mail and not email, because otherwise you would have been violating the ECT Act as well as the other laws and ethics you just broke.
You see, it's not only unethical to buy names and addresses of random people and then run a credit check on them without their knowledge, it's bad business. However, Nedbank is also a member of the Direct Marketing Association, and as such has publicly agreed to abide by their code of conduct. Sending me such a letter, signed by Graeme Holmes, the Head of Consumer Cards, is thus a breach of their code of conduct, and tells me that you were really sloppy and didn't check my name against their "Do Not Contact List". Either that, or you just really don't care about my privacy.
Now credit card companies are notoriously bad about "leaking" names to direct marketers, but in South Africa that's a criminal offence. By sending me this letter you have identified yourselves as a "dodgy bank" (aren't they all?) who is incapable of keeping my contact details private, as you are required by law. Alternatively, you are happy to ignore the privacy of any future clients by buying my name from a dodgy marketer, with no morals and no scruples. I guess that makes you guys a perfect fit.
So since you have identified yourselves to me as a company who keeps company with criminals (or are criminals yourselves by violating the law), I have decided, as a public service, to identify your unethical behaviour to the public at large. I'm also going to warn them, courtesy of this article, that your credit card fees are, to put it bluntly, greedy and excessive. They are double what I am paying. Small wonder you are willing to go to the expense of sending me snail mail, and paying for my name and address. Shame on you!
And before your self-satisfied smug sense of outrage kicks in, I did personally warn your organisation that I do not take kindly to unsolicited marketing campaigns. The date: 9th January 2007. I guess you didn't get or read the memo. Ag, shame!
Yours sincerely
Donn Edwards

Update Monday 5pm: Nedbank's chief twit wants me to send my ID number to them via Twitter. Funny, I supplied this information many years ago, and it is also in the DMA's Do Not Contact list. They would have to have it when the bought the marketing list in order to comply with the DMA's Code of Conduct. Clearly they haven't complied with the code of conduct, which is why are now looking stupid with egg on their faces.
Update Tuesday 12: In reading through the Nedbank Code of Ethics I find no mention of the word "privacy", even though Nedbank ascribes to the DMA's Code of Conduct, but it does mention the word "confidentiality" several times. Clearly Nedbank doesn't think my contact details are confidential enough to worry about. I guess they aren't really serious about their Code of Ethics, and write it off as public relations double-speak.
Update Thursday 14: I finally heard from Graeme Holmes, after I guessed his email address (first name, plus first letter of surname, followed by Nedbank domain name) since I wasn't getting anywhere with the HelloPeter complaint drones. Graeme is convinced that I must have been an account holder with Nedbank at some point, because they don't buy lists of names. I corrected this false assumption, and await the results of an internal investigation. Yeah, right.
Update Wednesday 20 Feb: It's a welcome change to have to eat my own words. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a personal letter of explanation from Graeme Holmes today. They used the wrong database (an old one) and didn't check it correctly against the DMA's database. I was a signatory on an account for the Body Corporate where I live, which is why I appeared on the "old" database and not on the current one. So we were both right. Thanks for the extra effort, Graeme. You are a credit to your organisation. (Bad pun not intended)

DirectAxis ignores customer privacy laws to send spam

DirectAxis is a division of business partner with Sanlam*. I am a Sanlam customer. DirectAxis sent me a marketing SMS (i.e. spam) on Wednesday at 9.15am. It read:

As a homeowner 1HOME by DirectAxis offers you SA's premium personal loan of up to R100,000 for any household or personal costs. Reply YES. Stop to opt out

Naturally, I was annoyed because they "know" I'm a homeowner, which is none of their business, and they found out my cell phone number by some devious, unethical or illegal means. So I replied "YES" to get them to call me and explain where they got my details from.
The lady from the call centre called me and asked for my wife. I asked what it was in connection with, and she referred to the SMS. I told her it was my phone she had called, and she said they knew my number because I own property. I asked if they were members of the Direct Marketing Association. She said no; she either lied or didn't know. Direct Axis Sa (Pty) Ltd is a member of the DMA. So told her to put my number on their Do Not Contact database, and told her I don't trust and won't do business with companies who go scurrying around trying to find my details without my permission.
Later, I Googled their name and found their web site www.directaxis.co.za, which states: "Direct Axis (SA) (Pty) Ltd is an authorised Financial Services Provider"*. It says nothing about their connection with Sanlam, or that they are part-owned by FirstRand. However, when I looked for a photo of the MD of DirectAxis, I found it on the Sanlam web site, in the "Directors" section:

So I wrote the following to Mark Finlayson, the MD:

Dear Mark
I received an unsolicited SMS message from your company today, touting your 1HOME product, whatever that is. Are you not aware that my name and number is on the DMA’s Do Not Contact list?
Please explain
Donn Edwards

His reply was not unexpected:

Hi Donn
I will check on why you received the promotion and revert[sic]** to you.
Regards
Mark Finlayson
DirectAxis
Tel: +27 21 764 3058 | Cell: +27 82 460 1657 | Switchboard: +27 21 764 3000 | Email: mark.finlayson@directaxis.co.za

Today I got an email from another member of the company, in reply to my question about where they got my number. He wrote:

Hi Donn,
I can confirm that we are in fact a member of the DMA and that we definitely would not have got your details from your blog. The guy looking after the 1Home marketing is currently looking into the detail of exactly where your details where obtained and why you received a promotion. I will have this feedback for you by the close of business tomorrow as today is a public holiday.
Regards,
Robert Gwerengwe
DirectAxis

So now we have a registered Financial Services Provider ignoring the Do Not Contact list of the DMA to send me spam. That's already a violation of the ECT Act, and probably the Consumer Protection Act as well.
How trustworthy are these people? To find out, I consulted the HelloPeter web site, and found the following graph:

Note how the industry average for spam complaints is around 2%, yet DirectAxis is 16% (8 times greater). A browse through their list of complaints found several recent spam complaints among dozens of complaints about bad Billing/Accounts. Just as I suspected: not particularly trustworthy, especially with my data.


Update: *Loans from Sanlam Personal Loans are administered and managed by DirectAxis, an authorised Financial Services Provider. Sanlam Personal Loans (Pty) Ltd Reg. No. 2001/016316/07, Registered Credit Provider (NCRCP272), is a joint venture between Sanlam Life Insurance Ltd and Direct Axis (SA) (Pty) Ltd. Reg. No. 1995/06077/07.

**On the subject of the usage of the word "revert": look it up, and you will find it means "to come or go back (as to a former condition, period, or subject)". So to say you will "revert to me" means that you will go back (regress?) to being me, which is insulting. It's almost as meaningless as "get back to me" when what you mean to say is "reply" or "respond" or "answer".

Update: Saturday 11th August: I finally received a reply from DirectAxis:

Dear Mr Edwards
Our 1Home offering is focussed on providing home owners with value by offering personal loans for home improvements.
Your details were included on the database of a company called Journey (they have associations with companies which have assisted people obtain home loans or enquire about home loan finance), who provide us with services for our 1Home offering.
As a result of a technical issue our routine daily check against the DMA opt-out records did not run on Wednesday. This is the reason that you were contacted despite being on the DMA's list. This technical issue has been resolved and you will no longer receive messages from us. Your records have been removed from the Journey database.
We have identified the call center agent who incorrectly informed you that we are not members of the DMA and we have ensured that this will not occur again in the future.
I trust the above gives you the clarity you require and apologise sincerely for any inconvenience. I would be very happy to discuss this matter further with you should you require further information.
Regards
Mark

How convenient to be able to blame it on a technical issue. I believe that as much as I believe the sincerity of the apology, given their track record on HelloPeter. It would appear that the "Journey" company mentioned in the reply is also a member of the DMA: Journey Customer Innovation Pty Ltd. So now we have two companies, both members of the DMA, ignoring the Do Not Contact database and spamming potential customers. How dumb is that?Also, none of this claptrap about "associations with companies which have assisted people obtain home loans or enquire about home loan finance" explains how they as a Financial Services Provider could abuse this information in such a way. It just doesn't sound ethical to me. But then I've yet to meet an ethical spammer.

Scam Alert: The Griffen Holdings posing as Griffin Holdings

The Griffen Holdings is a low profile call centre that sells "stock market training" courses. These guys rely on their relative anonymity and the similarity in name with a legitimate investment company called Griffin Holdings.
The Griffen guys regularly break the law by making unsolicited marketing calls to people like me, and then can't tell me who they got my number from. That's a violation of the ECT Act, not to mention annoying. They are so "upfront" that they hide their call centre number, and don't give it out even when asked. Extensive searches on Google have revealed only one contact number, and this is for faxes. I found several jobs ads for them:

Field Sales Consultants needed. our callcentre makes appointments for you. Own car and cellphone needed. Must be available immidiatly [sic]. Fax CV to 086 554 5978 or e-mail.

They exploit the unemployed by working on a commission-only basis, unless you regard R10/month as a legitimate salary. I joined the web site to "apply" for the job and found their contact number to be (012) 644 2476, and a related web site, which doesn't mention "The Griffen Holdings" anywhere on the site.
I contacted the legitimate Griffin Holdings and they assured me they don't have a call centre or sell stock market "training". They wrote:

There are a number of Griffin companies (some spellings Gryphon, Griffen etc). We do not offer the service you refer to.

So it seems that the secretive Griffen Holdings is a lot more dodgy than they'd like you to believe.
Update: In response to my email enquiries, they ("Admin - The Griffen Holdings tghadmin@sharetrackin.com") said

We hold seminars every Monday for our existing clients and receive names and numbers of people who they think might benefit from our services or be interested.

What a load of BS, because anyone who knows me would know that I'm not interested in being contacted by anyone from a call centre! If they took the trouble to become members of the DMA they would also know that I'm on their "Do Not Call" list.
Section 45 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, no 25 of 2002. states the following:

45. (1) Any person who sends unsolicited commercial communications to consumers, must provide the consumer—­
(a) with the option to cancel his or her subscription to the mailing list of that person; and
(b) with the identifying particulars of the source from which that person obtained the consumer's personal information, on request of the consumer.

So although they provided the "opt-out" option, if they cannot identify the particulars of the source, then they are breaking the law.

Update 3 April: One of the Griffen Holdings "franchise holders" (he said there are a dozen or so around the country, each with their own call centre) called to tell me that it isn't a scam. He explained that they get the phone numbers from "lists", not only from "seminars". he confirmed that he had no idea where they got my number from.
They sell stock market software for R19,200 and offer a guarantee that if you don't make a 40% profit in 6 months then they will refund your R19,200. I have asked to be sent a copy of the contract. It sounds too good to be true, which means it probably is; not even Mr Madoff's ponzi scheme offered that kind of return.

Groupon's Missing "Do Not Contact" List

Remember when Six Degrees, Facebook and Plaxo started, and for the next few months you got your inbox bombarded with a gazillion requests from various "friends" who were sure you wanted to subscribe, or join, or whatever?
Well, times have changed, and there are laws against emails like that. Usually I just hand it over to Unsubscribe.com, which is brilliant. But last week it couldn't handle an email from a friend who thought I'd like to join the South African version of Groupon, called MyCityDeal.co.za. The site sending the email had no "opt out" or "unsubscribe" link!
Already that's a violation of the ECT Act and the new Consumer Protection Act, because companies engaged in electronic marketing have to provide the facility for a user to tell them that they don't wish to receive marketing messages, i.e. a "Do Not Contact" list. So I went to their web site and told them that I wished to be placed on their Do Not Contact List. They wrote back and said they had tried to "unsubscribe" me but I wasn't subscribed. DUH.
Spot the difference: If I was already a subscriber then I could unsubscribe, but I'm not a subscriber, so I can't, and I can't stop them from sending me invitations to join. Does that mean I have to join and then unsubscribe so they don't break the law? Weird.

Time for an industry "Do Not Subscribe or Contact" List

It's time the mobile phone industry woke up to the fact that their networks are wide open to abuse. I experienced it recently when random sums of money were deducted from my phone bill, after being "subscribed" without my knowledge to some "premium content" services. In this case they were run by Opera Interactive, who initially refused a refund and referred me to "Go Go Mobile", a UK/Hong Kong based company. Later they refunded me several times, presumably because they really have no idea what they are doing.
"Go Go Mobile" decided that I was a disreputable liar, and accused me of trying to make money out of my complaint to WASPA. They also brought up the matter of my legal dispute with a timeshare company, without the foggiest notion of what it was about, or how it was resolved. Clearly they seem to think that attack is the best form of defence, even when they are in the wrong.
My complaint with WASPA was lodged on 10th June 2011, i.e. 42 days ago. It was only "received" by WASPA on 22nd June (12 days later) and "resolved" on 30th June, i.e. 3 weeks after the initial complaint. I informed WASPA that I was not satisfied with the response from "Go Go Mobile" and pointed out the security holes in their system. This was sent to them on Saturday 2nd July, i.e. 20 days ago.
I would have expected this to be passed on to "Go Go Mobile", but a week later they had still heard nothing, so I sent it to Steve Hunt and Trevor Louw and asked what was being done about it. They declined to say, so a few days later I posted a note on the MyBroadband forum to add a bit more pressure. Now, finally, the mobilewap1.oit.co.za server is offline. Hopefully they have fixed the problem, although I doubt it.
WASPA seems to think that their members don't need a "Do Not Subscribe or Contact" list, but clearly the public has no protection against spammers and lax security. Had I been able to add my number and my wife's number to such a list, I would not have been hassled by having random amounts of money deducted from my account, and I would not have had to visit MTN or waste money on the phone to the Opera Interactive call centre. WASPA even have an unsubscribe system (unsubscribes@waspa.org.za) but you don't remain unsubscribed. They just don't get it.
Now the whole industry look like morons because of bad security, poor customer relations and lax or arrogant management. I guess they get what they deserve. In the meantime WASPA has yet to make up their minds about my complaint(s), or punish the offenders. What's taking so long?
Update 11th August: After 9 weeks my complaint is "pending" adjudication. Meanwhile, the MyBroadband web site has published a stinging rebuke of the entire industry called "Is your airtime quietly being stolen?" pointing out that this problem has been going on for the last 3 years and nothing has been done. They just announced in a press release that they plan to do nothing in spite of rumours that they might be doing something useful. Needless to say, consumers are fed up. Even East Coast Radio's Consumer Watch has an article about it.
Update 23rd August: After 74 days my complaint is still "pending" adjudication. It's been under consideration for 3 weeks already. Perhaps its just languishing at the bottom of a very large pile of papers while more money gets sucked out of the accounts of unsuspecting phone subscribers. There is one complaint "pending" since October last year. I wonder whether anyone takes these complaints seriously?