MTN: Too Big To Care

It's always a shame when a company gets so big and disconnected from its customers that it starts to annoy them. Badly. Discovery Medical Scheme is one example; MTN, my cell phone "service" provider, is another. It started in August or September last year when the latter screwed up their database and started sending my invoices and statements to a two-year-old email address. They also changed the primary contact number. Not that it would make any difference because they send spam to all their numbers, and don't contact their customers on the primary contact number for anything important anyway.
Then I started getting marketing calls from their call centres. Most of them were blocked by the TrueCaller app, but three got through anyway:

• 031 493 6408 January 10
• 082 203 2132 January 17
• 021 065 2510 March 1

Notice how none of them are MTN numbers, but they all claim to be official MTN call centres. I told the first two that I would be going to the MTN store in Cresta. I informed the third one that she was too late because I was already speaking to them on my new phone. So much for up-to-date IT systems. It's what you expect from a dinosaur company run by managers out of their depth.
The end of January is not a good time to renew a contract. They are about to announce their new phone models, and so stocks of the existing models are low, if not empty. The store can tell you that new models are coming in, but not the cost of the new devices yet. So the Samsung A24 was not in stock, but they couldn't tell me how much the A25 would cost. Eventually, in February the A25 was available at a suitable price, but not in black. Only light blue. After waiting for 3 weeks for a phone, I decided to ignore the colour and get a black phone protector case. Two days later, the black phone arrived. Too late! So it is best to wait until March or April to renew a contract, or move to another "service" provider.
Twitter's @MTNza "help" desk was singularly unhelpful in "assisting" with getting the new phone. They wanted me to go back to the store and cancel the contract (never mind the cost) and then "pre-order" the black A25 online. They couldn't tell me when it would arrive either. Nice own goal and undermining the hard-working staff at the store.
The same staff complain that they are having trouble obtaining DebiCheck mandates for debit order contracts. They obtained mine on 26th January, but failed to run the debit order on 31st January. The frustrated staff changed my account to cash payment instead of debit order, in order to try to finalize the contract. The staff at the store can't fix accounts problems, you have to call 135. Another own goal.
Calling 135 is like entering the lottery. You have very little chance of winning. Instead, you are likely to get someone who has no idea what the problem is, or how to fix it. Today I struck it lucky and was finally able to get them to use the correct email address for my invoices. It has taken several visits to the MTN store, and several complaints on Twitter, and several calls, all to no avail. Today the operator went to a different section of the screen and fixed it. Hopefully. We will see next month.
Their accounting system is also more weird than most accounting systems. When you are on a debit order, the balance amount never matches the amount deducted. It's half the balance.

When you change over to being a "cash" payer, then the balance amount suddenly becomes the amount you need to pay.

Naturally, no one bothers to explain this. If you pay the wrong amount, they just disconnect you from the network. No warning, no SMS notice, nothing. They don't even have the payment information on the statement, only on the invoice. So if you only read the monthly statement, you're in for a nasty shock.
Why am I still on cash payment after being on a debit order before? Because they told me that the only possible date for the debit order was the 21st of the month. Imagine that! No option of "last business day of the month" or 1st of the month. Nooo, that would be inconvenient for the accounts department to figure out a pro rata amount, even though they do that anyway. Nooo, they want the debit date to be the same as the date they finalized the contract, despite all their delays in doing exactly that. So I will pay them when it suits me. Because they don't care anyway.

MTN is *insane*, everywhere you go!

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This is falsely attributed to Albert Einsten and/or Benjamin Franklin, but it is nonetheless a pretty accurate description of the human condition. It certainly describes my recent experience with MTN and their call centres.
One of the things you have to understand about South African culture is that most people have endured a really poor education system, where rote learning (memorization) is the norm, and people are not given the tools to understand the problem they are dealing with, but are just given a few standard scripts to follow. If your problem falls outside of those scripts, the wheels fall off. This is particularly true with call centres and "customer service" centres. The people employed in these places are trained to deal with 90% of the standard problems they encounter. If you have a problem that doesn't fall into those categories, then the results can be somewhat bizarre.
Recently I have been badgered by an MTN call centre whose sole job is to "upgrade" clients from one contract to another. What they can't cope with, is a customer who has more than one cellphone contract. At the start of the year I had three: my own, my domestic worker, and my mom-in-law. The latter was a birthday present a few years ago. So in March/April they started sending me text messages to say that "my" contract was up for renewal. Then they called me and we talked about "my" contract and it was only at the point near the end of the call where they were confirming all the details that they mentioned the phone number in question. Seriously? I told them I would chat to my mom-in-law and let them know.
Last month they started bugging me about my own phone contract. I would get a call from a call centre and if I answered it I would be put on hold. After about the fifth time I actually got to speak to an agent who explained to me that my existing contract (which ends in January next year) had been "phased out" (which is probably illegal) and for an extra R9 per month they could offer me a better contract for the balance of the contract period. Since it supposedly gives me more talk time I decided to give it a go.
During the legalese that followed I was told that all existing services and subscriptions would be cancelled and replaced with the new contract. What they didn't tell me was that migrating to the "Mega Talk XS" contract would also break the Caller Line Identification (CLID) service on my phone. So from 7 July all incoming calls show up as "Unknown", unless they go to voicemail, in which case I get to be told what the number is. Naturally I called 135, their useless "Customer Service" number. So far I cave called at the following times:

• Thursday 8 July 08:34. 9 minutes. They said it would be fixed in 24 hours.
• Friday 9 July 15:10. 5 minutes.
• 9 July 15:36. 7 minutes.
• 9 July 15:46. 2 minutes.
• 9 July 15:48. 8 minutes.
• 9 July 15:57. 5 minutes.
• 9 July 16:30. 5 minutes.
• 9 July 16:36. 9 minutes. Retentions department.
• Saturday 10 July 11:54. 16 minutes.
• Monday 12 July 10:51. 59 minutes. REQ000002520843

• Saturday 17 July 11:51. 16 minutes. Retentions department. "Can't cancel a contract on the weekend".
• Wednesday 21 July 13:29. 4 minutes. REQ000002533152
• Thursday 21 July 10:25. 9 minutes. "I'm getting an error message".
• Friday 22 July 09:57. 1 minute. "Our computers are offline. Please call back later".
• 22 July 19:15. 15 minutes. "Please email a copy of the error message to us". They don't call the customer to request this information. After all, they are only a phone company. No, they wait until you call back to give you the good news that they don't have a clue what they are doing and don't understand the problem.

• Tuesday 27 July 15:56. 5 minutes. While on hold to find out the status, I received an incoming call from MTN showing that CLID is now working.

I have tried almost every option on the 135 number, from "Customer Service" to Accounts, to "Technical Support" to "Retentions". Basically the script is the same: we will reactivate the service and it will take 24 hours to show up on the system. Even after it was "referred to the Back Office" the reply on REQ000002520843 was to activate the service. On a few occasions on Friday 9 July they reactivated CLID on the wrong number: my domestic worker's number, which was working just fine.
Obviously I can't read what was written in the first REQ query, but it either didn't say that this tactic had been tried multipe times by multiple departments, or the moron who replied didn't comprehend that this had been done before and wasn't working. Or he was tired and just hit F7 to send the closest canned reply he could think of. Needless to say the instructions didn't work, which is why we have the next REQ number, which is still "open" while everyone leves it for someone else to solve.
One of the "helpful" call centre ladies suggested I visit the nearest MTN store. During a pandemic. Wonderful. Like they are going to magically be able to press the same computer keys and get a different result. The lunatics are running the asylum. I think that's what "Bozza" means.
Update Tues 27 July: I get a phone call that shows the CLID if the incoming call. It's from the MTN Twitter team. 19 days after the problem was first reported. I don't know whether to be grateful or angry. I guess I'm glad I'm not insane.

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.

MTN Monitoring and Monetizing My Call Logs

This is part of a letter I have written to MTN (my mobile operator), following the events that happened after I made a call to my domestic worker's mobile phone. I recived a popup-style "alert SMS" message, followed by a standard spam SMS from the MTN short code 46163:

This morning I called my domestic worker from my MTN phone. Her phone is very basic. I can do SMS messages and not much more. She is illiterate, so she cannot read SMS messages.
When I had finished the call I got an annoying little popup message on my phone, followed by an SMS from 46163 claiming that my domestic’s phone number “just sent me a Caller Notify message.” [See screen shot above]
My first concern is that clearly my domestic does not have the capability to type out the message, let alone send it as an alert style SMS instead of a standard SMS message.
Secondly, she has no way of sending messages on behalf of 46163
Thirdly, 46163 is not a short code registered with WASPA.
But my biggest question is: who gave the operators of 46163 the network capability to monitor calls to and from my phone, and to and from her phone? I should also point out that I am the account holder of both phones and at no point do I recall permitting subscription services to be deducted from her phone, or have I given MTN permission to give calling metadata to anyone, and that it should only be used for the purposes of police investigations or billing.
So the privacy and compliance issues surrounding this “service” are of grave concern to me as a subscriber. Please would you explain what is going on?
Best wishes
Donn Edwards

WARNING! @MTNza is scamming its customers with "Caller Notify" messages and blaming it on who you call @MTNzaService #ripoff #scammers

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) April 26, 2017

I await their reply with interest, and will publish it as soon as it becomes available. I have called their call centre and discovered that the "service" deducts R2 per month R1 per day from the phone's account. Not much until you consider that she only gets R50 airtime a month. Then it's a big deal.
Update Friday 28 April: According to this tweet the call centre was lying. The cost for this "service" is R1 per day, or R5 per week. That's plain daylight robbery. My email has been passed from pillar to post at MTN, but still no one has actually replied. I guess I'll have to wait until Tuesday.

@donnedwards @MTNza Hi there Donn
Pls be advised caller notify is free for the first week, then it charges you
Subscription Price
Daily-R1.00
Weekly-R5.00

— MTN SA Service (@MTNzaService) April 27, 2017

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?