Nozipho Mdawe knew she’d overpaid her debt to MTN, and she had, by a whopping R11,000. In December 2019, she was told that while she no longer owed the telecoms company a cent, no refund was due to her.
If you don’t pay what you owe your credit provider, there are a lot of things they can do to “punish” you.
Put a “black mark” on your credit profile, for starters, preventing you from getting further credit; hand you over to a debt collector who will pad that debt with interest and their costs; and, if you still don’t pay, get a court judgment against you.
But what if it’s the other way round — the company owes you? Well, just getting what you’re owed is often seemingly impossible, let alone any form of compensation, as Mdawe found out.
Her story began in 2017, when she was handed over to MBD by MTN, the amount owing at the time being about R18,000.
She continued to pay, without getting any statements, until December 2019, when she contacted MBD to ask what the outstanding amount was — by that stage she had paid the agency about R30,000. She was told the debt was paid up. By Mdawe’s calculations, she was owed a refund, but she’d had no statements from MTN or MBD breaking down her account, so she had nothing else to go on.
MBD said it had paid her debt payments to MTN; MTN said no refund was due to her.
Asked by Mdawe to take up her case, I put it to MTN that it was unlikely Mdawe had coincidentally paid her debt, plus costs and interest, to the cent when she asked for her current balance in December 2019.
In fact it was likely she had overpaid, and not by a little bit.
She should have been issued with a debt settlement letter by our debt collector, but this did not happen. We have liaised with her and apologised for the inconvenience and lack of customer service that she encountered.
— MTN
Let’s see that statement, I said.
MTN’s initial response went like this:
“We have established that the customer has a credit of R10,961.
“She should have been issued with a debt settlement letter by our debt collector, but this did not happen. We have liaised with her and apologised for the inconvenience and lack of customer service that she encountered.”
Mdawe received that money within days, but questions remained.
Why did MTN’s legal department insist, 18 months ago, that Mdawe was not owed a cent? Why was she not given a statement? What about interest? And one which no-one can answer — just how long would she have continued to pay towards a debt she had long settled, had she not asked how much she still owed?
MTN’s second response was a lot more illuminating.
“Our initial response was based on a preliminary investigation from the notes we had captured on our system for this account. The notes indicated that in 2019 MBD requested a refund on behalf of our customer from 2017. Our legal representative found that the account had been in arrears in 2017, rather than investigating the status of the account in 2019. Based on what we believed to be miscommunication between our legal agent and agency, the legal agent found that no refund was due.
“However, upon full investigation, the miscommunication had in fact been cleared at the time, but the legal agent had not taken the required steps to acknowledge the refund due to our customer.
“Upon this finding, MTN can confirm that a disciplinary process has been initiated to further investigate the wrongdoing on the part of our legal agent and the supporting manager. Appropriate corrective action will be taken on the conclusion of this process.
MTN will engage MBD further to establish a process to ensure that these statements are issued proactively, and we will also engage the other debt collections agencies that we work with to ensure that this process is adhered to.
— MTN
“Regarding the matter of statements owing to the customer, MTN ceases communications with the customer at the point at which the account is handed over to a collections agency.”
And Mdawe isn’t the only “winner” in this. “In our discussions with MBD,” MTN said, “we found that MBD only provides statements and settlements to customers upon request.
“MTN will engage MBD further to establish a process to ensure that these statements are issued proactively, and we will also engage the other debt collections agencies that we work with to ensure that this process is adhered to.
“Customers may contact cim.legal@mtn.com to query their balances or reach out directly to the respective collection agency.”
As for the interest due to Mdawe, MTN said: “The initial amount paid to our customer — R10,961 — did not include any additional interest. However, this amount ought to have been earning interest in our customer’s account and therefore we will refund our customer for the interest earned from the point at which account was first overpaid, to the date of refund.”
Debt collectors who are registered with the Council for Debt Collectors are required by the body’s code of conduct to “to receive a statement should they request one free of charge once every six months”.
But firms of attorneys which do collections do not have to register with the council or abide by that code — they pretty much do their own thing.
Credit providers have a duty to their customers; yes, even their defaulting ones, to ask very pertinent questions of debt collecting companies about how they engage with debtors. Many, especially this past year, fell behind in their payments because of events they couldn’t foresee and will remember how they were treated by the companies and their collecting agents long after they have paid their way out of debtor status.
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