“A very, very, very bad case.” That was the unusually colourful subject line of my query to MTN’s communications manager, referring to Daniela d’Hotman de Villiers’s recent experience with the telecom company.
Like so many cellphone subscribers who contact me in desperation, the self-employed La Lucia, Durban woman had hit a brick wall in her attempts to end what she called her “horrific” ordeal.
Her story began with her attempting to cancel an MTN cellphone contract via an email and ended with her being handed over by the company for nonpayment of a mystery debt of R21,000.
She paid it under duress, but the demands continued and she remained “blacklisted”.
All she wanted to do was cancel her second contract, an 078 one she’d taken out for work purposes but had proved to be unnecessary as she’d continued to receive almost all calls on her original 083 number.
Sounds simple enough.
When she got no response to her cancellations email of late last year, D’Hotman de Villiers decided to do the deed in person, at the MTN store in La Lucia Mall.
But the agent she dealt with that February day didn’t want to hear about a cancellation — not for nothing is the department that handles cancellation requests called “retentions”. He consulted “the system” and then uttered those “upgrade” words: he persuaded her to commit to a new 24-month contract.
“You’re due for an upgrade on that number,” he told her. “So how about you do that, get a new phone on that number, then take your 083 SIM and put it into your new phone?”
D’Hotman de Villiers liked that idea, as her 083 contract phone had begun to play up. So the deal was done.
Shortly afterwards, she was notified by SMS that that newly “upgraded” contract had been cancelled. Alarmed, she got hold of that agent who told her not to worry; all she had to do was return to the store so that he could do “a new activation” of that R900 per month contract.
But the reassurance was short-lived. At the end of March, she was told by MTN that she was required to pay R20,568 urgently. Thinking it was some kind of scam, given her new contract, she ignored it, and a few days later her account was suspended.
“I couldn’t make or receive calls, access any apps or reach any of my clients, which caused me a lot of distress,” she said.
When she queried the payment demand, she was told that she had acquired the phone outright; rather than taking out a contract.
That begs the question: how was she able to leave the store without paying for it?
“I said that was impossible and showed the store agents the WhatsApps between the agent and I, and explained that though I had received an email saying that my 078 contract had been cancelled, I was told that it had been reactivated and I’d be paying R899 a month.”
After initially refusing to restore her services, faced with D’Hotman de Villiers’s understandable distress, they agreed to do so.
“But the core issue hadn’t been resolved,” she said. “They said they understood that it was the agent’s error and undertook to escalate the case to head office.”
But the same drama played out again the following month. And then D’Hotman de Villiers, seven months’ pregnant at the time, was handed over to a debt collecting firm, which ramped up her distress further.
At that point, her husband took on the case, the store manager agreeing to credit the R20,568 and open a new contract.
Fast-forward to early July, and D’Hotman de Villiers’s phone was again deactivated.
Defeated, she paid the alleged debt, which had increased to R21,108.
“I left the store still feeling angry at the injustice of the situation but relieved that my phone was reactivated and I didn’t need to worry any more. Or so I thought!”
Shortly afterwards, she got a call from the debt collectors, demanding payment of that R21,108. “I honestly thought Whackhead Simpson was playing a prank on me,” she said.
Sadly, it was no prank. A few weeks later, she applied for a business account overdraft — required because that R21,000 payment had created a cash flow issue — but it was declined “because of my arrears with MTN”.
As I said, a very, very, very bad case.
Adverse listings can take weeks to be removed, she was told. So sorry.
On July 19, two weeks after making that R21,108 payment, D’Hotman de Villiers got another SMS from the debt collectors, demanding payment of that amount.
And that’s when she emailed me. “I have no-one else to turn to,” she said.
Remember, all she set out to do in February, was cancel one of her two contracts. It was because her cancellation email was ignored that she was forced to set foot in that MTN store and set in motion this bizarre chain of events.
Our customer relations representative has contacted Ms d'Hotman de Villiers to resolve the matter. She has opted to return the phone to MTN and she will be refunded all monies owed to her.
— MTN
Responding to my media query, MTN South Africa’s corporate affairs head Jacqui O’Sullivan began by acknowledging that “there was an error on our side during an upgrade”.
“Our investigation indicates that Ms D’Hotman de Villiers had two contract lines with us — she upgraded one of her contract lines on February 7, while the other line was cancelled on the same day as per her request.
“At the time, our agent should have explained to our customer that there would be penalties associated with an early contract cancellation.”
This was the first D’Hotman de Villiers had heard of cancelling a contract early, much less any penalties payable.
The wires may remain a little crossed on this one, but happily her saga is at an end.
“Our customer relations representative has contacted Ms D'Hotman de Villiers to resolve the matter. She has opted to return the phone to MTN and she will be refunded all monies owed to her.
“All account listings have been removed and we have updated our customer’s ITC [credit bureau] status accordingly.”
MTN has apologised to her “for the inconvenience and anxiety caused by this matter”.
“A weight has really been lifted off of my shoulders and I can enjoy my last six weeks of pregnancy MTN-stress free,” D’Hotman de Villiers said. “Thank you.”
The real problem is that she needed outside help to get there — after five months of hell.
• Contact Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via email: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.