Nightmare of the swim swap

Dear Mbongeni,

Thank you for your remarks in this morning’s Times on MTN and the ongoing SIM swap saga. May I expand with further examples of their attitude as a private customer?

I have been on a contract with MTN for more years than I can remember. I am a private individual, not part of any company or corporate, so I have the cheapest contract available as that is what I can afford. Anyone on a similar contract will know that we are at the bottom of the pile as far as MTN is concerned. We get no specials apart from a miniscule discount on our account each month in stark contrast to our South African and Mozambican neighbours. They get their contracts renewed every two years at which point they are given new handsets as a thank you for their support. They also receive numerous free SMS and call minutes each month.

The only ‘reward’ I have had over the years was a begrudging agreement to give me a E500 discount on a new handset. When I asked why it was such a miniscule discount after all the years I had been with them I was told that I did not spend enough each month. When I went to purchase the set from MTN’s shop, the price of it was exactly E500 more than the shop selling cellphones nextdoor!

Prior to the change of numbers, I had many struggles keeping in touch with people overseas. In many instances while they could SMS me, I was not able to respond. The reason: they are on a network we don’t use. Ok, so how did the text get through to me? Shoulders shrugging is the usual response.

Since the numbers changed, my son in Papua New Guinea can no longer call me, or text me both of which he could do before the change. He is simply told my number does not exist. Many people calling me from South Africa have a similar problem – no such number. Then we were not able to text when outside Swaziland. When MTN woke up to this fact we were sent an sms giving us a new number to put into our message service centre. Needless to say I had already spent a small fortune calling from outside the country as all my texts were blocked. No chance of any refund, of course, or compensation for the inconvenience. Incidentally, I can now text from South Africa, but still not from Mozambique. I am also not able to use M-Cel when in Mozambique, which I was always able to do in the past. This is a huge inconvenience as I have to trudge to the top of a hill to make contact with my world through Vodacom.

A year ago I attempted to get in touch with the relevant officials at MTN to invite them to partake in a fundraising event I was organising. As all the officers were constantly unavailable, I resorted to hand delivering the letters and invitations. I did not receive the courtesy of a response from any of them. This year I tried again to contact Mphumelelo Makhubu. I was told he was out of the country. I asked to speak to his secretary to discuss making an appointment. He has no secretary, I was told, and no one that I could leave a message with. Nor was there anyone else that I could talk to in connection with this. All I could do was keep calling once he was back in the country. Given my success last year, I am not holding my breath that I will get through to anyone in this department this year.

My other frustration is that, in spite of buying an expensive phone that should do everything but make me coffee, I am unable to connect to the internet through MTN. As sweet as the ladies at the Service Centre are, they appear to be more concerned with protecting their extended nails than ensuring customers get what they come in for. The two times I have been in they don’t really know about this internet thing, maybe see a guy at Realnet, he knows, or in fact just wait and hope that at some point it will work!

And now to the Sim swap! On receipt of the sms I went to the office at the Gables only to be told I had to do this at one of the main centres, either Mbabane or Manzini. As I was leaving the country the next day and was unable to return to Mbabane so I decided to do it upon my return. I tried Mbabane twice, but ran out of time in the queues. I then heard that we could now do the swap at Gables. I got to the counter after almost an hour in the queue on Thursday to be told that contract numbers have to be done at the main centres! I called Head Office to ask if there was no easy way as a contract customer to do this. I was told to come to Head Office and they would do it for me. Why were we not told this in the first place? When I asked the consultant over the phone this question and described the hours I had wasted during the week, guess what, she put the phone down on me!

The attitude of the officers of this company in Swaziland is not just arrogant, it is downright disgusting and I am seriously considering going against the pack and doing without a cellphone. No one deserves this kind of treatment, and should we really be supporting people who do this to us?

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