MTN has decided to pull its controversial 15th birthday SMS competition, processing the last entries a month early.
“Whereas this competition generated a lot of excitement and participation, it unfortunately reached a stage where the debate surrounding it was not consistent with MTN's values and detracted from the intended spirit of the game for our customers,” the company says.
MTN launched the competition at the end of April to celebrate its 15th birthday and it has since been dogged by controversy. It was intended to run until 9 August; however, the company shut the service down late on Sunday night.
As a quiz-style SMS service, the competition was initially slammed as a lotto, which prompted MTN to invite the National Lotteries Board to investigate. Many customers were also concerned the cost was high, with SMSes charged at R7.50 each.
Another storm surfaced two weeks ago, when allegations were made indicating some of the competition winners had access to a list of entrants and each person's score. Several contestants have also indicated winners were possibly friends or family of someone at MTN.
The company had initially decided to allow the competition to run its full course; however, it was still concerned about the allegations. MTN appointed a panel of experts to review the allegations and the promotion as a whole.
MTN is still in the process of reviewing the matter and it says the results of the review will be made public as soon as the process has been completed.
Meanwhile, the company says it has awarded the remaining prizes. The decision to award all the prizes was to ensure people who competed legitimately were not prejudiced. “In excess of R6 million worth of prizes were won in the duration of the competition.”
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