MTN customers are banding together to present the mobile operator with a class action lawsuit.
The action is spearheaded by an unhappy customer, Benzi Kornizer, who expects to see almost R10 000 debited from his account after trouble with MTN's billing system placed him among other customers who have supposedly been underpaying for their data accounts.
ITWeb reported earlier this week that MTN had confirmed it will debit client accounts for back-payment, following the company's troubles with its new billing system. “MTN is in the process of reprocessing the used data and customer call data records, and will debit the affected customers' accounts accordingly,” said customer relations executive, Eddie Moyce.
However, most subscribers who have been informed of the back-payment are adamant they have not underpaid for MTN's Internet service. They are now joining Kornizer in a class action lawsuit against MTN.
Kornizer says he has received an overwhelming number of e-mails sent to an account he has set up to get local customers together to act against MTN. Affected clients report they expect MTN to debit vast sums of money from their accounts.
One ITWeb reader indicated MTN plans to take R91 800 from his account, when he is sure he only owes the company R10 000.
MTN also promised not to suspend customer contracts while it sorts out the billing issues; however, several readers say they have been disconnected until they pay MTN an outrageous figure.
Meanwhile, MTN has come back to Kornizer on the issue, saying it will give him “the benefit of the doubt”. It has also admitted to Kornizer that the amount of money planned to be debited does not fit with his regular Internet usage patterns.
According to correspondence between the company and Kornizer, MTN will “investigate” the data usage and get back to him on how to proceed.
Other customers report that, even on prepaid data bundles, the available data is being used up faster than usual, even though they haven't changed their Internet habits.
MTN says it will investigate and evaluate every query on a case-by-case basis.
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