MTN sticks to 'hoax' competition

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 19 Aug 2008

MTN plans to continue with a competition that fraudsters have already used to lure people into revealing personal information, such as bank account details.

However, the mobile service provider warns its customers not to give out any personal details to people claiming to represent the company.

MTN GM Donovan Smith says MTN will continue with the Top Talks competition, where recent signatories to MTN contracts stand to win R50 000.

University of Pretoria student KZ Malinga says an individual claiming to represent MTN contacted his mother last week.

"The first call was received on Friday afternoon, telling my mother that she won R50 000 in MTN Top Talks Competition, so my mother was supposed to send her details, including banking information. When she asked for confirmation of the competition from the police, the fraudster said everything was ok and never called back," he says.

Smith says MTN will never ask a customer for personal details by phone and, for the purposes of the competition, it will ask for certain details to confirm that the right person has been contacted.

MTN adds that the winners of the competition will only be announced during September and October, and so MTN customers who are called any time besides then are being scammed.

"The most harmful aspect of this situation is the perceptions about MTN that may be created by the media and the public," says BMI-TechKnowledge analyst Ryan Smit.

Smit says if people believe that such hoaxes are intrinsic to one specific service provider, then they would question the security of their numbers on that service provider's database.