MTN does not do enough to protect its customers from fraud. This is the view of an angry MTN customer, and ITWeb reader, who was recently the victim of fraud worth thousands of rands.
The reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he had an additional fraudulent contract added to his MTN billing account, but was not made aware of it by the mobile operator until it was too late.
The customer says he woke up to a debit order of over R3 900, when his usual monthly bill is R329, after receiving no invoice to alert him to the additional account.
"I believe that MTN has done nothing at all to protect me from this fraud. I was never alerted to changes to my account, never alerted to a new contract and never alerted to the fact that my e-mail address has been removed from their system," the customer told ITWeb.
The subscriber reported the fraud case to MTN for investigation and had his bank reverse the debit order. However, he still believes more should have been done by the telecoms operator to stop the incident happening in the first place.
"This fraud was way too simple. I can only imagine how many customers are a victim of this."
At the time of publication, MTN had not responded to repeated requests for comment on the matter.
"It has come to my attention that MTN is extremely reckless with customers' bank accounts and does not deserve the privilege of debit orders," according to the aggrieved customer.
He has been an MTN customer since 2011 but does not plan to renew his contract with the telco following this incident.
Reporting fraud
According to MTN's Web site, the telco "prides itself on delivering exceptional service and support" but the "abuse of our services and our infrastructure can and does affect our service delivery".
Victims of abuse or fraud can submit a report on MTN's Web site. However, frustrated customers have complained the telco is slow to respond to fraud complaints, with many users turning to Twitter to voice their complaints using #MTNfraud.
Customer @itumelengm123 tweeted: "@MTNza trying to report fraud but getting no assistance from mtn, going for 2 days now, #mtn #mtnfraud #fraud."
Meanwhile, Pierre Behr recently tweeted: "I tried the online fraud e-mail contact as well but have heard nothing. Is there anyone that can assist????? #MTNfraud"
In March, MTN said it was putting additional systems in place to improve security after reports emerged of hundreds of thousands of rands being siphoned out of MTN customers' First National Bank accounts due to an apparent SIM swap scam. As part of the changes, MTN SA said it would only process SIM swap requests during working hours in an attempt to tighten security measures and avoid fraud.
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