MY PROBLEM WITH MTN

They say people mimic the opinion you have of them. As I walked home after my latest visit to their office, I could hardly suppress my anger because MTN Nigeria had succeeded -once again- in validating that statement. I must confess that I have never liked MTN. Initially it was as a result of hearsay but gradually my irritation began to stem from available facts. However, I still went ahead and bought an Mtn line precisely four months ago. Frankly, nothing I heard or read could have readied me for my experience ever since.

After my first two days in the MTN family I was sure my worst fears had come upon me. My entry coincided with a massive technical malfunction where there was hardly anyone on the network (at least in Benin) that could successfully load an MTN recharge card. I felt it was a befitting welcome to their critic number one and so brushing it aside I moved on. But how can you beat the fact that for four months, I have been unable to connect with their customer care lines despite trying repeatedly. The way i see it, no matter how populous a network is, that is totally unacceptable. Yet this was nothing compared to my most recent experiences.

The difference between 10 and 100 is a whole lot especially in monetary terms. But MTN either doesn’t agree with this or is grossly incompetent or worse still, dubious. There is no other way to explain why (or how) on checking my account balance, MTN’s invitation that I join the MTN treasure hunt stated that all texts cost N10 (ten naira).I sent the text, checked my balance and received two shockers. First, my call credit was N100 short and second, as if by magic the invitation now read differently. In the place of “all text cost N10” was “all text cost N100”.Immediately I caught the drift and despite their repeated entreaties to play more and win more, I counted my loss and avoided that game like a plague. But trust MTN to locate you “everywhere you go”. I came to Port Harcourt and as if I had not had enough, I fell right into their hands again. This time I mistakenly scratched off some of the numbers on the N200 recharge card I bought. In spite of their antecedents, I honestly thought rectifying that fault would be a routine affair. I was wrong. As usual connection with their customer care line was impossible (I tried for 2 days).So I set off for their office along Aba road in Port Harcourt. I don’t know what offended me the most-the fact that they could not take care of it right away or the sheer arrogance of the representative who attended to me. Anyway, after I had written my name, address and phone number he promised that my account would be credited with N200 before the close of the next working day. I had to exercise all the restraint I could muster to keep them from fouling my mood. As I turned to leave, I said to him (the customer care rep),”I hope I would not need to come here again to complain on this issue”.”No, you won’t”, he said, “Unless you just feel like coming”. Just as I feared, it was not done and I had to go back to that office even though I didn’t “just feel like coming”. By now, I had come to expect only the most bizarre from MTN and so I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I arrived at that office, made the same complaint, and was told that my line had an error (whatever that meant).He offered to load the card into his phone which was error free (I suppose) and then transfer it into mine before the end of the working day. Of course he did not deliver and so I had to visit that office for the third time over the same issue. This was the final straw.

Mr. Customer care kept me waiting for 20 minutes because he couldn’t locate my recharge card anywhere. I decided that -rather than going through another cycle of empty promises-if the recharge card is found, I’ll take it and leave. He found it and gave it to me, I said a nice thank you to him and walked away half expecting him to call me back and offer an apology. He didn’t. So I walked home, with my worthless recharge card tucked away in my wallet as a souvenir.