MTN is Evil… It has Ruined Nigeria

MTN! Gosh! That name sucks! Mention MTN to any Nigerian today, the response is that of sigh, regrets and mtscheeew. It’s a name that most Nigerians would wish it never appeared in their lexicon. Nigerians hate this Telecommunication giant with passion. Like the snaky oil, car salesman, MTN has become a poster child for everything gone wrong in foreign businesses reaping Nigeria off. It has given a black eye to other good foreign businesses doing good business in Nigeria.

Ever since it arrived Nigeria, MTN has been insulting Nigerians. With over 62.8 million subscribers by the second quarter of 2015, it has the largest market in 22 African countries and Middle East where it operates. If MTN was an indigenous company, it would have long attracted the wrath of Nigerian authorities. Like the rambunctious, spoilt child running wild in a candy store, it has been committing series of atrocities and getting away with it. Yes, with murder… some may add!

Today, MTN is on the way out (or so we pray), the same way that it came. Here was a company that arrived on our shores with its high rate pricing and its also going the way it came: High price fine. Finally, Nemesis has caught up with it today. Is this a case of easy come, easy go or what goes around comes around?

How can Nigerians forget so soon MTN’s infamous calls which it rounded up to minutes? Back then when it was the only Cock that crowed in the land, there was no per second pricing because it said it was impossible to calculate. Even if you just raised the phone and replaced it, you were liable to a minute charge. If anything, MTN is the one that needs to retake its Mathematics not the Finance minister! How can anyone forget the so called N1 service charge it imposed on every recharge card it sold? Some opined that MTN may have been collecting the fund for an undisclosed, nondescript leader who now masquerade as a statesman. What a rip off!

Although these are history now, what cannot be forgotten so soon is that a company like GLO came after many years of MTN rip off and stopped this bleeding. With it’s unprecedented per second pricing, GLO busted this one minute jinx that MTN had on our necks and led the way for other telecommunication companies like Etisalat, Airtel, etc., to follow. We are enjoying a relative “good?” service today, thanks to GLO. Imagine what our lives would have been today if we were still paying this per minute rounded calls coupled with that horrendous service charge of N1 tagged on each recharge card? Our pockets would have been badly burnt while MTN smiled to the bank.

Forget about the much talked about high rate of dollar and the fall of Naira today, the story of the havoc that MTN is wrecking on Nigerian is a story that should not be put on the back burner. It’s a story of greed, shakedown and exploitation.

Lets take a look. Few years after GLO halted this hemorrhage, MTN devised even more devious, outrageous means of doing what it does best: exploiting Nigerians and smiling to their banks. A company that reported a profit of $995 million profit last year cannot say that it is not doing well in what it does. Folks, try converting this $995 million to Naira and see if your calculator can accommodate the result.

Currently, MTN is facing a fine of $5.2, (later reduced to $3.9 billion) by the Nigerian Communication Commission. Instead of paying this fine or simply entering into a payment plan with its host, it ran to the western media to argue that the fine was outrageous and could “discourage Nigeria’s badly needed foreign investment.” When it dawned on it that court cases are not judged in the media and that despite all the futile sponsored foreign press commentaries, it ran back to proof read the fine only to find typo errors in the figures…. something that it should have done ab intio instead of crying wolf.

As if playing to the press gallery and the correction of figures were not enough, it ran to court. When that also did not work, it hired former US Attorney General, Eric Holder. How many American companies, not to talk of a South African based company can afford to hire a former US Attorney General? To date, MTN has not told us how much it paid to retain the services of its Nigerian seven senior advocates and a high priced attorney like Mr. Holder. Holder was a US Attorney-General between 2009 and 2015. During his tenure, he presided over the biggest corporate settlements in US history which included the $13bn that JPMorgan Chase paid over the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the financial crisis and BP’s $18bn fine for oil spill. An anonymous top Nigerian government official who was dissatisfied at the choice of Holder observed, “Why would Eric Holder change anything? It looks a little desperate, like they couldn’t find anyone with proximity who is able to influence the president?

When all these futile interventions, delaying tactics and all tricks failed, MTN started to withdraw its money from 22 banks where it had accounts. It would be recalled that between October 2007 and May 2009, a period of 19 months, MTN moved over $7.7bn of the money made in Nigeria to a foreign account. Recall that the fine is mere $3.9bn as against its $7.7bn in just 19 months!

In the midst of this confusion that it created for itself, its Chief Executive, Sifiso Dabengwa and some of its Nigerian executives resigned. Today, MTN has finally come back to its senses. It has withdrawn the case it filed in Lagos High Court and paid a paltry sum of $250 million out of the huge fine. Hear how it couched the statement when it paid this fine: “Pursuant to the ongoing engagement with the Nigerian Authorities, MTN Nigeria has today made a… good faith payment of N50 billion ($250 million),” It was paid “on the basis that this will be applied towards a settlement, where one is eventually, hopefully arrived at. In an effort to achieve an amicable settlement, MTN has agreed to withdraw the matter from the Federal High Court in Lagos.” Notice the underlined sentence and the deliberate use of N50 billion instead of $250 million as if to sensitize Nigerians to the fact the deposit it made was enormous forgetting that this amount pales when compared to the outstanding $3.9 billion fine. It had earlier argued that this fine was a factor in its falling earnings. Let’s wait till March 3 when it will announce its full-year financial results to see how correct this claim actually is.

Have you ever wondered how MTN makes this huge profits and smiles to the banks while leaving us, their gullible customers poorer?

Here’s a typical experience most people may or may not be familiar with. MTN sends a text message to customers telling them to press 1 to activate a service (service they never requested) or press 2 to cancel. Truth is whether they apply a Hobson choice of pressing either 1 or 2 or nothing, MTN has already activated the service for them. It will start deducting  money from customer’s account from the day they pressed a key and before they know what hit them, their account is gone unless they are argus-eyed enough to cancel such service. How many people who get these messages remember to cancel such services on or before their expiry date? Some have even reported that even when they thought that they have cancelled such services, MTN will nevertheless continue to deduct money from them. What’s the difference between this and a bank gradually stealing customers money through usurious service charges without their knowledge or permission?

Another trick that MTN uses to extract money from unsuspecting customers is to inform them that a service they are offering is free. Wait a minute! Free? Where’s the catch? If a customer makes a mistake of pressing any key, MTN will start deducting their money from the day they unwillingly led themselves into this slaughter slab as sooner or later, their account will be gone.

Now this. MTN sends text messages to customer telling them that they have won a particular amount of money or prize and that is the reason they are getting these messages. They ask them to subscribe to what they did not request for in order to avail themselves of this prize. “If you don’t do anything, the service will be for you free.” says MTN robotized message. Really? Unbeknownst to the gullible, they agree and do nothing. That’s when MTN let’s loose hell on them. They start to deduct their money and before they find out, all money is gone.

MTN has never been of help to its customers. Calling its customer service is hell. “Press 1 if you want to hear advertisement. Press 2 if you don’t want to hear advertisement of any kind,” as MTN leads its customers on this torturous journey. No matter which option a customer chooses, MTN continues to bombard them with annoying sales pitch. “Dear customer, you have to wait for… approximately 45 minutes to speak to our next customer representative. If you want to wait, press 1. If you don’t want to wait, press 2. If you want to use our automated service, press 3.” With option 2, MTN keeps a customer for over an hour listening to the same advertisement that a customer opted out from initially. After waiting enough to merit a response from the almighty customer representative, then all of a sudden… are you ready for this, the phone goes dead with no warning. Try this torturous process again and the customer is left with the same humiliating treatment. On the third try, if a customer is lucky enough to reach a customer representative, MTN assures that even if it looses contact with that customer, it would call him/her back. Liar! Who has ever received a call back from MTN? They never did.

Could it be that customers are not entitled to the kind of services they want and so MTN must lord it over them–just to generate money?  Courtesy demands that companies must first inform their customers if they are interested in any program and if possible warn them of the consequences or even the risk
of subscribing to these programs, rather than merely telling them to press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. In a society such as ours where many are not so lettered to decipher MTN phony tricks, this is not fair. Imagine what our old mothers and fathers in villages are going through in the hands of this colossus. In a normal, good business setting, once a company deducts money from a customers account, it is required by law to notify such customer of such deductions, the reasons why it was made in the first place. Not so with MTN. It doesn’t tell a customer anything and when you question, half the people you talk to are clueless of what is going on.

Everyday, customers upon customers lament how they applied from MTN for a 10 MB daily, to check a simple mail and ended up committing error 101 by not texting “NO” to MTN which is their symbol to cancel. That’s enough to swallow any recharge amount no matter how big. What’s the difference between this and daylight robbery?

There can’t be any better example of where MTN takes people for a ride than what it calls Callertunez. They use this tempting service to extract money from unsuspecting customers. It doesn’t send any notification. It doesn’t get any customer’s permission but before they know it, customer will need a private investigator to find out what is happening to their money when they are in. Callertunez is not for everybody. MTN should channel its sales pitch to interested customers who must have requested for it rather than shoving it down everyone’s throats. That’s not fair! The company is already making money through their recharge cards, why should it devise many other crooked means like Callertunez to extract more money from the public and enrich itself?

Go to any MTN office in any state today and see the confusion that’s going on there. Everyday, subscribers throng to these offices to redo SIM registrations that they thought they have done years ago. Even when they have successfully completed the registration maybe four times over, MTN invites them again and again to come and re-register the same numbers. If they fail, MTN blocks their numbers. “Sorry, our software was unable to capture your fingerprints, your image was not very clear,” “you did not fill out the forms properly,” are some of the reasons MTN gives for holding them hostage all day. The confusion, total lack of coordination, break down of law and order, bedlam at these MTN offices shows that MTN is disorganized. But, just adjacent this MTN mad house are its competitors, Etisalat, GLO and Airtel, whose offices are very quiet and orderly. Is there something that these other telecommunication companies know that MTN is yet to learn? What MTN is doing to Nigerians today could make for an absurd comedy of a small parasite taking a so called giant of a continent on a rigmarole.

It’s not enough for the Senate to invite MTN boss to come and explain what is going on with their fine payment. They should be made to pay that fine now… and leave Nigeria tomorrow. We are yet to know of any Nigerian who will miss MTN when it leaves. Never! Nigerians have had enough of its insults. When and if this parasite goes, there would be no tears. If anything, Nigerians would celebrate its exit by popping many bottles of Champagne for a good riddance to a very bad rubbish.

(Photo credit:businesstech.co.za)