South African website MyBroadband reports that mistakes highlighted by one of its readers have prompted MTN South Africa to conclude it was incorrectly charging some customers for calls to toll free numbers.
Customers on MTN’s Made for Me tariff were charged standard call rates to numbers in the 080 range. This range is used for toll free numbers in South Africa, as designated by ICASA, the South African comms regulator. The problem was identified by a customer who complained about being incorrectly charged for calls over an 18-month period. The customer owned four SIMs from MTN, but only the one on the Made for Me tariff had been charged for the toll free calls he made to a medical advisory service.
The error with the Made for Me tariff was fixed at the beginning of July. MTN has promised to credit all customers who were incorrectly charged before then. However, ICASA stated the process of reimbursing customers “will take time, as many call data records will need to be extracted to perform a reconciliation”. ICASA also stated that records were only available for the last six months, begging the question of how MTN will be able to make amends for all the erroneous charges applied since 080 numbers became toll free in September 2016.
You can read the full story at MyBroadband.
