MTN Nigeria has recently devised another method of extorting credit from subscribers, when they discovered that many Nigerians are not subscribing to their numerous unsolicited promotional text messages.

The new method is that, the service provider sends messages of promotions or different service subscriptions to their unsuspecting customers and these messages are programmed with an end message of "to subscribe, press OK for 20NGN/week or 50NGN/week". The trick here is that, once you receive this message, some phones cannot be used until you press the "Call" button on your phone. This call button means "Yes" in many phones. Also, you could mistakenly push call button on your phone, which means a "Yes". This is a deliberate means, MTN is now using to make people subscribe to their numerous unsolicited promotions against the people will. What happens to asking subscribers to send a code to another code as it is done before. This ensures that the subscribers is actually willing to subscribe, compared to this their new strategy. This new strategy is simply fraudulent.

I discovered this when I got one of these messages on 30th July 2016, the message ended with "to subscribe, press OK for 50 NGN". At this point, my phone will not respond to any other button, except to press "Yes" button which is also the call button on the phone. I had to use my phone, then I pressed this button. The message disappeared but I knew my credit had been deducted. I called MTN's customer call immediately. The service agent said, she could not see any such subscription on my number's information log on her system. I was not really sure of my initial credit before this happened. I moved on the issue but I vowed to monitor my credit going forward, knowing fully that this service provider will repeat same scam message.

Lo and behold, on August 21st 2016, I received another of this type of message ending "to subscribe, press OK for 20 NGN /week". Again, I pressed the call button on my phone, the message disappeared. I checked my credit immediately and found that 20NGN has been deducted from my balance. This time, I am very sure they have deducted my 20NGN since I have been monitoring my credit from that first incident of 30th July 2016. My credit balance was 133.88 NGN before MTN sent this scam message. I had that 133.88 NGN on my phone since 20th August. I have not used the phone to call or text or do any airtime activity since 20th August. After the message, my credit became 113.88 NGN. Then, I received another text from MTN saying "Welcome to CREAM promotion service...” I called MTN customer care line. I was told that no such transaction occurred on my number. The agent was able to confirm my balance and transactions that happened on 20th August and he could also confirm that I have not used any air time since 20th August but he said he could not see the transaction that deducted my NGN 20.

At this point, I told him, MTN should refund my money but he said he could not see any transaction of the deduction. I dropped the call and later received a ticket number MTN1-25982830 from MTN.

This same issue happened again on 22 August 2016. This time MTN subscribed me for another promotion called "DANCE" and deducted my air time.

.

hmmm mtn again