Letters
Are MTN super cheats or am I the one who is dumb?
Ugandans against phone use tax
Recently, I had UGX 1990 as airtime balance on my account but a message kept popping up on my phone: “You are running out of airtime call *146# and get airtime.” Irritated, and kind of curious, I pressed the said numbers and up came options for airtime. I selected the one of UGX 2000. I immediately received airtime, but it was less by UGX 200. I said to myself well, they have chopped off only UGX 200 and relaxed.
I only bought airtime bundles of UGX 1000 and now my loan account read a balance of UGX 800.
The following day, Sunday May 12, thinking that I had a balance of UGX 800 in my loan account and my UGX 1,990 which would to an ordinary mind add up to 2,790, I decided to buy data bundles of UGX 2,000, but you can imagine my dismay when I received a message that my airtime was insuficient. I did not understand what this meant.
Astounded, I decided to buy airtime of UGX 200 to make my balance sufficient, but MTN like a kite slashed it to service the loan leaving me with my original balance of UGX 1900/+ But when I checked my balance again I was surprised to see the loan money which was UGX 800 had miraculously turned into UGX 350. I got no clue where the 450 had gone.
What I did was to enter my mobile money account again and buy airtime worth UGX 1000. I was surprised that when I again tried to buy data of UGX 2000, the message of insufficient balanced popped up. The UGX 1000 had purportedly gone also to service the loan. And another message came up informing me that my balance was UGX 800. When I checked the actual balance it was not UGX 800 but UGX 799. Now, where did my one shilling go???
Remember I had UGX 350 on the loan account. When I checked again it had also now disappeared. I couldn’t buy the data anymore, but I also got confused. Something MTN does not tell you is that airtime on your phone and air time on the loan is not in the same account so you cannot use the two simultaneously. Up to now I am still reeling from the confusion and this has left me wondering whether they are smart thieves or I am the dumb one.
Hadijah Nakitende, 0786 338802
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