The Open Deceit Called “MTN Treasure Hunt”

The Nigeria customer protection agency once clamped a beverage drink firm in Nigeria this year for a promo that it was organizing and hosting and said the promo was characterized by fraud and ordinances it discontinue from the promo. But no one was sure if that firm paid heed to the ordinance of the agency because a lot of things happen in Nigeria without strict checks.

Last night 3/12/08 I checked my cellphone account balance which was using MTN network and I saw the following write-up on it by MTN: “Your Xtracool Bal is Main:…Ur Bank balance could be N1m by tonight! Play MTN Treasure Hunt – N1m daily Prize. Text TREASURE to 77777. Each SMS costs N10”. And I text.

I was aware that the N10 in the text message by MTN was not originally N10, it was supposed to be N100, because N100 was the normal amount MTN has been collecting for this programme per each SMS, as prior told me by people who have entered for the promo. But what battled me was why N10 in the message? Was it to lure people to text and MTN would cut N100 instead of the N10 the texter might be carrying in mind for? Notwithstanding, the amount was not my problem, even that MTN cut N100 from my account balance when I sent SMS for the 'show' instead of N10 that the message on my phone was reading for their “MTN Treasure Hunt”.

When I joyously sent the message to 77777 and was expecting when MTN would inform me that I have won or have losed, as they had instructed in the SMS, “Ur Bank balance could be N1m by tonight! Play MTN Treasure Hunt – N1m daily Prize”, I only got a rude shock from the subsequent messages MTN sent me, and those who are very knack in unmasking 'fraud letters' would see reason that I was not just an alarmist.

Read the first message from MTN after I had contested: “MTN Treasure Hunt: WELCOME! Daily prize: N1 million. Weekly prize: N2 million. Jackpot: N10 million! Plus BONUS PRIZES. Reply with your name (6 letters max)”. When I saw this message, I know that MTN was up to something and I refused to reply for the fear of not losing another N100 from my account balance.

When I did not reply, another message came in from MTN just few minutes after the former, and it reads: “MTN Treasure Hunt Terms and Conditions: http://www.mtnonline.com/treasurehunt/index.aspx. We'll send you a FREE txt with all the information. (What about FREE txt?). N100 per txt sent. Sender 77777”. I did not still text because MTN had betrayed my initial trust in it following its advertising text in my account balance, which promise it did not fulfil. I will still repeat the message here: “Ur Bank balance could be N1m by tonight! Play MTN Treasure Hunt – N1m daily Prize”?

When I did not reply, I got another message from MTN on 4/12/ 08, 08:42:27am, thus: “MTN Treasure Hunt: IT'S HAPPY HOUR! Between 10am and 11am replying to this message will win double reward points! (Did you here “replying to this message will win double reward points!”?) N1 million must be won tonight!”

When I got that message from MTN, I said to my self, oh, I am at the verge of winning the N1 million. I rushed out from where I was, went and recharged my account and replied to ascertained that my name was sent, but only to be asked by MTN in another message after cutting another N100 thus: “MTN Treasure Hunt: Hello PRINCE (That is my other name). Reply Go to this message and start scoring points. Every text you send earns more points”.

When I got the above message from MTN, I raised my eyebrow, asked myself, what was MTN trying to do with my sensibility? MTN was genuflecting from one agenda to another without prior notice to me (like every other victim) that the N1 million was not going to be 'tonight' but “Every text you send earns more points”. That would be N100 per each text message?

Imagine where an individual sent 100 texts! That would be N10, 000. This should keep every sensible person asking what was MTN trying to do? To make the impoverished Nigerians it sold its network very costly when it first came in to Nigeria or to mar them? What is the TREASURE in the HUNT if one must keep on sending text messages for this HUNT and N100 is being cut? Is it everybody in Nigeria that makes up to N100 a day? One thought was that MTN wanted to help Nigerians from the message it sends out first for their Treasure Hunt, perhaps having realized that it 'duped' Nigerians for the high costly MTN network it sold when it came new into the country (making money then more than any oil company in the country). Not knowing that it was set for another smiling-to-the-bank gait with a deceit called MTN TREASURE HUNT.

I don't think that there is any difference from 'fraud letters' one gets unsolicited in his email box from the messages one gets from MTN over their TREASUE HUNT. The 'fraud letters' would not tell you where you were landing at first, but would at first tell you that there is million dollars for claim (for its greedy victims). It is only when the person must have replied demanding that he or she was interested in claiming the money that the sender of the 'fraud letter' would start talking different thing from the initial message sent that there was millions of dollars for claim. And this method is what I have seen MTN plying.

I think the Federal Government of Nigeria is too loose for checkmating these telephony or telefunny industries in Nigeria. And the National Communication Commission Vice Chairman, Eng. Ernest Ndukwe is not helping matters with the full swing on the inconsistencies of these good-for-nothing telephony industries we have in Nigeria.

Ndukwe is only gracing the pages of the newspapers, as the Vice Chairman. Maybe, we are waiting for the Chairman. Why should the different telephony companies be segregational? MTN I use charges N15 per each text message to another network. I don't know what other networks charge per each SMS to MTN. What an open fraud?

Sometimes you would want to send an important text message, MTN would tell you that your message have been delivered on the screen of your cellphone whereas the message did not go beyond the cave of your phone. And MTN has cut N5 in a case it was MTN-to-MTN, but N15 to other networks. No one is talking about how to get this money the company has cut without delivery? Maybe, because it is N5. but calculate N5 into two million people and know the 'success of fraud'.

In my humble opinion, what I thought MTN should be doing at this time was to see how to better its subscribers it had failed often and not to take from them again in the deceit called MTN TREASURE HUNT.

Sometimes you would want to make a call, MTN would not connect, and if it connects, it would be a poor service: either the caller is hearing the receiver and the receiver not hearing the caller, or vis-à-vis. Sometimes the receiver's phone would be ringing while on the phone of the caller the dial was showing not dialling. And when the receiver would want to pick the call, the buttons on the phone would just become stiff. What an embarrassment!

If MTN is looking for money to upgrade its machines, which was once published by journalists that they are in rather an obsolete condition if it were in the developed countries, it should tender application for fundraiser, and not to rob Peter to pay Paul in the name of MTN TREASURE HUNT.

Enough of this is enough! I don't think that all Nigerians are fools, except for the NCC and the Nigeria's consumer protection agency or agencies that have made us look more than fools in the hands of these telephony companies, but especially, in the ugly hand of MTN.

Odimegwu Onwumere is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State. +2348032552855. [email protected]