MTN distances itself from ‘land’ tweet, says it was sent from parody account

MTN has distanced itself from a tweet that was allegedly sent from an imitation account with its name.

The cellphone network stated that the tweet was sent from a parody account and that it had ensured the account was no longer in operation. This is according to Bridgitte Bhengu, spokesperson for MTN SA, in a statement.

“MTN distances itself from [the] parody Twitter account. MTN has noted a parody social media account that masquerades as an official MTN Twitter account. The reported response from this account to an MTN customer, which MTN regards as insensitive, was not sanctioned by MTN.

“We urge our customers to disregard this Twitter handle as it is not an official MTN Twitter handle but a parody account that was opened and shut down in 2016. Approximately six parody accounts purporting to be MTN Twitter handles have been opened since 2013.

“Twitter has suspended some of these accounts while others became inactive after being discovered. MTN has contacted the customers that have received feedback from these accounts and advised of that fact,” she said.

In addition to that, Bhengu also mentioned that they identified another parody account this week called MTNCare_ZA which has been reported to Twitter for suspension.

An MTN user wrote a complaint tweet to the apparent MTN customer care Twitter account stating that the service provider had startlingly taken her data and airtime from her phone, and alleged that no one from the service provider had replied to the email she had sent earlier regarding the matter.

In response to the customer’s enquiry, MTN allegedly made a comment saying what had happened to her was sad – however, at least she still had land.

“That’s sad, but at least you have the land,” the account, from which MTN has now distanced itself, tweeted.

Though the tweet was allegedly removed from the account, a screenshot was taken of it and it circulated on social media.

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