Three months after apologizing to telecommunication giant MTN for a post in which she said that over GH¢10,000 was “taken” from her MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) account without her knowledge, actress and entrepreneur Salma Mumin has expounded circumstances that led to the accusation.
Salma Mumin while noting that she had decided to not comment on the issue again having received counsel from some quarters, stated on UTV’s United Showbiz, Saturday, that it was imperative she offered some explanation “because people still haven’t forgotten about it.”
Setting the tone for the narration, she told host Nana Ama McBrown, “I’ll give a vivid account of the incident.”
A defensive Salma in her blow-by-blow account claimed although she had over ten thousand Ghana cedis in her account, she indeed could not send money to DHL for a service the company rendered as she kept receiving ‘insufficient funds’ feedback from MTN. Puzzled over what exactly could be the challenge, Salma said she placed a call to MTN for enquiry and assistance but the first attempt proved unsuccessful.
She recounted: “I have two mobile money numbers; one for my restaurant, the other for my clothing. My clothing line is a very new one so I have this number for transactions. When the money is sent to that number, I don’t access it, I don’t withdraw. If someone buys something and sends the money to that number, I only check for verification's sake. I don’t even check the balance. So, I didn’t have an idea exactly how much I had in my account but I knew for a fact that it was roughly around ten thousand and over. If you checked my post, I didn’t specify the exact amount. I mentioned over ten thousand because I wasn’t quite sure how much I had on it.
“So, what happened was, MTN has a code for sending money. There is the merchant code and the regular one. I have never made mistake with the codes because it’s something I use daily. I use the regular every day but it was actually my first time using the merchant… I woke up this morning and I had to pay DHL’s monthly bill for services they rendered. The transaction kept on failing, I was told the amount in my wallet was insufficient. I tried on four occasions. I was shocked. I asked myself if I was not using the right code. I went on the internet to crosscheck the code and it gave me the same code.
“I panicked and wondered what could be the issue because I had never withdrawn the money nor sent it to someone else. A few days before this, we were on set shooting an Abdul Salam Mumuni movie and our DOP started screaming. We asked and he said his money in his wallet is missing. We even had to pause for him to run to the office because when he called, they told him to come to their office. He went there; till now, he’s not received the money.
“The day my issue happened; I was having calls on my momo number although I had not given it out to people to call. They’ll call, I’ll answer and they’ll try to steal from me. So, I called somebody I know is into this IT thing and he said that’s how they go about it. They call, talk to you, while you’re on the phone, they’ll have a way of [defrauding you].
“So, when the transaction failed, I called MTN and complained. They asked me the code I was using and I mentioned it to them. They responded that it’s accurate so if the feedback I get is ‘insufficient funds’ unless I come to their office. I know for a fact how it was going to end because I had witnessed a similar incident. So, I decided to take it to social media; there, I’ll receive a quicker response from MTN.
“This person that called me from MTN took me through the same procedure three times, it still didn’t work. She hanged up and said you’d call me back.”
Salama continued that, “She called back and said they now know where the problem is and that when I went to register my sim card, I registered two accounts on one sim card. I got confused because I don’t remember. They said they were looking through their system and could see my money and that it wasn’t ten thousand but seven thousand, five hundred and something… They sent me their data, I checked and thanked them. And immediately without them asking, I went on social media to say my problem has been resolved by MTN.”
Insisting that she had no motive to tarnish MTN’s image and acted the way she did because she “was just a worried customer”, Salma said she had evidence to back her claim that she publicly announced the challenge had been rectified even before MTN issued the statement which asked her to apologise and retract.
Watch Salma Mumin's blow-by-blow account below. Her narration starts from 1 hour 33 minutes.
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