All along we thought Multi-level marketing (MLM) was just for nutritional supplements and skin care products like those from Forever Living. How wrong we were!

Last night, I was taken aback by the way that Econet Wireless was handling, or rather not handling, its very serious service delivery crisis. Since Saturday evening, subscribers have been expressing frustration and anger at the strange and unexplained disappearance of their airtime. From the people I have spoken to, people who had topped up their accounts with as much as $5 found, upon trying to make calls, that their balances were down to $0.

Since the adoption of the mixed hard currencies monetary regime in Zimbabwe at the end of 2009, the one problem that has refused to go away is that of change. Retailers just don’t have enough change to give shoppers. It’s the same situation with commuter bus operators, street vendors and just about anyone that sells goods.

At about 4PM on Thursday I got a call from a friend with the news was that he and a couple of his workmates were able to recharge their Econet Buddie lines for free using some leaked recharge codes. He confirmed that he had managed credit his mobile phone with US$ 50 worth of airtime.