Telcom operators stealing from customers

Efosa Osagie, a civil servant, was shouting on top of his voice, at a “recharge card” seller, at the Computer Village area of Ikeja Lagos, recently. His voice was so loud that it drew the attention of some of us that were around for something else. What was the issue? He tried loading a recharge card he bought from the lady card-seller for the purpose of making an urgent call; he wasn’t succeeding. Obviously it was as a result of the usual regrettable network issues associated with Nigeria’s GSM history; but Efosa, a man in his early forties would not  take any of such line of thought, apparently out of frustration. He almost pounced on the innocent card seller for daring to “sell to him a card that he couldn’t load when he wanted it”. But on a closer encounter with Efosa, his angst was not really about the card; but over a suspected illegal deduction of his credit units by his network providers. According to him, he had some credit units when he checked his balance during the early hours of the day.

He deliberately left the units for an “important” call he hoped to make later in the day. However, when it was time for him to use his credit, it turned out they have disappeared- he saw “00.00” credit balance. In an attempt to understand what happened, he called the “customer-care line” of his telecom network service providers; he was told that he subscribed to some “value-added services”. According to Efosa, “I am one thousand percent sure that I didn’t subscribe to any of such service”. Alright, convinced of the reality at hand, he begged to be removed from all subscriptions to avoid future occurrence. Pained that he had been “robbed”, he frustration grew more when the card he bought for replacement wasn’t connecting”.  And the man went “gaga”

But Efosa isn’t the only one that has the story of unlawful deduction/ non-transparent billing and exploitative automated services, one Tope Aladesokunro, a former banker shared her experience thus “I have never subscribed to any caller tune, but what did I get; after calls from my friends that they love my caller-tunes, I decided to call my phone with my other line (network); I was shocked to get five different caller-tunes. What that means is that every month, because each caller tune is charged fifty naira (N50.00) per month, they (her network operator) take two hundred and fifty naira (N250.00) from my account without my knowledge”. Tope concluded in disgust.

That telecom service providers have continued to exploit consumers through poor network, poor internet services and poor customer service, may no longer be news; what must be resisted along with theses however in this fourteen years history of GSM in Nigeria, is the renewed unsolicited services, unsolicited text messages, unlawful deductions/non-transparent billing, and exploitative automated services, forced on hapless phone owners in Nigeria whose seem to have given up on the regulatory agencies created for their protection. 

I must confess that until recently I didn’t know I was also a victim, and I can tell a good number of consumers are not aware they are been ripped-off. Imagine how many consumers that are ripped-off on a daily basis as a result of these “automated services” that they didn’t subscribe to? Imagine when a particular telecom provider unlawfully rip-off N50.00 from one million unsuspecting subscribers in a day.  That’s fifty million naira (N50,000,000.00). If this is not stealing, then it is corruption obviously.

It is perhaps only in Nigeria that problem known is never solved. Now we know the problem, regrettably, as it stands today, vast majority of Nigerian consumers can hardly get redress for infractions committed against them by service providers even in the face of the regulatory agencies including the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Consumers Protection Councils (CPC) which have all the enabling laws to act, but seem encumbered. As a result this obvious incapacitation on the part of the regulatory agencies, the telecom providers seem to have capitalized on it to continue to rip-off of Nigerian telecom consumers without end in sight.  Please NCC and CPC act now! Consumers deserve to be protected.

Arinze Okamelu