- Consumers lament DSTV, PHCN, GSM firms make them pay without getting services
Nigerian consumers of the services of phone operators,
paid television services and electric power supply firms have one story
in common, bitterness for being compelled, coerced, cajoled and bullied
to pay billions of naira every month for services they never get.They
seem trapped and have no way to escape the trap set all around them by
the colony of service providers that seem more interested in getting
money from them no matter how poor the services they provide.
On July 28, when the last public holiday for the Muslim festival was
on, Wale Adebola, a young banker was not happy as was expected on a day
of celebration.
His anger was the discovery after he had loaded N3,000 to update the data pack of his mobile gadget. After the successful top-up, he felt sure of himself to handle some online jobs from home. But some 40 minutes into the use of his gadget, the internet access stopped. He mistook this for temporal disconnection and never felt too worried.
He told Abuja Metro that he had attributed the problem to the weather as such services in Nigeria are always at their worst when it rains. But he was wrong, as he found out at last when his inability to reconnect kept lingering and failing. He got the message right when he later checked his validity status to find that he had no kobo left in his data.
He could not find an explanation to this and had to put a call through to the service providers that gave him no meaningful reason for that problem. He was totally confused because his complaint to the people who should provide an answer gave no hope.
Sometime last year March, at the Abuja head office of the of a telcom company in, Wuse II, a young Nigerian resident in London and on holiday in Abuja went to that office to get subscription for his internet use. He paid N7,500 to one of the workers with an agreement to update and get the facility working.
He went back home and waited in vain to use the service. The following day, a Saturday, he came back to the office to complain of the failure only for someone on duty to find out that the lady that got the payment for the service merely walked away with the money and never made any attempt to do the work.
It was his alertness to describe exactly the woman he recalled was pregnant that saved the day.
After the discovery, the lady on duty handling the problem put a call across to the pregnant colleague that was off duty that day only to be told that she didn’t handle the subscription. After the call, the lady exchanged a knowing smile with another lady colleague. Evidently, the woman the previous day, never made any attempt to do the job believing that the young man would travel out of town early the following morning as he had said and won’t have the chance to come back and ask why. From their glances, it was obvious that such tricks are common.
Abuja Metro reporter once paid for internet service with the Airtel at Wuse II office and never used it for a day. After some three weeks when he found time to get back to the office to ask what happened, the person on duty that attended to him noted that although the subscription had expired, she could not see any evidence that any subscription was ever made with or to the modem. She noted that since the data was not used, the subscription would have been there, expired but not used. But none of such was there. The customer’s question on whether he was defrauded of N3,000 payment for the data plan on the same day he bought the modem from the same office got no answer.
Damian Ndubueze moved into a new apartment in the Arab Road area of Kubwa on July 1. The apartment is fitted with pre-paid power meter. When he packed in, the meter still had about 251 units of power not yet consumed. The owner of the property even congratulated the person that left the apartment for being so kind to leave behind such benefit for the new tenant.
But two weeks after when the power recharge got exhausted, Ndubueze said he got the shock he never prepared for when he went to the Abuja Power Holding Company office in Kubwa to be told that there was outstanding N6,500 service charge for the meter. Why?
The woman behind the computer said the meter was recharged about 270 days back and everyday, the meter attracts a charge of N26. And according to her, with satisfaction for the fraud, “this charge is outstanding whether the power is used or not.” What could be added is the consumer pays the charge whether the firm supplies power or not. The true meaning is that every power consumer is compelled and coerced criminally to pay the power holding company for service not rendered. And the operators don’t see anything wrong with the development.
In a similar development, Ms. Jane Onyedinma narrated to Abuja Metro how she recharged her DSTV service and travelled out of town two days after, and when she was back after one month, the service she paid for without use had expired. Such is the case with those that pay and don’t have power supply in their area to use the service. Whether they made use of it or not, the services keep running and there is no problem with the system sees.
In some other conversations Abuja Metro had, in fact too many to be recalled in singles, about 12 of 14 DSTV customers separately spoken with admitted one way or the other that DSTV had made them to severally pay for subscription and they didn’t get the service. The worst of the cases is paying for the DSTV service after an existing one had expired and not getting reconnected thereafter.
One of them, Adewale Oyenuga asked: “If Nigeria were a normal society where the consumer has any rights, why would DSTV that seems to be the worst of defrauding service providers dutifully and unfailingly toss your service at expiration and fail to do so when you re-subscribe? You will keep calling them and would get no reply. They intentionally refuse to do anything about it. And if at last they reconnect you two weeks after, they don’t give you back those lost days, but rather start counting your subscription from the day you paid, yet they are the ones that refused to reconnect you. What I have not understood is if DSTV serves South Africans, their citizens, the same way they serve us here. Or they have brought their apartheid to us in a different way. I have a feeling South African investors in Nigeria have the habit of fraudulent service because those that know the history of MTN, are aware that Nigerians suffered terribly in their hands for many years before competition slowed them down. Yet, they are still at it.”
Another consumer, Eseoghene Eugene’s complaint is that his GSM service providers, essentially MTN and Airtel keep sending him text of his of successfully subscribing to one service or the other. But he lamented that he could never remember ever subscribing for any such service. And at last, he said the service providers would send him text to inform that they have deducted some amount of money from his airtime for a service he knows nothing about.
He said his constant complaints that were never heeded were what made him drop his Glo data plan where he paid and kept paying for one service or the other he never knew of. “I kept complaining until I got tired and dropped the modem. I don’t think this is a normal way to serve consumers. But regulators of the sector don’t seem to care about our problems. I have even attended some consumer fora and raised complaints just like many other Nigerians. So, I can’t understand why we continue the same way.”
Abuja Metro also samples opinions of other consumers to know which of the service providers is worst, it was a stiff contest between the DSTV and PHCN. While about 16 of 20 marked DSTV as worst, 14 said PHCN is major culprit. Because the sampling involved all the service agents for every respondent, about 9 blamed the GSM firms as worst.
Their argument is whereas the GSM firms, most of the times render the service, though poorly, DSTV and the PHCN charge you even when they intentionally withheld their service or when the failure is from them. They argued that with the GSM companies, whenever a consumer does not make calls, the airtime remains with him, but not so with the two others – DSTV and PHCN.
On how the react to the service providers for the failures, all the respondents agreed they have at one time or the other complained to them and never got anything better, neither compensation nor improved service, and sometimes, not even an apology as they rather labour to explain away their failings for the shortcomings.
His anger was the discovery after he had loaded N3,000 to update the data pack of his mobile gadget. After the successful top-up, he felt sure of himself to handle some online jobs from home. But some 40 minutes into the use of his gadget, the internet access stopped. He mistook this for temporal disconnection and never felt too worried.
He told Abuja Metro that he had attributed the problem to the weather as such services in Nigeria are always at their worst when it rains. But he was wrong, as he found out at last when his inability to reconnect kept lingering and failing. He got the message right when he later checked his validity status to find that he had no kobo left in his data.
He could not find an explanation to this and had to put a call through to the service providers that gave him no meaningful reason for that problem. He was totally confused because his complaint to the people who should provide an answer gave no hope.
Sometime last year March, at the Abuja head office of the of a telcom company in, Wuse II, a young Nigerian resident in London and on holiday in Abuja went to that office to get subscription for his internet use. He paid N7,500 to one of the workers with an agreement to update and get the facility working.
He went back home and waited in vain to use the service. The following day, a Saturday, he came back to the office to complain of the failure only for someone on duty to find out that the lady that got the payment for the service merely walked away with the money and never made any attempt to do the work.
It was his alertness to describe exactly the woman he recalled was pregnant that saved the day.
After the discovery, the lady on duty handling the problem put a call across to the pregnant colleague that was off duty that day only to be told that she didn’t handle the subscription. After the call, the lady exchanged a knowing smile with another lady colleague. Evidently, the woman the previous day, never made any attempt to do the job believing that the young man would travel out of town early the following morning as he had said and won’t have the chance to come back and ask why. From their glances, it was obvious that such tricks are common.
Abuja Metro reporter once paid for internet service with the Airtel at Wuse II office and never used it for a day. After some three weeks when he found time to get back to the office to ask what happened, the person on duty that attended to him noted that although the subscription had expired, she could not see any evidence that any subscription was ever made with or to the modem. She noted that since the data was not used, the subscription would have been there, expired but not used. But none of such was there. The customer’s question on whether he was defrauded of N3,000 payment for the data plan on the same day he bought the modem from the same office got no answer.
Damian Ndubueze moved into a new apartment in the Arab Road area of Kubwa on July 1. The apartment is fitted with pre-paid power meter. When he packed in, the meter still had about 251 units of power not yet consumed. The owner of the property even congratulated the person that left the apartment for being so kind to leave behind such benefit for the new tenant.
But two weeks after when the power recharge got exhausted, Ndubueze said he got the shock he never prepared for when he went to the Abuja Power Holding Company office in Kubwa to be told that there was outstanding N6,500 service charge for the meter. Why?
The woman behind the computer said the meter was recharged about 270 days back and everyday, the meter attracts a charge of N26. And according to her, with satisfaction for the fraud, “this charge is outstanding whether the power is used or not.” What could be added is the consumer pays the charge whether the firm supplies power or not. The true meaning is that every power consumer is compelled and coerced criminally to pay the power holding company for service not rendered. And the operators don’t see anything wrong with the development.
In a similar development, Ms. Jane Onyedinma narrated to Abuja Metro how she recharged her DSTV service and travelled out of town two days after, and when she was back after one month, the service she paid for without use had expired. Such is the case with those that pay and don’t have power supply in their area to use the service. Whether they made use of it or not, the services keep running and there is no problem with the system sees.
In some other conversations Abuja Metro had, in fact too many to be recalled in singles, about 12 of 14 DSTV customers separately spoken with admitted one way or the other that DSTV had made them to severally pay for subscription and they didn’t get the service. The worst of the cases is paying for the DSTV service after an existing one had expired and not getting reconnected thereafter.
One of them, Adewale Oyenuga asked: “If Nigeria were a normal society where the consumer has any rights, why would DSTV that seems to be the worst of defrauding service providers dutifully and unfailingly toss your service at expiration and fail to do so when you re-subscribe? You will keep calling them and would get no reply. They intentionally refuse to do anything about it. And if at last they reconnect you two weeks after, they don’t give you back those lost days, but rather start counting your subscription from the day you paid, yet they are the ones that refused to reconnect you. What I have not understood is if DSTV serves South Africans, their citizens, the same way they serve us here. Or they have brought their apartheid to us in a different way. I have a feeling South African investors in Nigeria have the habit of fraudulent service because those that know the history of MTN, are aware that Nigerians suffered terribly in their hands for many years before competition slowed them down. Yet, they are still at it.”
Another consumer, Eseoghene Eugene’s complaint is that his GSM service providers, essentially MTN and Airtel keep sending him text of his of successfully subscribing to one service or the other. But he lamented that he could never remember ever subscribing for any such service. And at last, he said the service providers would send him text to inform that they have deducted some amount of money from his airtime for a service he knows nothing about.
He said his constant complaints that were never heeded were what made him drop his Glo data plan where he paid and kept paying for one service or the other he never knew of. “I kept complaining until I got tired and dropped the modem. I don’t think this is a normal way to serve consumers. But regulators of the sector don’t seem to care about our problems. I have even attended some consumer fora and raised complaints just like many other Nigerians. So, I can’t understand why we continue the same way.”
Abuja Metro also samples opinions of other consumers to know which of the service providers is worst, it was a stiff contest between the DSTV and PHCN. While about 16 of 20 marked DSTV as worst, 14 said PHCN is major culprit. Because the sampling involved all the service agents for every respondent, about 9 blamed the GSM firms as worst.
Their argument is whereas the GSM firms, most of the times render the service, though poorly, DSTV and the PHCN charge you even when they intentionally withheld their service or when the failure is from them. They argued that with the GSM companies, whenever a consumer does not make calls, the airtime remains with him, but not so with the two others – DSTV and PHCN.
On how the react to the service providers for the failures, all the respondents agreed they have at one time or the other complained to them and never got anything better, neither compensation nor improved service, and sometimes, not even an apology as they rather labour to explain away their failings for the shortcomings.
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