Over 19,000 subscribers lodge complaints against Telcos, says NCC

Following the operations of Mobile Network Operators between January and October, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that 19,977 complaints were lodged by subscribers against the service providers.

The complaints had to do with billing issues, quality of service, sales promotion, unsolicited messages and advertisements among others.

On complaints about customer care, subscribers decried their inability to connect to helplines; alledged nonchalant attitude of agents; incorrect response from agents, among other infractions.

On the quality of service in respect of voice and data, the subscribers complained about call interference, inability to receive calls, call divert, call barring, persistent data depletion, and poor signal/no network to mention a few.

The four channels, which subscribers laid the complaints, are NCC’s Contact Centre (622), Consumer Portal against Service Providers, social media and correspondences.

Assuring subscribers of adequate protection, Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, explained that the exercise was geared towards harnessing extant policies, regulations and guidelines for the protection, information, education and empowerment of telecommunications consumers in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, NCC had fined the four major network operators in the country a total of N74m for various infractions.

NCC had in 2018 highlighted some noncompliance by the network providers “such as quality of service; approval for promotions and advertisements; and SIM registration in a controlled environment, among others.”

The fine, however, is basically for SIM registration infractions, unapproved promos and advertisements, and failure to provide information on collapsed towers.

According to the NCC, all the network operators are guilty of SIM registration outside a controlled environment.

The NCC consequently placed a fine of N60m and gave them a deadline of September 14, 2018 to pay.

The report indicates that MTN was asked to pay N5m; Airtel N20m; Glo N30m; and 9mobile N5m.The telecoms regulator had in 2017 instructed operators to stop registering SIM cards under umbrellas, kiosks or other uncontrolled environment.

Additionally, 9mobile got a total fine of N4m for two different promotions – My 9mobile App and ZTE MF910 4 G Mi-Fi promotions – both of which were unapproved by the commission.

Likewise, Globacom was also fined N2m for an unapproved advert tagged ‘Enjoy non-stop browsing this season of love.’ For its ‘E-Top-Up 8X Bonus’ promo, the NCC, noting that it was not approved and violated the floor price, fined the company a total of N4m for the two infractions.