NCC threatens MNO over illegal deductions

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has threatened to wield the big stick on all networks over illegal deductions made on subscribers’ accounts.

Speaking at the recent 86th Telecommunications Consumers Parliament in Abuja, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta, said the commission will from January 2019 begin to force the network operators to refund the illegal deductions.

Danbatta who was represented by Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management at NCC, Mr Sunday Dare, said some of the illegal deductions happened through forced subscriptions to Value Added Services that subscribers did not willingly opt for.

He noted that “The NCC carried out an investigation between 2016 and 2018 which revealed that telecoms consumers have been deducted billions of naira through forceful subscriptions, illegal and unauthorised deductions by Mobile Network Operators and Value Added Service Providers.”

According to him, the full report would be ready for release in January and added that the operators would be forced to return the monies to the subscribers.

Dare further disclosed that the discovery followed an on-going investigation covering a period of two years between 2016 and 2018 which confirmed that MNOs are in the habit of illegally deducting monies running into billions of naira from the accounts of their subscribers.

Though NCC did not give any statistics on the basis of networks, industry experts say the discovery by NCC came very late as the criminal act had been on for years.