We have never had it this bad; calls don’t sail through again, text messages are truncated; yet, MTN targets call credits with unusual promptness,” that was the lamentation of a subscriber over what he described as the declining quality of service being rendered by MTN Nigeria.
Most of the subscribers on the network, who spoke to our correspondent on Wednesday, lamented that they were losing huge sums of money to MTN services like borrowing of airtime and data subscription.
They stated that borrowing airtime on the MTN network had become a nightmare, adding that whenever they borrowed airtime credit, the service provider usually made them to pay back more than once.
A subscriber, Leo Sobechi, said, “You will be lucky if your borrowed credit is deducted only once, as borrowed credits are usually deducted more than once. Worse still, the network begins to remind you that you do not have sufficient credit to place a call even when you have spent less than half of the borrowed amount.
“When subscribers complain, the call centre operators usually promise to resolve the issue within 48 hours and will send a text message to confirm, but nothing is being done. When you complain again, they will re-assure you again and nothing is done most of the time.”
According to him, at other times, when short messages are sent, only parts of it reach the destination.
“The truncation of SMS is so annoying because your phone indicates that the message has been delivered, yet the recipient later calls to inform you that only a part was received. This has been my experience with the MTN network,” he said.
Sobechi added that he had stopped borrowing airtime credit from the MTN network, noting, “I discovered that despite the fact that the network gains 10 per cent of the borrowed amount, after making just two calls, I will start getting warnings that my credit is too low to make calls and that I should load an all in one card.
“Immediately after I recharge, the whole amount disappears. Again, I discovered that sending SMS with borrowed call credit is impossible, especially when the SMS is meant to be terminated on another network. MTN is notorious for this SMS abortion.”
Another subscriber, Mr. Samuel Akinloye, wondered if MTN was doing all that to raise money to pay the fine as imposed by the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Akinloye said, “We don’t know if something is wrong with MTN’s machine. And if something is wrong with the system, then they need to look into it. They should improve on their system, unless it is deliberate to get money to pay their fine.
“The last two weeks have been very critical. I have had to borrow credit from MTN on many occasions because I had to make urgent calls during the festive period, but I don’t usually use half of the credit before MTN clears the balance. Yet, when I recharge, they deduct the full amount of the credit borrowed.”
For Mr. Razarck Olaegbe, a subscriber, the difficulties being experienced on the network have always been there and the NCC has failed to tackle them.
“The quality of service that subscribers get cannot be said to be of high standard. But what can the subscribers do? Subscribers have learnt to live with it and move on since there is no better alternative. I have had countless experiences in this regard. More so, I have experienced drop calls million times; I have experienced barred calls several times too,” Olaegbe said.
Attempts to get MTN Nigeria’s official reactions to the complaints by the customers were not successful as those contacted refused to speak on the issues.
When our correspondent contacted the Director of Public Affairs, NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, he declined commenting on the matter, but said, “As long as the issue involves MTN, I will never say anything.”
However, the President, National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria, Mr. Deolu Ogunbajo, regretted that it was only one or two of every 100 cases reported that were being resolved satisfactorily.
“When the subscriber complains through the network operator’s customer care line, he/she will be told that the issue will be resolved in few days but usually to no avail. Even when the subscriber physically goes to the Customer Care Centre, it is also promises of resolution to no avail,” he said.
Ogunbanjo, however, urged subscribers to keep making complaints to the NCC’s toll free number 622 for resolution by the regulator.
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