Nigeria’s Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has said that telecoms companies in Nigeria are continually abusing the rights of the consumers (subscribers), it is also requesting the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to draw out a special compensation plan for telecoms subscribers for the poor quality of the services being offered by the various operators in Nigeria.
Dupe Atoki, CPC’s director general, said these in Abuja during a courtesy visit to Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC. She said the violations of consumer rights by the operators include poor quality of service-especially high rate of drop calls and unsolicited text messages, even at odd hours. Others are unauthorised conscription of consumers into some telecom services or packages, especially caller tunes, without easy opting out options.
She said the identified breaches required “immediate regulatory attention”.
“Other concerns include the disruption of internet service without prior notice to consumers; lack of compensation for down times; unfavourable data roll-over terms; and non-provision of detailed billing information on used data. She also mentioned unfavourable customer care centres; ineffective customer care lines; and non-transparent sales promotion terms and conditions.
“There is need to step up collaboration between NCC and CPC to address some of the consumers’ concerns. Despite NCC’s directives on unsolicited SMS, operators still indulge in the practice of sending messages to subscribers at odd hours, thereby infringing on the rights of individuals for a decent rest.
“There should be a compensation policy put in place, where in if you have been short-changed for 10 seconds, you get your money back. And if that can be cumulative, in a month, or in a quarter, that amount of money that has consistently being short-changed can be calculated and reemitted to the consumer whether at the equivalent in cash or in airtime.”
“We are not unmindful of the challenges that operators put out as being responsible for poor service, some of which are vandalism of equipment, double taxation or even cost of laying cables.
“But for us, our concern is that, if we pay for these services, as long as you are in business and declaring profit, it is not in the interest of consumers to be faced with poor quality of service. If the challenges in the operating system environment still enable the operators to be in business and to make profit, then they are not fundamental enough to justify poor quality,” Atoki said.