Hottestgistinnaija
Kola Popson
MTN Nigeria belongs to the South African company MTN Group. It began operations in Nigeria on May 16, 2001. It was the first Nigeria GSM company to establish operations in Nigeria and it has grown briskly with millions of subscribers joining its network. Today MTN is adjudged, by many, the biggest telecoms company in Nigeria.
MTN Nigeria was reported to have launched its full commercial operations with Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt as its first operational places. However, today it has spread its network to every state in the Nigerian Federation, and the name ‘MTN’ has unarguably become a household name in the Nigerian Telecommunications world.
Due to the massive patronage MTN enjoys from Nigerians, and the huge commercial gains it has recorded since its inception in Nigeria, the company labels itself the best connection of all the telecommunications companies in the country. It portrays itself as a telecommunication company embedded with best services delivery to its subscribers. Its campaign phrase, ‘Everywhere you go’ rings a bell to the hearing of many. And of course, ordinarily not many would question its capabilities in giving out the best to the subscribers it has continued to make so much from.
‘To whom much is given, much is expected’. Yes many expect that MTN gives out the best to its subscribers in terms of services it renders to them in exchange for the huge amount of money the company makes from them on a daily basis. However, the reverse seems to be the case.
The frequent unpleasant experience I am prone to as an MTN subscriber prompted me to sample the opinions of other subscribers, on behalf of www.hottestgistinnaija, to ascertain if I am the only one experiencing such, but what I found out from others were even more alarming and disheartening compared to my own case.
The most pathetic of my findings was from Mr. Olanrewaju who resides somewhere around Odogunyan (Odo kekere to be precise) area of Ikorodu in Lagos State. Mr. Olanrewaju shared his ordeal experience as an MTN GSM subscriber and explained that this ugly experience has necessitated the need for him to stop patronizing the services of MTN Nigeria.
What could have warranted his decision on this, one may ask? Well, Mr. Olanrewaju narrated how he had driven out in the middle of the night (few minutes to 1am) with his heavily pregnant wife, who was very unconscious, as a result of the fact that she was due to give birth.
Mr. Olanrewaju explained that before they left home, his wife had been feeling so unconscious that he could only manage to take with him a mobile phone, which housed his ‘one-time treasured line’ (MTN line).
Unfortunately, and for God knows why, as he headed towards the road that links to Odogunyan, his car broke down at the middle of the road and at a deserted spot to be precise. Why would this happen? The man couldn’t explain. Here was his adored wife in the car feeling very unconscious and obviously in pain. The man was totally confused!
However, being a man with a very functioning mind, he quickly conceived an idea of placing a call through to one of his friends to come to his aid. He had two options of calling either Kingsley who resides at Odogunyan, or Muiz who lives close to his house at Odo kekere. He was going to call Kingsley first, he had decided. So he picked his phone and dialed Kingsley’s number, but was confronted with an annoying recorded voice of a lady, “Your call-credit has been exhausted and your call terminated…” What! This couldn’t be through, he said to himself. He dialed *556# to check his balance, and he had #1,352.02k left.
Mr. Olanrewaju tried calling again several times, but with the same annoying voice echoing into his ear that he had no call credit to make calls. He even tried calling Muiz’s number, thinking ironically that it was Kingsley’s number that was having issue, but with no difference. “At that time, I looked at my wife groaning in pain, and I felt the world was about to end,” he lamented. He would have made attempts to walk back to Odokekere to meet Muiz or walk to Odogunyan to get Kingsley’s car, but he couldn’t leave his wife all alone in that deserted spot and in that condition of hers!
Having spent roughly two hours at the spot trying to make calls with no avail, no movement of people or cars, and seeing his wife feeling so exhausted, it was at that point that he made up his mind to disengage himself from the services of MTN. “My brother, MTN disappointed me at a time I needed its services most, though God sent me another person who came to my aid,” Mr. Olanrewaju said to me and I could vividly feel the tone of disappointments in his voice.
“Something terrible might have happened to my wife and baby, but for the two night guards who walked our way and one of them offered me his mobile phone with another network (name withheld) different from MTN to call my friends, who later came to pick us,” Mr. Olanrewaju explained. He noted further that he has destroyed his MTN SIM card, adding rhetorically that what is the essence of subscribing to and paying for a service you will be denied of at a time you need it most.
Another finding I got about the poor service delivery of MTN was from Edward who resides around Omole, Ikeja area of Lagos State. Edward narrated how his internet bundle, which he had paid for, stopped for good 12 days without genuine reason or explanations from MTN. He explained that after he had forwarded his complaint to MTN, it took the officials of MTN 10 days before they could properly address the problem. According to him, this means that he was off internet services of MTN, which he had duly subscribed to, for 22 days. In other words, he could only get access to internet services of MTN for just eight days out of the 30 day subscription he had paid for. This, according to him, is one of the many ways MTN employs in defrauding its subscribers.
In the same vein, the regular spam text messages from MTN to its subscribers are another thing many are not comfortable with. Almost all the people I spoke to, in the cause of gathering information for this write-up, expressed their displeasure over various unwarranted text messages from MTN, requesting them to play some games with a view to winning fantastic prizes. Many of them wonder why licensed telecommunication firms, MTN in particular, would turn to lottery companies. MTN should put an end to this because many of its subscribers are not comfortable with it.
Another act of MTN that many of my respondents consider disgusting and fraudulent is its caller-tune subscription. Many of them complained that MTN deduct their account for caller-tunes they didn’t subscribe to. They are not happy that MTN keeps deducting their money for the service they do not want, and in most cases, MTN renew this subscription automatically and deduct their money without notice. Alhaja Modupe Oseni wants to end this, but she doesn’t really know how to go about it. She said each time she places a call through to MTN customer line (180), she gets no response from them and, often, her call is put on hold for almost an hour without being attended to.
On a similar note, Abdul Azeez from Lagos Island also narrated his ugly experience using MTN network. He explained that on a particular day, he received one of the various disgusting and ‘privacy-infringement’ text messages from MTN (33112) asking him to provide a phone number of his lover so that they could send him or her heartwarming love messages on his behalf.
Out of annoyance, Abdul Azeez quickly deleted the text message, but to his dismay, another text message from same number and on same subject matter came in immediately. He was so furious and would want to end this once and for all. Part of the message had read, “To stop receiving this message, text STOP to 33112.” He did as instructed, but this action was followed by immediate deduction of thirty naira (#30) from his call credit. Why would MTN deduct #30 from his account for no just reason, coupled with the fact that ordinarily sending a single text message costs just four naira (#4)?
The most painful aspect is that having deducted his account for the ‘STOP’ text message he sent to 33112, MTN continued to send him very similar text messages, but with a different number, 33114. It then dawned on Abdul Azeez that it was just another of the many fraudulent acts of MTN purposely targeted at those subscribers who might have felt disturbed by the unwarranted text messages and wanted to put an end to it.
There are many questions burning in the minds of the subscribers of MTN Nigeria. Why does MTN deduct money for services it does not render? Why does MTN disappoint its subscribers at a time they need its services most? Why does MTN send spam and unwarranted text messages to its subscribers always? Is MTN not contended with billions of naira they make legally from their subscribers? Why are the owners of MTN trying to turn a telecommunication company to a lottery company? These and many more are the questions and things people want addressed as soon as possible.
