Telecoms Subscribers Lose N30bn Monthly to Unsolicited Texts

The President of National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Adeolu Oginbanjo, has said Nigerian subscribers lose over N30 billion monthly to unsolicited text messages sent to them by telecoms operators and Value Added Service (VAS) operators, who do telemarketing for the telecoms operators.

Ogunbanjo gave the shocking revelation, while delivered a paper at the fourth Industry Consumer Advisory Forum (ICAF), organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Lagos yesterday with the theme: ‘Effective Service Delivery: Issues And Challenges,’ raised the alarm that telecoms operators and their VAS operators are ripping off Nigerians in the area of unsolicited messages that are frequently sent to their mobile phones on daily basis.

In his paper presentation tagged: ‘Service Providers’ Compliance; Unsolicited SMS, Automatic Data Plan Renewal And Credit Depletion,’ Ogunbanjo explained that Nigeria has 150 million subscribers across all networks and that each telecoms operator charges subscribers between N200 and N250 monthly, which is automatically deducted from their airtime without consulting them, after they might have sent the unsolicited Short Message Service (SMS). Taking a minimum of N200 per month, per subscriber, Ogunbanjo said the 150 million subscribers would end up paying N30 billion every month to service providers who send them the unsolicited messages.

He called on NCC to act fast in order to stop the ripoff, which he said was disturbing and unacceptable.

Telecoms operators present at the forum, blamed the unsolicited messages on VAS operators, explaining that that have ways of penalising the VAS operators for sending unsolicited SMS.

Describing unsolicited SMS, the forum explained that subscribers are charged for the service they did not subscribe to, even when the subscriber declined to such messages by texting STOP to a designated code. “The annoying aspect is that even though we decide to unsubscribe, the SMS keeps coming and subscribers are automatically charged for such messages,” the forum said.

Responding to the issue of Automatic Data Plan Renewal And Credit Depletion, Head, Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement and NCC, Mr. Efosa Idehen, said NCC recently issued a warning to all telecoms subscribers to stop auto renewal for data subscribers on their networks, and to allow subscribers to make the choice of their monthly data package renewal by themselves, instead of forcing in on subscribers and be deducting the money from subscribers, without their permission to do so.

Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, who clarified the issue of fast credit depletion from mobile phones, said smartphones come with lots of applications that runs on the mobile phones and are active, when activated, even when the phone is not in use, and in the process, consumes data fast.

He therefore advised subscribers to check their mobile phones and deactivate all applications that are not need.

Aside unsolicited SMS, automatic data renewal and fast data depletion, the forum also discussed the issue of multiple taxation, among others.

Director, Consumer Affairs Bureau at NCC, Alhaji Abdullahi Maikano, explained that the different complaints raised at the forum would be looked into and solutions provided.

At the end of the forum, a communique was released, which highlighted the need for telecoms operators to create customer-centric culture, which is a paradigm shift from customer satisfaction to customer experience, and called on operators to address the issue of unsolicited SMS.