It seems the telcos are finally getting their comeuppance. A former military governor of Kaduna state, Rtd. Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, is suing MTN Nigeria for unsolicited messages being sent to customers, and fraudulent deductions from their account.
The retired Colonel ordered his lawyers to file the suit against MTN after his complaints to MTN Nigeria about the messages and the account deductions were not resolved. He said his motives for filing the suit stems from his grouse with the principle behind the practice which saw MTN enriching itself at the customer’s expense.
The former governor shared two of the last messages he received from MTN. One of them was for a callertune subscription, which he was charged N50 for, with an option to opt-out. The other text informed him of a subscription to an SMS service for jokes, and charged another N50 for the service, with an option to opt-out. Now, if N50 is deducted from all of MTN’s 50+ million customers accounts for such subscriptions, the tally comes to around N2.5billion. A tidy sum, if I might add.
According to Sahara Reporters, Abubakar Umar stated that he was filing his suit on behalf of fellow Nigerians, and is hoping that other subscribers in his situation will testify as witnesses in court.
This news comes about 3 weeks after a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled against Airtel Nigeria in a suit filed against them by a customer, Mr Emmanuel Anene. Mr Anene stated that the company was violating his rights to privacy by sending unsolicited messages to his number. Airtel Nigeria was subsequently fined N5 Million for this violation.
We’re hoping these lawsuits will finally do what the stern warnings, online petitions and deficient “Do Not Disturb” codes could not do – stop these telcos from spamming their customers.
