NIN: Globacom ‘Charges’ N1000 To Link Customers’ Lines In Enugu

Officials of Globacom at Okpara Avenue, Enugu, charge between N500 and N1000 to link customers’ telephone lines to their national identity numbers, THE WHISTLER reports. Officials of the branch however said the charge was to recharge customers’ lines to enable code sending.

Our correspondent, who went to perform the exercise around 2pm on Monday, met about five customers who were paying money to get their lines linked to their identity numbers. A male official of the telecoms giant, who had no name tag, told one of the customers at the Customers’ Care premises that, “We have network problems. Such is being experienced everywhere. But with N1000, we recharge your line and then send the code for you when the network normalises. It is always difficult for customers to get this done using their phones. But with our database, it is faster and more assuring.”

A customer, who said he is from Ikem in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area of the state, told our correspondent that, “I decided to come to this office to do this because I don’t know whether the code I sent has been accepted. They told me to pay N500 to do it for me; they told some to pay N1000. I have done that to avoid wahala. I don’t want to be disconnected.”

Three other customers were seen paying between N500 and N1000 to get the same services done. A lady at the reception was seen collecting the money and asking the customers to go, promising to ‘link their phone numbers once the network is normalised from Lagos’.

When our correspondent asked her if the charges were official, she said, “The point is that the network is bad. We use the money to recharge their phone numbers before sending the codes using our system. It is the only assuring way to get this done.” On why the charges were different, she said, “It is their lines that are being recharged. So the value goes to them.”

However, a customer who paid for the services told THE WHISTLER that, “I don’t know what they call ‘recharge’ because my line hasn’t been recharged with any airtime yet. It might be later. I’ll confirm.”

The manager of the branch was said to be absent when our correspondent wanted to interview him on the matter. The security man on duty also refused to provide the manager’s phone number for further enquiries.