Photo of a Top seller who expressed dismay that he has not been able to sell Airtel top up card since this morning
This is not the first time mysierraleoneonline.com has been receiving complaints from Airtel consumers on the way and manner the company has been treating them with no respect and value for their monies.
It could be recalled that last two weeks, Airtel had serious network problem, but the company failed to come out in order to adequately explained to their clients the reason or reasons for their fault.
Last night to this morning, Airtel network is not operating properly. One of their clients described it as “Airtel has bad network ” with a high display of hanger as he disclosed to this press.
One cannot make or receive a call from Airtel, last night and now as this medium type this story; the time now is (11:29 am), this press attempted to make a call, here is the respond we got from Airtel. “ Your account is temporarily blocked , please contact your network operator”.
The company this time again has failed to send text messages in order to inform their numerous customers across the country so that people would understand what went wrong.
According to our investigation, the company is going through some technical changes in order to transform their service charge from Unit to Leones. This could be welcome news, but the company has failed again to relay this ininformation properly to the public. Greater majority of Airtel consumers at the moment cannot make or receive call.
The National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM) was established by an Act of Parliament in 2006 to regulate the Sierra Leone telecoms sector, protect consumer interest and ensure fair competition among service providers. This NATCOM has not been able to effectively undertake since its establishment.
In Sierra Leone, there is CONSUMER BILL OF RIGHTS which NATCOM has the power to enforce. The National Telecommunications Commission maintains that ‘The Consumer is always right’ and that it is incumbent on the overall service providers to respect and uphold the rights of the consumer. The Commission therefore accords every consumer of telecommunications services the following entitlements, rights and privileges, irrespective of their status in life.
These rights are:
THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED: Consumers must be provided with factual, timely and comprehensive information about products, services and anticipated obstructions in services, in a clear, accurate and understandable form, avoiding all misleading information contained in advertisements and public notices. Service providers are therefore required to assist consumers in making rational choices and decisions based on information provided by the service provider. A failure on the part of the service providers to comply with attributes of this right, shall amount to a breach of consumer’s right to disclosure of all relevant information pertaining to products, services and operations.
In this situation, Airtel has failed to inform their consumers on the said fault.
The regulating company has not been able to take any action even though the company has been violating the rights of their clients.
The same for the Independent Media Commission which is an independent commission set up by an Act of parliament to regulate the media in Siera Leone, but the commission is dancing to government directive.
