DAYLIGHT ROBBERY! Top city lawyer exposes Airtel Uganda data fraud, asks GoU to force a forensic audit, sweeping reforms at Telco
By our reporter
A top Kampala lawyer has come out to share with Ugandans his ‘frustrating and exploiting’ experience with Airtel Uganda Data bundles alleged ‘fraud’.
In a long missive shared via his Twitter handle @jonekyoma, John Musiime, a lawyer and an Advocate, paints a picture of a Telco engaging in acts akin to daylight robbery targeting her own loyal unsuspecting customers.
He also puts on notice the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the national regulatory body of the communications sector, to wake up from the slumber land and rise to the occasion.
According to Musiime, a partner at UEDCL Towers-Plot 37-Nakasero Road based Kyagaba & Otatiina Advocates—Dentons (Uganda), the only solution to this mess is a thorough forensic audit at Airtel Uganda whose headquarters are housed at Airtel Towers, 16A Clement Hill Road, Kampala, Uganda.
Musiime, who last month received an ‘Excellence Award’ from the Uganda Law Society (ULS) in recognition of his exemplary quality of practices as an Advocate for the year 2021/22, suggests that the GoU of Uganda through UCC should show that it cares about her citizens—not only the US$77.78 million it pays in taxes and licence—by forcing sweeping reforms at the Telco through calling to order Indian expatriates calling shots at Airtel Uganda led by MD Manoj Murali.
Airtel Uganda, not even listed on the Uganda Stock Exchange, is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa PLC owned by the Indian communication services company Bharti Airtel.
Below is Counsel Musiime’s experience, verbatim:
AIRTEL’S VANISHING DATA, BLAME THE VICTIM CUSTOMER TACTICS PROVE URGENT NEED FOR A FORENSIC AUDIT AND REFORM
“I purchased a ‘daily’ data bundle of 2.2 GB on my Airtel sim card on Saturday 10 September 2022 at 9:58 am. At 11:07 am, I got two simultaneous SMS notifications. The one said I had already used 70% of the data bundle, the other that I had already used 90% of it.
“I complained to Airtel on twitter. They privately messaged me their standard 7-item list of how to ‘manage your data bundles’. Although I had gone through this list before, I went through it again ensuring that I checked what phone applications accessed my mobile data leaving only those that I absolutely needed at the time.
“At 12:42 pm, I purchased a ‘weekly’ data bundle of 1.76 GB. As soon as I completed the purchase, I received two simultaneous SMS alerts. The one said I successfully subscribed to the bundle, the other that I had already used 70 % of it.
“At 14:59 pm, the “you have used 90% of your data bundle” alert came in. By that time, whatever data volume I had left could hardly browse anything online.
At 14:59 pm I subscribed for a “daily” 180 MB bundle. This time, I immediately received 3 simultaneous SMS alerts. You have subscribed, you have already used 70% and you have used 90%.
“All Airtel data alerts end with the standard “Dial *175*2* if you want more MBS at the same price!” Like you are really enjoying this experience!
I gathered the screenshots of these SMS alerts and tweeted protesting what I saw and still see as Airtel’s taking of my money and delivering nothing but anguish in return.
“The tweet gathered storm and many people interacted with it mostly complaining of suffering the same mistreatment at the hands of Airtel. The following day, Sunday 11, I decided to check if Airtel was behaving the same way. I purchased three “daily” 180 MB data bundles at 11:03, 13:56 and 16:33. Standard 3 SMS alerts on all occasions. “You have purchased. You have already used 70%. You have used 90%”!
The next day, Airtel reached out to me via mobile phone. They said they were investigating the matter. That they wanted me to make some time for them to “take me through” via zoom call, where the problem came from.
“At about 10:00 PM, they called me to apologize that the zoom call could not happen. They requested that we do it the following day, Tuesday.
After a few internet glitches on their end, the call finally happened on Tuesday, 13 September.
“That call gave me the chance to hear Airtel out, to see what they claimed they had on their backend and to see how they handle customer complaints. This is the sole reason I invested even more data, thankfully from a different service provider and valuable time on this interaction.
“The Airtel person on the call informed me that they had dug up the Call Data files (“CDR”) after my complaint. The long and short of it was that they had established that there was no error in my data utilization and that I caused the entire debacle because I had my photos and icloud drive turned on.
“He explained that despite what the SMS alerts said to me, their records show that I used the 1.76 GB bundle in two hours.
On the 1.8 MB bundles, he deflected saying that the smaller bundles would naturally suffer a worse fate than the 1.76 GB. In essence, that the SMS alerts were not a true reflection of what they had established to have happened in fact. They then proceeded to educate me on some strategies I could employ for a more optimal data utilization.
“Having suffered these mostly false and illogical explanations long enough, the lawyer in me kicked in!
I explained that it is simply impossible for anyone to use up his or her data bundle in the same transaction that he or she purchases it. For most of the data bundles I complained of, there was no time lag between the purchase and depletion.
At a rate of 1.76 GB per minute at the price of Ugx. 5000 that Airtel charges, a user would need Ugx. 300,000 to use the internet for an hour. Who would afford this kind of data?
“When I asked him what the fastest internet speeds a user can get over Airtel, the gentleman said 25 Mbps.
He agreed with me that for the vast majority of locations, devices and times, Airtel does not deliver internet at such speeds. However, even for arguments sake only, even at such very rare speeds, one would need at least a minute to use up 1.76 GB and that is even if all their Apps were accessing the data bundle at the same time. At a very minimum, there would need to be a lag between subscribing and using up.
“Airtel’s false and illogical explanations only proved that at best, there is no correlation between its SMS alerts and their customer’s data usage. This in effect means that their SMS alerts are a fraudulent misrepresentation. Fraudulent because they are a feature of them taking money from millions of their customers for no service rendered. In simple contracts, we call this a complete failure of consideration resulting in an unjust enrichment of Airtel.
“The only interaction that an Airtel customer has with their services is the phone interface, alerts and notifications. The customer does not have access to their CDR. Even Airtel itself cannot be looking at the CDR of all users’ devices at the same time. As in my case, they themselves can only dig it up after several days later on a need basis.
“It is therefore callous for Airtel to try to hold customers to what they themselves allege they established from digging around their own back end when it is at stark odds with the SMS alerts that they send their customers.
“More than the callousness, my experience is that Airtel is lying. The fact of the matter is that what happens in reality accords with the SMS alerts rather than the ex-post-facto dug up explanations of Airtel. As soon as you get the “you have already used” alert, your internet slows down to a virtual halt.
“In our interaction Airtel was not admitting any fault on their part. Their language says it all. They minimized and called their fraudulent misrepresentation as “a cause of the issue brought about by the previously purchased bundle of the same volume”.
Then they mindlessly kicked the can down the road: “This has been raised to our development teams to look into!” I am thinking, you just stole my money and all you will do is to “look into it!” What impunity!
“Then they sought to shift the blame on me, the victim of their fraud, fencing in technical IT jargon to confuse what is really a simple and straight forward matter. If they could employ these tactics on me, pity more ordinary customers who might not even speak English.
“Many things from my experience with Airtel leave me more than just suspicious that what happened to me is by design, default and that it is widespread. This makes it a matter to which, a dutiful Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) would have paid attention. But, our UCC is our UCC. In many ways, UCC can be seen as docile at best, obsequious to the ISPs and in near reckless abandon of their tax paying citizens. In a sense, this is a betrayal of the public duty and trust.
The questions that Airtel failed to answer revealed more than they concealed.
“What are the odds that all the 180 MB bundles I purchased at different times would behave the same way? What are the odds that for all bundles I used up exactly 70% of them simultaneously with purchase? My icloud has always been turned on for the several years I have used my phone, why does the data not deplete in this odd manner every single time I purchase data bundle given that they suggest that it consumes the data as soon as the data is turned on? Icloud in facts defaults to backing up over WIFI.
“Airtel cannot show you every single link a phone accessed using a data bundle. Meaning that they cannot account for any bundle. At best their explanations were just what could possibly deplete your data that quickly and not a record of what in fact happened. To my mind, what happened suggests a pre-programmed auto behavior of Airtel’s data billing system.
“Whether this is so, the present architecture in which ISPs operate in Uganda ensures that we, the consumers cannot and will never know. The system is Airtel’s and only they have access to it. There is no regulator sitting in the middle between the ISP and the consumer and therefore looking to ensure that the system does not cheat customers. Ugandan consumers do not have the quality assurance that they have with fuel pumps for example. Uganda National Bureau of Standards regularly checks and certifies fuel pumps for defined periods.
“When I asked if they could email me the records relating to my data usage, Airtel assured me that I could only apply for them at their Wampewo offices; imagine! The only place in all of Uganda that one can get their own data is their Wampewo office. I am intrigued by what I could find out if I got the chance to examine these records.
“I think that the present architecture of the industry is shockingly gamed against the consumer, bypasses the regulator and is steeped in favour of the ISPs. All customer data is in the exclusive possession and control of the ISPs. Therefore, any dispute between the consumer and their ISP over data usage can only be resolved by reference to the data generated, controlled and kept by the ISP. Given Airtel’s corporate culture, what are the odds that these records cannot be manipulated? Where is the quality assurance? The hyena is in charge of the meat market here.
“What I found even more appalling than Airtel’s blame the victim customer tactics is that in handling my complaint, they lied to me and sought to play me for a fool. They added shameful insult to injury by offering to console me with a 2.5GB data “one month” chillax bundle!
Insulting because what customers want and deserve is value for their money, not cheap charity.
“The statement that Airtel later issued, apparently to close their tiff with me accurately captured their forced but halfhearted admission that there is a problem, which they falsely insist is not with the data bundles but with their SMS alerts.
They said: “…as per our discussion we highlighted the cause of the issue which was a notification lag brought about by previously subscribed bundle, this has been raised to our development teams to look into.”
“This statement revealed more of what is terribly wrong with Airtel’s. Lying must be an entrenched culture in this corporation. How could they publish such a blatant lie? Like Bob Marley said: “you can fool some people some time but you cannot fool all the people all the time!”
A lag means a delay; a failure to keep up. What happened here was the exact opposite. An instantaneous and simultaneous SMS alert of both subscription and depletion. But, here you have a telecom employing Leninist like propaganda over plain and clear facts of their wrongdoing in a public forum.
“Because I knew that after my interaction with them, they would make some kind of public statement, I asked to know beforehand the text of what they meant to tweet. After a couple of versions that I flatly rejected for being misrepresentative of the facts and falsely triumphant in their favour despite their public guilt, Airtel had the audacity to suggest that I delete my tweets!
“Even if you ignored how condescending this is, I thereby got confirmation that Airtel is not prepared to clean house; they want to sweep the dirt under the carpet!
This is what makes a forensic audit of Airtel long overdue and a reform of the sector very urgent.”
The writer John Musiime is a lawyer and Advocate. Twitter:@jonekyoma.
WIDER PICTURE: UGANDANS NOT HAPPY
Whereas Ugandan Telecoms continue to swim in huge profits which foreign owners even repatriate back home, Ugandans are not happy. Ugandans feel these telecoms can do much more than deploying their PR machinery and CSRs to cover up. Members of Parliament since have urged them to adopt more friendly data and voice bundles.
This, according to the MPs, is intended to ensure that consumers of communication services get quality, reliable and affordable communication services to widen Information Communication Technology (ICT) penetration as a key driver of economic growth.
While chairing the House on Wednesday, 13 July 2022, Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa tasked UCC to engage these companies to exclusively provide unlimited data and voice call bundles that do not expire.
“This issue of expiry of data and voice bundles needs to be addressed. How do you tell me that bundles have expired? Technology has no expiry date. In many countries, one is only required to reactivate the bundle; it’s like money on your account where the bank tells you that your account has become dormant, it is then reactivated and you can access your money,” Tayebwa said.
He also urged UCC to direct telecom service providers to remove interconnection fees that have created unhealthy monopolistic tendencies, making it costly for subscribers to make calls across other networks.
Ugandans continue to pay heavily in their bid to access telecommunication services characterised by dropped calls, exorbitant rates on data bundles, unrealistic consumption patterns and expiry of internet bundles among others.
There are also issues to do with cyber security where unscrupulous people are swapping customer’s sim cards and using them for fraudulent and heinous acts. Many Ugandans especially MTN subscribers have lost huge sums of money on the hands of these people who collude with insiders.
Poor network especially both in and outside Kampala is also another challenge—both internet and calls. Dropped calls are the order of the day and yet they are charged, a matter minister Frank Tumwebaze has been lamenting about.
Circumstances that also saw outgoing MTN CEO Wim Vanhelleputte and other executives— chief marketing officer, Olivier Prentout, Annie Bilenge Tabura, the general manager for sales and distribution and Elsa Mussolini, the head of the company’s mobile money business—deported made Ugandans lose confidence in the telecom. Ugandans feel something was fishy and is yet to be solved.
Ugandans are also not happy with Airtel’s unfriendly mobile money transactions. For instance it’s easier for MTN line owners to authorize mobile money withdrawals in favor of a recipient who is very far away from them than is the case with Airtel. MTN to Airtel transactions are also cheaper, reliable and efficient than Airtel to MTN.
On top of poor customer service, some Ugandans are also wondering why Airtel is not listed on the Stock Exchange just like MTN.
There has also been the issue of dealing with agents. These are franchise partners involved in facilitating mobile money transactions on behalf of these telecoms.
A section of Ugandans are not happy with Airtel’s restrictive nature. Whereas the MTN model encourages large sized franchise agents, whereby Mbiire/Bitature’s Simba Telecom can galvanize the whole of Buganda region as Minister Okello Oryem’s Tabley Telecom does the entire Northern, in the Airtel’s case the franchise market is too fractured. And the idea is to avoid a situation where one franchise partner becomes too powerful so as to threaten the powerful Indian expatriates calling shots at Airtel Uganda as they take all profits. That is how Airtel has 137 franchise partners covering the same Uganda-wide market where MTN has only 12 larger ones.
It’s only Keswawal, a wealthy trailer-owning Indian with a big presence in the transport and logistics sub sector, who the influential Indians at Airtel Uganda have allowed to loam large and have a significant geographical mobile money market under his franchise partnership. He is their great guy not only because he is personally well known to the Group global owners back home in India but also because he one time contributed Shs10bn towards resolution of a staff crisis that was imminent at Airtel.
Shs10bn was required and this dude stepped forward to do the needful, a thing that strengthened his relationship not only with Airtel Uganda but globally. As a result, the whole of Nakasero market territory has been preserved for his franchise partnership as has been the case with Jinja, Wakiso, Lungujja, Natete and the Entebbe neighborhood. It’s from this expansive territory that he makes up to Shs270m in commission per month at a time his other contemporaries are netting at between Shs4 and 10m.
Also a close friend of Annit Kapul, Keswawal keeps between Shs5bn and 10bn invested in his Airtel money franchise dealership at any one point in time. Tycoon Mandela is one of the newest entrants into the Airtel franchise partnership dealings and his entry has equally created some uneasiness in some quarters with some stakeholders perceiving this as an attempt to crowd out native Ugandans more. There are also many issues to do with Airtel’s wewole, mobile banking which we shall tackle in our subsequent publication.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
GOT A HOT STORY? CALL/TEXT/WHATSAPP 0777959024 OR EMAIL redpeppertips@gmail.com
About Post Author
