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Airtel’s Broad Daylight Customer Victimization
My name is Isaac Sintufya and holder of Mobile Phone Number +260977636237.
I have been a royal client of Airtel from its inception in Zambia.
It was on Thursday around 23:00hrs when I was buying their daily unlimited (yet caped) bundle of K15 to enable me do some ZRA online VAT submissions. I followed their usual details of dialing *575# to activate the bundle as I have always done. Their system kept on failing to activate. Due to the ZRA pressure on online submissions, I kept on trying a couple of times without success until I slept.
At 03:21, 20 Dec, a message came that I had been subscribed successfully to the unlimited daily plan. They deducted K15.00 from my airtime as usual.
But before I could even enjoy, two minutes after being subscribed, another message at 03:23, 20 Dec, came saying you have been subscribed successfully to the unlimited daily plan and another deduction of K15.00 hit my account.
After one minute another message at 03:24, 20 Dec, came saying you have been subscribed successfully to the unlimited daily plan and another deduction of K15.00 was sucked from my account. A minute later, another deduction was done on my account bringing the total of four deductions in less than 10minutes. I was thinking that maybe the definitions of words had evolved without my knowledge because I kept wondering how 4 solid days were squeezed to fit inside the ten minutes of my time. Or could it be that my family and I were put on auto-hibernation which lasted for 96hours?
I tried to call them on 575, the internet related customer care line, at 04:18 and they promised to rectify the error before 09:30hrs as the technical guys would only be in the office by 08:00hrs. I called them again at 09:34hrs and they told me my case is being worked on and that I would get my refund after 2hrs. I waited until 17hours when I called them and they kept assuring me that they would refund but to no avail.
Today, the 21st of December 2013, when I called them they then changed their mind that they DO NOT refund of give EXTEND bundles resulting in their system errors.
My questions to them are as follows;
- Should clients be punished for their system’s incompetence?
- Should someone be charged for the advertised service which has not been delivered to them?
- Is it a crime to RETRY a failed transaction on Airtel?
- Suppose my phone only had K15.00 exactly in it, were they going to treat my airtime top-ups of the day as credits for RETRYING a failed transaction on their system?
- Is their IT Department a joke?
If their answer to the above questions is YES, then Airtel should rebrand themselves as follows;
- AIRFAIL and not Airtel – They keep failing us in the Air and on the ground too.
- Their motto should be information leakers. They did it during the MMD lost elections by leaking our numbers for the then Ruling Party to use our phones as campaign platforms.
- Shameless Con-Artists – They will not sleep until your last coin in your phone shifts camp to their side.
What is ZICTA doing about such infesters?
I rest my case.
Concerned Citizen
Isaac Sintufya
Posted by Admin
on December 21, 2013. Filed under LATEST NEWS.
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pichu
December 21, 2013 at 7:33 pm
it happened to me as well. on thursday. they probably had a problem. i kept trying until i slept only to find that the money was deducted at an unknown time in the night. luckily i only had K 17 in my account.
WEBSTER
December 21, 2013 at 8:48 pm
These People Are Thieves Even me, I Bought My Sim Along Time Ago And I Ve Been Entering Their Competition But Up To Date Ive Never Won Their Competition They Just Deduct My Litle Money My Number Is 0977575636. Am Intending To Through My Sim Coz Am Sick And Tired, Un Happy Client.
cecil
December 21, 2013 at 9:59 pm
O of them ar thiefs,airtel n mtn.
Deus Mwale
December 21, 2013 at 10:25 pm
Just send your report to ZICTA.
Air Mukwai_
December 21, 2013 at 10:31 pm
MTN must also change on a month duration for bundles to 2-3 months duration for a more than 2GB bundle. That’s also stealing from poor people. ZICTA please do some.
Enos Nsamba
December 22, 2013 at 7:40 am
I had the same problem of being unable to connect on the same thursday so i rung 575 and was told that they would connect from their end after about 15 minutes. I had exactly K15 in my account. After a while i checked my balance and found I had K6 meaning that K9 had been taken but i still could not browse.
the aka.
December 22, 2013 at 10:19 am
f..k these thieves.at least u guys went through to them.i never did otherwise i could have reminded them how crooked they are…
DIP STICK
December 22, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Airtel really sucks. I ended up surrendering their SIM in their face.
MTN bundles should also not be expiring at all. They should just stand till they are used up or better let clients have options to choose from.
bufufwa
December 22, 2013 at 2:48 pm
that’s very true and l still wonder in south Africa a 30 Rand MTN CALL TIME Can call Zambia and other countries for approximately 10 minute’s. In ZAMBIA it only takes 3 minutes./ THIEVES TOGETHER WITH ZECTA
RED PEN
December 22, 2013 at 5:33 pm
GUYS! I EQUALLY RECEIVE SMS ON THE DAILY BASE AS ” CALL ME BACK” ON THE FOLLOWING NUMBERS ” +22478603112, +2600211253383 AND 002126922979I0 CAN I EQUALLY SUE?, BECAUSE THESE IS TOO MUCH
peoples
December 22, 2013 at 10:41 pm
I was talking with my collegues about you..You never believe what they told me..Call me 006779571032.. This is one of the messages I received from this unknown number..who are these people
test@e
December 23, 2013 at 7:24 am
is there ZCTA in Samfya
chile1
December 23, 2013 at 7:42 am
Airtel is run by sum indian punks,wat do u expect?
Kolobingo
December 23, 2013 at 8:14 am
ZCTA has no tooth.
chipo.E
December 23, 2013 at 8:35 am
My freind MTN and Zamtel are far much better than Airfail.K5 can only take you for 20 seconds only. These are thieves in a broad day light.
geff
December 23, 2013 at 10:06 am
man indians can not offer anything better, i dumped these suckers the for cellz along time ago. report to zicta and shop around
Iluba Lyandi
December 23, 2013 at 11:12 am
Report to Zicta, they will tell you firstly to write a formal complaint to Airtel, then you forward that mail plus the replies from Airtel to Zicta. Zicta will make sure you are refunded, a friend of mine was.