By The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said consumers are not expected to call the Commission’s complaint Hotline, 622 when they have exhausted every means of getting an operator to address any complain.
According to the NCC, the consumer can only call the toll-free line when they are not getting responses from their mobile operator adding that there are levels for escalating the problems concern.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who made the clarification while responding to questions on the use of the toll-free said that that the complains can only be escalated to the NCC through the toll-free line when the telecoms operator concern is showing lack of responsiveness.
He assured consumers, that once the telecoms operator is known, the NCC will take prompt action to address the problem noting that the Commission is the consumer last resort in solving whatever problem they have.
The NCC recently undertook a revision of the framework Complaints Categories and Service Level Agreements (CC/SLA).
The essence was to achieve greater effectiveness in the sector and to strengthen the protection of telecoms consumers and other stakeholders.
The framework was revised by the Commission in November 2019 at a programme attended by representatives of telecoms operators, consumers and other consumer rights advocacy groups in the country.
The last update on the NCC Consumers’ complain report for the first quarter of 2018, showed that the Commission received a total of 13,880 complaints from subscribers.
The report showed that Billing Issues account for the highest number of complaint received during the quarter i.e. 51%, while Value Added Services (VAS) and Call Setup complaint account for the second and third highest number of complaints received by the Commission with 14% and 8.4% respectively.
Isaiah Erhiawarien, Lagos Nigeria
