Airtel admits to fraud

A 2-week-long investigation into how unsuspecting mobile phone and internet users of Airtel have been swindled of their credits has revealed that the mobile phone company was aware of the practice but did nothing to stop it.
On 30 January, 2012 Politico took up the issue of deliberately deducting units from phones and internet modems for no service rendered with the company’s Rawdon Street Office in central Freetown and found out from its sales and customer care units that they were aware of the act but “it was a technology related misnomer.”
The investigations carefully followed the constant pattern of stealing units from customers’ phones especially in the last one week. The paper dedicated two smart phone to the research and bought credits with records of over 3,500 units transferred electronically to the phones between 22 and 30 January, 2012. The internet was deactivated over a period of three days while the stealing of credits by Airtel continued.
When the reporters first took it up with Marcella Johnson, who works with the Sales department, she dismissed the claim. Our reporter gave her Le 21,000 for 500 units voucher, entered the secret code in front of her and waited in the office for exactly five minutes to prove a point.
The first automated text message came in: “Dear Customer, you used 1.56Mb in your last browsing session. Your available balance is 453. 38 UNITS”. About 45.92 UNITS has been slashed away for no service provided. Ten minutes later a second text message came in: “Dear Customer, you used 1.54Mb in your last browsing session. Your available balance is 437.91 UNITS”. Another 16.08 UNITS is gone. Fifteen minutes later a third message came in: “Dear Customer, you used 1.54Mb in your last browsing session. Your available balance is 422.48 UNITS”. Another 15.44 UNITS is gone.
The Customer Care department found out that the internet was not connected and the Sales Department confirmed that no calls were made at all; yet the pattern of cutting units from the said phone came in quick succession and like was the case in the last three days, the whole 500 UNITS was gone.
A customer care worker Joseph Koroma, who also configures mobile phones for internet service, admitted that the reporter had a genuine concern. He took up the matter with the Cahier Department and specifically spoke with Kumba Yamba, who suggested that he verified the reporter’s allegation with the Sales Department. The department, which has a way to prove that the reporter’s claim was true or false, confirmed that a huge chunk of airtime has been swindled away without trace.
“We realise your phone was deactivated from the internet and have ascertained that your claims were genuine. Let me apologise for the embarrassment but I think the problem was IT related,” Koroma said.
The same end of session notification kept coming on another phone even when it was not being used. A call to the customer service director Gemini Thomas-Okagoli at Airtel led to an explanation that was confusing.
On another day the same thing happened and she was notified. She transferred our call to one of the technicians who advised that the smart phones should deactivate their 3G status which effectively means defeating the purpose of a smart phone while the hibernating button should automatically put the internet service out of use. On the issue of the modem it was, simply, unit deduction even when not connected.
Bharti Airtel is an Indian successor company to Zain which had also bought over Celtel which was the first GMS service in Sierra Leone. In recent times, even their voice services have been erratic at best. Officials at the regulatory body NATCOM also say they have observed the “fall in standards” at the company.