Subscribers have urged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to descend heavily on telcos over unsolicited voice calls to their mobile phones.
The subscribers who spoke in Lagos, expressed disgust at the repeated unsolicited calls that originate from their service providers, wondering if such cold calls was the order in other jurisdictions.
A house wife who identified herself simply as Glory, said she receives such calls all the time, lamenting that each time the calls come in, she gets excited, especially when she had an agreement with a friend to call.
Glory who is a Federal Government worker said: “The issue of these unsolicited calls has become a great cause of concern to me. It has become so embarrassing that it spoils my joy. I was discussing an important family matter with my husband when a call came to my phone last week Friday. When I saw that the phone number was the conventional 11-digit number, I picked it only for my service provider to start marketing its products to. I was so very angry that I ended the call. The NCC should do something about this. It is very embarrassing.”
Another subscriber, Mr. Kelechi Onuoha, lamented that he was expecting an important business call from his client to conclude a multimillion naira business deal. His client had promised to call between 1 and 2pm on that fateful day. So as he engaged himself with other things in the office, a call came and his attention was drawn to it by his personal assistant (PA).
“I was very busy in the office and when the call came, I was excited because I was expecting an important call. So when my PA brought my phone to me, I picked it an what I heard from the other end was advert.
“I am aware the operators use codes to call but hadn’t experienced the call with GSM numbers. I quickly ended the call and rained curses on the head of my service provider because I was so frustrated,” Onuoha said.
A school teacher, Mr Edet Akpan, recalled how exasperated he was when his lecture was rudely disrupted by an unsolicited call.
“I was teaching Biology in the class. We are not allowed to go to the classrooms with our mobile phones because it could cause distraction to both the teacher and the students but based on a discussion I had earlier with my colleagues in the staff room about expecting a call from a bank I had gone to do written job interview, one of them brought the phone to me when it rang.
“I took permission from my students to receive the call only to discover that it was a call from my service provider, marketing its products and services. I was so angry that I switched off the phone. My students were wondering if I the man at the end of phone had insulted me. That is usually my experience, at least twice a week,” he said.
According to him, after the lesson, he switched on the phone, traced the number and consigned it to the blacklist bin. “When I opened the blacklist bin, I was shocked that I had no fewer than 100 such numbers and codes. That means that for that number of times, I had been disrupted by my service provider. This is not good enough and the NCC must do something to stop it.
“It appears that attention has been focused on unsolicited text messages. I remember the NCC spoke about the Do not Disturb (DND) 2442 code. It is not clear if there is any such code for cold calls,” he said.
Director, Consumer Affairs Bureau, NCC, Mr Abdullahi Maikano, had accused the telcos of taking undue advantage of the exemption granted them in the implementation of the DND, warning that it no longer shall be business as usual as there will be consequences for any infractions.
