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Tag: unsolicited

  • Unsolicited messages

    •Subscribers can seek rights and win against mobile service providers

    Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication service providers have to learn a lesson from the judgment of the Court of Appeal against one of their own, MTN, over unsolicited messages they often send to their subscribers. The court upheld part of the May 15, 2013 judgment of Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja, in respect of a suit filed by a lawyer and MTN subscriber against the telecoms giant. Godfrey Eneye had filed the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/431/2012 before Justice Ademola, contending that MTN had violated his rights by revealing or permitting his private line registered with the network provider to be accessed by other organisations and persons ‘who sent unsolicited, irritating and annoying messages to the said line’.

    He had stated in his suit that, “The respondent (MTN) offers and provides a bulk SMS message service to customers and permits the sending of bulk messages by individuals, organisations and other bodies through their network upon certain specified conditions agreed between the respondent and the respective subscribers to the said bulk SMS service.”

    Justice Ademola found merit in Eneye’s case and awarded the case in his favour. Dissatisfied, MTN appealed the judgment and its appeal was thrown out by the three-man panel that heard it at the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal. The three-man bench, led by Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson unanimously agreed that the telecoms firm violated its subscriber’s right to privacy as guaranteed under Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution.

    Justice Emmanuel Agim, who prepared the lead judgment said: “By giving those unknown persons and organisations access to the respondent’s MTN GSM phone number, to send text messages into it, the appellant violated the respondent’s fundamental right to privacy guaranteed by section 37 of the Constitution which includes the right to the privacy of a person’s telephone line.

    “The said section 37 of the 1999 Constitution provides that, ‘The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic conversations is hereby guaranteed and protected’.

    “The innumerable text messages without his consent at all times is a violation of his fundamental right to the privacy of his telephone conversations, correspondence and his person and telephone line and telephone message inbox.”

    According to the judge, the infringement also violated Rule 14(1)(b), (2) and (3) of the General Consumer Code of Practice Rules and the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations 2007, both of which were regulations made on the strength of section 70 of the Communications Act.

    Although the N3million that the appellate court asked MTN to pay to the subscriber, with 10 percent interest from the day of the judgment is peanut considering the enormous financial resources of the telecoms provider, it is important in its symbolism. Unsolicited messages are only one of the many infractions of the GSM service providers against their subscribers. However, many Nigerians merely bemoan their fate in the face of these infractions; they hardly explore the court option apparently because of the time and resources it would take to conclude the matter.

    We commend Eneye for seeing the matter to its logical conclusion. With the judgment, it should be clear to the telecoms providers that there are some subscribers who are ready to seek the enforcement of their rights at the law courts; thus keeping the firms on their toes.

    We must state though, that it is largely the failure of regulation that makes these firms to take subscribers for granted. No doubt GSM has revolutionised the way we do things in the country as in other places, and Nigerians are happy for this. But when will call drops and network failures in the middle of conversation stop? To now worsen matters, the service providers inundate subscribers with unsolicited messages and calls that they never bargained for.

     

  • ‘NCC has given subscribers power over unsolicited SMS’

    ‘NCC has given subscribers power over unsolicited SMS’

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has empowered subscribers to choose the text messages they receive from telcos through its directive on Do Not Disturb (DND) code.

    Its Deputy Director, Consumers Affair, Femi Atoyebi, who responded to customers’complaints at the 20th Consumer Town Hall Meeting organised by the regulator in Sangotedo, Ajah, Lagos at the weekend, said the meeting was to educate subscribers about their right and privileges.

    Atoyebi said the DND code is all about stopping unwanted text messages, saying consumers are at liberty to subscriber to service or products, adding that there is also the liberty to unsubscribe.

    He said:  “Now if you don’t want to be disturbed, you send STOP to 2442. But, we need to stress the fact that it is not all messages that are bad, some are quite educative, some give information about the weather, traffic, health, sport, among others. There is what we call full DND, that is don’t even bother me and there is partial DND that is on issue of education send message to me, but on music, I don’t want. That is why the option of 2442 has been provided and the particular message you don’t want will stop coming. So, if you ban all text messages from coming in, you will not know when the message that will be beneficial to you will come. But as I have said, consumers are at liberty to choose what they want.”

    Subscribers who spoke earlier accused the telcos of inundating them with unsolicited text messages. They also complained about drop calls, illegal airtime deductions, among others.

    An MTN subscriber, Ajayi  Omotayo, lamented that he got messages daily from his telco. He said: Every day, I get this message:  “MTN Gadget Care.’ I have called 180, they asked me to press some buttons, which I have done, but the message keeps coming. The sad thing is that they deduct my money. Please, tell them to remove it. I don’t want anything of such.”

    A Glo subscriber, who introduced himself as Andrew, lamented that he still gets messages he never wanted from his telco.

    Etisalat was not spared of criticisms either. Alhaji SikiruAlamu, who spoke in Yoruba, said: “The network has encouraged the menace. I used to get messages I don’t want, even very early in the morning. For example, a particular message with 361 as Code showing: Hello your VideoStore subscription has been renewed. Service costs N20/day. To download videos click http://videostore.ng. To unsubscribe, text STOP to 6363. I sent STOP several times, but the message kept coming. I don’t know what to do again.”

    A female Airtel customer, Joy lamented that she was always inundated with messages she never wanted.

    “Each time the message is sent, my credit is also deducted; they will say caller ring back tunes- N50 is removed my airtime. This is unjust because I never subscribed to any caller ring back tune.”

  • Glo unveils code to stop unsolicited messages

    Glo unveils code to stop unsolicited messages

    Telecomms giant Globacom has introduced a new short code 2442 by which subscribers can control unsolicited text messages and calls.

    In using the service, subscribers should text ‘help’ to the short code ‘2442’ to activate a Do not Disturb control to filter unsolicited text messages.

    The service gives the subscribers the latitude to choose messages or calls they wish to receive or block.

    “Do Not Disturb” is a self-service platform for subscribers to manage promotional messages sent to their lines with the option of either opting in or out.

    In a statement in Lagos, Globacom advised subscribers  interested in receiving information on Banking, Insurance and Financial products to send 1 to 2442, while subscribers are required to send 2 to 2442 to receive information on Real Estate.

    Those interested in having information related to Education need to send 3 to the short code, 2442.

    Subscribers that want health-related information should send 4 to 2442, while 5 should be sent to the same code for details on consumer goods and 6 for information on communications, broadcasting, entertainment and information technology.

    To obtain updates on tourism and leisure, they have to send 7 to the 2442, while clients desirous of reading about sports need to send 8 to the same short code 2442.  Similarly, any customer interested in religious matters should send 9 to the code.

  • Anger over unsolicited text messages

    Anger over unsolicited text messages

    Unsolicited text messages have become one of the many challenges subscribers have to contend with. While the messages could so often be provocative, customers are forced to pay for them, largely because they are either ignorant of what to do is complacent. But the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says aggrieved subscribers should stop suffering in silence, reports LUCAS AJANAKU.

    She had left her business for the day to be part of one of the sessions of the monthly Telecoms Consumer Parliament (TCP) convened at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). She had reasons to do so. For three years, she has been carrying the burden of receiving no fewer than 40 unsolicited text messages on her phone daily.

    She gave her name as Hajia Binta Maina, dealer in Dangote products. A woman in her late 50s, she sprang up from her seat, clutched her mobile phone and beckoned on officials of the NCC to come and see what she had been passing through with agonies all these years. According to her, the text messages were imposed on her by fraudulent value added service (VAS) providers riding on the infrastructure of Globacom, her mobile network operator (MNO). Bitter, she lamented that she had consistently loaded air time which so very often gradually gets depleted.

    She said: “I have been living with this problem over the past three years. I receive about 40 text messages daily from my service provider. If I were not advanced in age, some of the messages were capable of breaking my marriage. Imagine my husband opening my phone and reading a message such as; ‘I love you’. I have visited three offices of Glo and had even taken my case to the head office of the company in Victoria Island where an Indian man attended to me and assured me that the text messages and loss of money will stop. They said there is a code I could use to opt out. I used it but the more I used the code, the more the messages come in.

    “As I speak with you, it has not stopped. So when I heard that this meeting is taking place today, I decided to sacrifice everything I have to do today to bring my problem to the world.”

    Another subscriber, Madam Joy Adeniran, a window  living in Itele, a suburb of Sango Ota, Ogun State, had been promised by one of her customers that she was going to make payment into her bank account so that she could go to the market the following day to stock her shop. She waited all day long to receive transaction alert from her bank but nothing came. Frustrated, she called the customer that promised to pay money into her bank account at about 10pm to find out what the problem was.

    She was assured of the payment and encouraged to wait for the transaction alert because that will form the basis of her going to Idumota, Lagos to buy goods for her shop.

    “It was like a vigil for me. I must get confirmation before setting out from Itele to Lagos latest by 5am the following morning. So, I kept waiting for the alert. When my text message alert tone rang at about 12.30 midnight, I sprang up from my bed, reached for the phone. When I opened the message box, it was one useless message sent at that ungodly hour by my MNO. I was so pissed off and felt like smashing the device on the concrete wall,” she lamented.

    Hajia Maina and Mrs Adeniran are just a few of the over 140 million active subscribers that daily go through the pains of unsolicited text messages on their mobile phones. The messages come in torrents, sometimes blocking genuine messages from being received. “I have to delete these messages to allow important messages to be delivered because if I don’t do that, the icon showing that a message is waiting will keep popping up. It is very sad,” Alvin Afadama, an intern, lamented.

     

    NCC’s position

     

    Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Tony Ojobo, said the Commission has issued a lot of directives aimed at minimising as much as possible, the burden of unsolicited text messages to all the operators, adding that the regulator had even sanctioned the operators for not playing by the rules.

    He said the regulator has consistently urged the MNOs to install powerful firewalls to prevent unbridled influx of unsolicited text messages to their customers.

    He said: “We have made our position known on this matter. We have warned against sending messages to subscribers at night on their networks. The Commission is putting its foot down against the operators and monitoring their activities and giving them various regulations to ensure that this does not happen. We encourage subscribers to go to the operators, walk to their customer care centers; call customer call centers to lodge their complaints and give them detailed explanations about the content of the text message, the time you got them and from which number.

    “Agreed, most of these things come from VAS providers. They are not actually coming from the network service providers; some of them may come from them but most are from VAS providers with the knowledge of the service providers anyway. These things are like pipes for them to transmit their services and sometimes they get services through the system without them being able to detect it. It happens all over the world but we are insisting that they should be able to provide various types of systems that should be able to detect these unsolicited text messages especially those that are not wanted. The customers have a right to stop them. Send stop to the number that sent the message and it will stop and if it doesn’t stop; walk to our Lagos office at Bankole Oki Street, Ikoyi and complain. We take such complaints seriously because they infringe on the rights of the customers.

    “If you fail to get redress, you can also call us on our toll-free number on 622. Additionally I would like to say that this is a global problem it does not happen only in Nigeria alone.”

    Its Zonal Controller, Lagos, Okechukwu Aniweke, however said there are also positive sides to the unsolicited messages. According to him, unexpected bank alerts, warning about impending disasters, outbreak of epidemic disease, outbreak of fatal disease such as the Ebola and warnings about how to avoid contacting them, alert about fire disasters and even armed robbery attack. He said some ‘unsolicited’ text message have been so useful to the customers as they have helped to save lives, adding however that this is not to say the MNOs and VAS providers should not respect the right of their customers to have peaceful rest in their homes.

     

    Operators react

     

    Head, Network Operations, Globacom, Aremu Olajide, said most of the messages that customers complain about are not sent by the MNOs, arguing that VAS providers licensed by the NCC send the messages but using the MNOs.

    Customer Care Executive at MTN, Akinwale Goodluck agrees  with Olajide. According to him, a huge percentage of the unsolicited messages on the network are actually generated on the internet. He said with the rise of the internet, it was possible for somebody to be in Asia and send mass messages to millions of subscribers in the country. He said though there are subsisting contractual agreements with bulk SMS providers, the telco is however strict with its terms of engagement.

     

    VAS providers speak

     

    The umbrella body of VAS providers in the country, the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN), has absolved itself of any blame. The group blamed the raft of unsolicited messages on what it described as “rogue VAS providers.”

    Its National Coordinating Consultant, Simon Aderinlola, who described WASPAN as a self-regulatory body of firms licensed by the NCC that have at least connection with one MNO in Nigeria providing VAS.

    He said: “In answering that other aspect of your question about messages getting to people may be at night, they are rogue VAS services. By rogue VAS services, the Commission has tried immensely, to halt their operation. There is a framework for licensing but it is gathering momentum. There are some who actually open business to do wrong things.

    “The more the right regulation is put in place such that you are not killing innovation, but ensuring that the customer is protected and the rules are clear and transparent, the better for all of us.

    He commended the regulator for creating a forum for the MNOs, VAS providers and other stakeholders to come together to tackle the problem of unsolicited messages.

    “I must say this is the first of its kind forum of this nature where you have the operators, the VAS providers and the NCC all giving their own ideas on how things can work and I am sure the more we have session of this nature, the more we will be able to drive things forward,” he said.

  • Service providers under fire over unsolicited SMS

    Service providers under fire over unsolicited SMS

    The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Value Added Services Providers (VASP) yesterday met to address the issues of unsolicited and fraudulent short message service (SMS) and other challenges confronting the industry, especially the use of short codes.

    Mobile value-added services (VAS) are non-core services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions.

    According to industry statistics, mobile VAS sub-sector of the telecoms industry is currently valued at over $200 million annually with potential to reach $500 million in the next five years.

    Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr Eugene Juwah, said the need to parley with the VASP and MNOs in an enlarged forum has become more imperative in view of the deluge of complaints of unethical practices by WASP, adding however that the objective of the forum is not to witch-hunt, but proffer solutions.

    “In the recent past, NCC has been inundated with several complaints by the general public with regard to the unethical practices by providers of Value Added Services in Nigeria. These issues range from unauthorised subscription to illegal deduction from subscriber’s accounts.

    “Our objective is to present our findings and views on the host of issues identified during our monitoring exercises pursuant to the formulation of an industry-driven regulatory framework on value added services provisions in the country,” Juwah said during his opening remarks.

    Some of the identified services VAS include mobile entertainment, caller-tune, ring-back tunes, music download, news breaks, Biblical and inspirational quotes, flights information, tele-marketing, among others.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Dispute over Newswatch: Judge protests supply of unsolicited copies of newspaper

    THERE was a twist to the hearing of the case challenging businessman Jimoh Ibrahim’s acquisition of majority shareholding in Newswatch Communications Limited (NCL) yesterday.

    Justice Ibrahim Buba protested the supply of “unsolicited copies” of the company’s publications to his office.

    Minority shareholders and former directors of NCL, Nuhu Wada Aruwa and Prof Jibril Aminu had sued Ibrahim and three others, challenging the propriety of the process through which he (Ibrahim), used his company, Global Media Mirror Limited (GMML) to acquire majority shareholding in NCL.

    They also accused the Ibrahim-led management of systematically working to kill the company’s main product – Newswatch weekly magazine – and replace it with a daily newspaper – Daily Newswatch – published by a newly incorporated company – Newswatch Newspapers Limited (NNL) – an organisation in which GMML owns 90 per cent shareholding.

    Justice Buba expressed displeasure that copies of the Daily Newswatch newspapers, which formed the subject of the case on which he is presiding, were being supplied to his office “unsolicited.”

    Shortly after the case was called, the judge turned to the lawyer representing Ibrahim and his company, NNL (the company publishing the newspaper), Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN) and asked if he (Ayorinde) wants him (the judge) to continue to preside over the case.

    “Do you want me to conclude this case? I asked the question because after the last sitting, I found an unsolicited gift on my table. And when I opened it, I found two complimentary copies of Daily Newswatch of February 10 and 11, 2013.

    “My secretary told me she can identify the person that brought it. The issue here is, sending copies of the subject matter of a suit before me to me is not ordinary. It is not ordinary because a judge is also on trial over the case he is handling.

    “If any of the party is not comfortable with me, such person should let me know and I will return the case file to the Chief Judge for re-assignment to another judge. I must however call on parties to refrain from doing things that will undermine the integrity of the court,” Justice Buba held in a brief ruling.

    The judge, had in an earlier ruling refused the plaintiffs’ application for interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants – NCL, GMML, Ibrahim and NNL- from publishing and selling to the public, the Daily Newswatch newspapers pending the determination of substantive suit.

    This was in spite of the plaintiffs’ argument that the new daily newspapers were being published solely by Ibrahim, through NNL, an organisation he allegedly established without the knowledge of other NCL’s shareholders and in which he purportedly allocated 90 per cent stake to himself, leaving 10 per cent for the parent company, NCL.