NCC report reveals millions of forced VAS on subscribers’, silent on sanctions
Latest report of the telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has shown well over eight million illegal forceful subscriptions on telecoms subscribers by Value Added Service (VAS) providers who drive their trade through Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)”.
Though NCC revealed that the discovery was made after an audit exercise of forceful mass activations of telecoms subscribers into various value added services in December last year, it was silent on the amount lost by subscribers and possible sanctions on perpetrators.
The full audit was carried out on 45 VAS providers that had over 65 per cent forceful subscriptions.
The NCC’s report said in parts that “We identified over 8,443,367 illegal mass activations in the last audit exercise and established the fact that these practices of unauthorised mass activations of subscribers were widespread and rampant in the telecoms industry.”
The Commission noted that audit became necessary following barrage of complaints by subscribers that the Do-Not-Disturb facility introduced by the NCC had not stopped loss of airtime to Mobile Network Operators for unsolicited services.
Business Hilights recall that NCC had in 2018 issued a directive that MNOs should desist from forcefully subscribing users to telecoms services or face sanctions, but no sanctions had been issued till date.
