MTN Nigeria Communications Limited has been ordered by the court of appeal sitting in Abuja to pay N15 million damages over the unlawful deduction of a subscriber’s airtime through unsolicited services.
Edum News reports that the appellate court described as fraudulent, the regular deduction of airtime of customers by the telecommunication giant, for the auto-renewal of services not subscribed to.
Speaking in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, the Court held that the company breaches by sending unwarranted text messages.
It further noted that such breach is against section 37 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as the violation of Regulation 28 of Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
The judgement was following an appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/137/2022, which was brought before the court by an aggrieved customer, Ezugwu Anene.
In his appeal, Anene told the court that he received over 244 unsolicited text messages from MTN for Weekly Guidance and Counseling, a service he said he never subscribe to.
He told the court that from 2016 to 2018, N20 was unlawfully deducted from his airtime balance, each time he received the text message on his mobile telephone line he gave as 08030735301.
He further alleged that MTN continued to deduct his airtime for Caller Tune Services that was imposed on him.
