The Commission made the call during a Consumer Conversation programme organised by its Zonal Operations Department which held at Keffi, Nasarawa State on Thursday, September 26, 2019. The Commission advised the consumers to take advantage of various interventions to protect themselves from unwholesome practices.
Two of such consumer centric interventions include the 622 Toll-Free Number for escalating unresolved complaints or complaints that were not satisfactorily resolved by service providers. Officials of the Commission also enjoined telecom consumers to utilise the Do-Not-Disturb (DND) 2442 Short Code to manage the challenges with unsolicited text messages.
Addressing telecom consumers at the forum, Amina Shehu, Director Zonal Operations, NCC stressed the commitment of the Commission in ensuring fairness and protection for the telecom consumers.
"The consumer is very important to us as a Commission because without them, there cannot be a booming telecom industry as we have it today. That is why we need to protect them and protecting consumers has correlation with industry protection. So, we don't take consumer issues lightly at the Commission," she said.
Shehu, who was represented by Umar Lamido, Principal Manager, Zonal Operations, NCC, affirmed that “telecom consumers deserve to get value for their money, and be treated as very important stakeholders as regards service delivery."
"We, therefore, urge the consumers to take advantage of NCC's consumer protection initiatives such as the DND 2442 and the 622 Toll-Free Numbers so that no service provider would take advantage of you," Shehu told the telecom consumers.
The well-attended programme had many students of the Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa in attendance and it provided an opportunity for all the participants to express their concerns as well as the challenges they face with their telecom providers and with telecom service provisioning in general.