Govt orders MTN Nigeria to pay promo winner N1.85 million fine

The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has ordered mobile telecommunication giant, MTN Communications Limited to pay one million, eight hundred and fifty Naira (N1,850,000) to one of the winners of its Ultimate Wonder Promo due to underpayment.

Omeje the short-paid promo winner, says that on October 10, 2012 he participated in the promo and was called through MTN line 180 that he had won N2million in the Ultimate Wonder Promo. On October 12, 2012 he got a text message informing him of the presentation ceremony fixed for October 19 at the Nicon Luxury Hotel, Abuja.

During the ceremony, he was presented with a dummy cheque of N2 million with his name on it, interviewed and paraded before the media and the world as a winner of the N2 million Ultimate Promo by MTN, he adds.

Thereafter, Omeje said, on November 2, 2012 he received another call from MTN line 180 that his winning was N150, 000 and was later given a Verve ATM card for that amount.

MTN claims that Omoje was from the on-set informed that his winning was N150, 000 and that the complainant deceitfully presented himself when winners in the N2million category were called forward on the day of the prize presentation.

MTN adds that Omeje’s pranks was discovered at the verification of winners, which was done after the ceremony and he was thereafter contacted through its 180 line on his misrepresentation pursuant to which he apologized.

CPC demanded for the call data of the communications of the 10th of October 2012 when Omeje was informed of his winnings of N150, 000, but MTN failed, refused and neglected to comply with the request made both in 2012 and 2016, according to the consumer agency.

The CPC, frowned at the consistent refusal of MTN to provide “the call data records evidencing details of communication with the complainant' declaring that “in the absence of this material evidence which is solely in the possession of the respondent the CPC must resolve the issue in favour of the complainant'

It further declared that the “the process of the MTN Ultimate Wonder Promotion whereby the verification exercise was conducted after winners were identified, declared and winnings presented publicly is grossly flawed, lacking in transparency, inequitable and apparently calculated to deceive consumers

CPC, on the strength of these observations, therefore directed MTN to pay within 14 days of receipt of ITS Order, the sum of N1, 850,000 “being the unpaid part of the two million Naira prize won by the complainant in the 2012 MTN Ultimate Wonder Promotion.'

Mrs Dupe Atoki , the Council’s Director General, stresses ‘the obligation of businesses to desist from promos that are not honest, transparent, equitable and faithful or designed to deceive consumers.”