Subscribers lambast Vodafone Ghana over poor service

Subscribers of Vodafone Ghana are angry over the failure of the telecoms service provider to restore their service which make them unable to recharge their mobile phones.

On yesterday Thursday all pre-paid subscribers of Vodafone Ghana were unable to use their recharge cards to top up their airtime. The problem has just been resolved this evening.

This invariably meant that subscribers who ran out of credit could not recharge their mobile phones. The damage caused by the network challenge cannot be quantified in monetary terms, according to economists.

They explained a number of business transactions worth thousands of dollars could be lost during the poor network service period.

Although, the network problem occurred in the early hours of Thursday, the telecoms company came out to apology in the evening around 8pm with a SMS text to subscribers which states: “We will like to apologise to customers experiencing challenges on the network. Our engineers are working to restore service. Apologies for any inconvenience caused”.

Another apology posted on the Facebook wall of Vodafone Ghana reads: “We apologise to all our pre-paid customers who are unable to use their recharge cards to top up their airtime. We are experiencing some challenges on our Recharge Management Platform and are working to resolve it as soon as possible. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and will keep you updated.”

This daft apology did not go down well with several subscribers who cast aspersions on the management of the subsidiary of the Vodafone Group Plc, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company.

Reacting, a surgeon at one of the hospitals in Ghana, Dr. Daniel Yeboah Sarpong said: “You have been very disappointing, I am a medic on duty and I can't even recharge my cards to contact the ward staff. Do you ever think of the consequences of such abysmal service rendered to customers! All you care about is useless adverts! ”.

Another Vodafone subscriber, Rock Adjei-Baah could not understand why it took the telecoms firm this long to acknowledge there was a problem. I think we already knew that. Give us a meaningful update and stop telling us what we already know, he fumed.

Alhassan Faisal Baba stated because there is no better alternative, we are forced to accept this for an excuse, vodafone UK or South Africa will never give you such an excuse so why Vodafone Ghana?

Lord-Fischer Ankude,added: “And you think facebook is the best platform to apologize to us? I have trying to recharge since 1 pm and still no show. What kind of trouble too be this? This Shit can't happen in Germany”.

The irate subscribers hinted that it was not only recharge cards but registration of SIM cards and porting numbers were also going through... Why Vodafone... So how do you want us to say you are the best...? We can only say "power to you" but not the best please, they emphasised.

Etor Nam Ababio and his colleague subscribers who are going through these excruciating pains have therefore called on the National Communications Authority (NCA) to compel Vodafone Ghana to compensate them for the lost.

Per the NCA's monthly mobile voice subscription report, Vodafone's subscriber base of 6,244,855 ending January increased to 6,413,376 in February 2014, representing 22.41% of the total market share. This means Vodafone Ghana is the second largest telecoms service provider in Ghana after MTN Ghana.