Writer’s Twitter handle: @faminga
Safaricom is yet to make a decision on the fate of some ‘adventurous customers” who found their way around the firm’s premier Platinum Plan and managed to access data and call plans almost free of charge.
The early morning glitch which is said to have started at around 8am saw customers access Safaricom’s platinum’s integrated plan offers.
The trick was, rather than paying through airtime or M-Pesa, the customer had to pay using their Bonga points, however, around 9:10am Safaricom suspended the platinum offers.
It was later rectified, but without the Bonga Points option on the Platinum payment plan.
“My daughter called and told me to put my speaker on for what she termed as a surprise,” says George Areba.
“She then told me to dial *544# and select option 3 on Platinum. She then asked me to choose Bonga Points as the payment option. While I received 20,480 Mbs (20.4Gbs) of data and 600 minutes talk time, Safaricom went ahead to chop all my Bonga Points after the transaction. She is lucky because she has none but enjoying Sh10,000 worth of airtime and bundles,” he said.
According to those who spoke to Business Hub and following postings on social media, most people are complaining after they tried to get the freebies worth between Sh2,000 and Sh10,000 for a maximum of 100 international call minutes, 1,500 minutes and 40gb of data.
“There is nothing illegal in what people did. They used *544# platform legally to purchase bundles using options that Safaricom itself did put in place,” said Rodgers Otom.
“They took 20Gbs in hours plus my Bonga Points, [I] am confused on who to call to complain,” said Doreen Ndalibo.
Safaricom had not responded to our queries about the system glitch only saying a few people had tried to get access free data and credit.
