The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Friday, ordered MTN Nigeria Communications Limited to pay N15 million damages over the unlawful deduction of a subscriber’s airtime through unsolicited services.
The appellate court, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, described as fraudulent, the regular deduction of airtime of customers by the telecommunication giant, for the auto-renewal of services not subscribed to.
It further held that the sending of unwarranted text messages by the company amounted to a breach of subscribers’ right to privacy under section 37 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as the violation of Regulation 28 of Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
The judgement followed an appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/137/2022, which was brought before the court by an aggrieved customer, Mr. Ezugwu Anene.
Anene had approached the court, alleging that he received over 244 unsolicited text messages from MTN for Weekly Guidance and Counseling, a service he said he did not 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.
The Appellant alleged that MTN continued to deduct his airtime for Caller Tune Services that was imposed on him.
He told the court that the unwanted deductions persisted, even though he protested at the Abuja office of the telecommunication company and also used a code, 2442, which he was told would activate a Do Not Disturb service on his line.