Skip to main content

How Safaricom clients are being robbed by PRSPs through hidden charges

The silent airtime deductions that are done by PRSPs
On Safaricom? Ever received an SMS asking you to subscribe to some service to listen to some mundane song, as if that stuff isn't available on the Internet for free?

If your answer to the above two questions is Yes, then you are probably paying your hard earned cash for that crap.


Remember that month you struggled to pay rent, or struggled to pay some medical bill, or school fee? Unlucky you, some chap somewhere is driving a Range Rover Sport 2013, which they have bought by charging you KSh. 30 every 3 or so days on your Safaricom line.

In a month, they'll charge you about Ksh. 300. They may be charging 1,000, or even 10,000 other fools like you, out of Safaricom's 18 million customers. 10,000 customers is just 0.06 percent, or 6 in every 10,000 Safaricom customers, and at KSh. 300 per month, that is just Ksh. 3 million every month.

The money is deducted quietly form your account, no text, nothing.

If you have been receiving such texts,
suggest you call Safaricom customer care
to enquire that you aren't subscribed to
the service, or use the self care
portal to confirm the same

You will only ever notice the deductions if you log into Safaricom's Self Care portal (https://selfcare.safaricom.co.ke) and go to Billing -> Recent or Unbilled Usage. Use the form provided and select a range of data to query your bill, which you can query for the last six months.

Carefully go through your records and spot anything that reads "Additional Services Charging  " with an accompanying charge of KSh. 30. <--- fellow="" highway="" is="" kenyans="" nbsp="" p="" robbery.="" that="">
Apparently, I was charged KSh. 30 on 17th of July, and again on the 15th of July and again on the 11th of July, and many other times since April.

The Safaricom customer care rep says that I subscribed to Roamtech, a so called premium rate service provider (PRSP). PRSPs are those chaps that put up adverts for ringtones, wallpapers and other cap that can be downloaded by dialling *somenumber# . They then charge you about Ksh. 10, or Ksh. 15, or Ksh. 20 or something daily, or every few days.

Half of the money PRSPs charge you goes to Safaricom for providing them with subscribers and the *something# number, known as a USSD number.

In this case, Roamtech somehow subscribed me to their service.

It's not the first time, long time ago, when I used to be on Zain, some other PRSP somehow subscribed me to their service. Then, at least, these robbers had the decency to send you a text informing you that they are robbing you of Ksh. 30 everyday. I called Zain customer care, which itself was quite a task, who then said I must have susbcribed, or someone else done so on my behalf.

Bullshit crap. I hadn't subscribed and I hadn't given out my phone either. They informed me how to unsubscribe, and duly informed me that my KSh. 30 or KSh. 60 lost could only be recovered from the PRSP. Since then, I never trusted Zain (They later sold to Airtel).

Fast forward to 2013 AD(Anno Digital), where on  hot Friday in July, I discover that Roamtech has been charging me KSh. 30 every few days. This time, they do not even have the shame to inform me that I'm being billed for every KSh. 30 deducted.

I only suspected that I was being billed when I started receiving spam from Roamtech on July 11th, first time they SMSd me from April, when they started billing me.

Safaricom customer care informed me that they could only unsubscribe me, of which I received a text informing me of the same.

Unsubscription, text received. Subscription - no text. Billing - No text. Smells of bull excreta, right?

For refunds, or to gather how I got subscribed, I had to call, or email Roamtech Robbers Limited on 0723 773869, or email them. Three calls later, chaps never pick, or return calls. Probably at some holiday resort somewhere, enjoying their hard earned cash.

The customer care rep say they cannot do anything. It's between me and Roamtech. This is the equivalent of  someone making regular, silent withdrawals on your bank account, and your bank claiming that you must have authorised the withdrawals, despite you never being informed of either the authorisation of any of the withdrawals.

And I'm not alone, as you can see from the below tweets.

Subscription through stupid adverts?
An emerging explanation is that people subscribe to these PRSPs through those adverts that you see online, especially on the Nation website (which appear not to be running now, but remember that "Aaliyah is calling" ad that mimics Skype?), that ask for your phone number. It is said that they send a text to your phone asking you to text back a confirmation. Those of us who have been victims of this high robbery are being asked if we did this.

Surprisingly, no. Of course I'm aware of such adverts, and most others who have been a victims of the scam say they have never entered their numbers online. So, unless, someone is entering our numbers on our behalf, and there are no texts either asking us to confirm our subscription. See the case below.
I recently encountered a case where someone did nothing to enter a code in any website and was subscribed. My sister-in-law who lives out of the country bought a SIM card 2 weeks ago and her airtime kept disappearing with these SMS's appearing. We went to Customer Care center at Sarit and she had to be unsubscribed from six of these short codes - and no explanation was given for a new SIM card all of a suddenly subscribing to all those services.
./Ok3ch
 It's clear that PRSPs are in some fishy business. Will Safaricom and other mobile providers just ignore as their helpless clients are "accidentally" robbed?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beers in Kenya: A sober opinion

Note: This is a dated post and has since been mostly passed by events. SAB Miller beers including Castle and Peroni are no longer widely available in Kenya after their exist. Sirville Brewery was bought out by Brew Bistro before being permanently shut in a tax dispute. Kenya is a land of milk, honey, beaches and taxes. I have penned, or is typed, a newer post here .  Peroni - One of the best beers in Kenya. Did a taste of canned and bottled Italian, and bottled Tanzanian I like the tangy flavour and body in Tanzanian Peroni. The can is close. Heineken drinkers will like the Italian one.  I have had a short beer swigging stint in my life. It has however been long enough for me to share my opinion of Kenyan beer. Interestingly, over the course of sharing such opinions with other drunkards connoisseurs,  I have found that we all have different views as to what beer is the best, which one makes you too drunk, or which one gives one free, extra hangover for every ha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kenyan Beers and Craft Beer Reviews for 2025

It's 2025, and you asked for yet another Kenyan beer review. Let's cut straight to the chase - we keep the many stories for once we are drunk. Right? This year we categorize the beers according to breweries.  Bila Shaka / Bateleur  Flagship is Bila Shaka which is a rich flavoured but bitter IPA with 6% volume.  They focus more on quality and experimenting.  Home to many pleasantly (sweet per 2 people. I agree) favoured beers like Dire Straits, and for the ladies who love it a lot on the sweeter side, there's Honey Badger. These come in at about 5% or so. Jua Kali isn't as sweet as the above and is a mixed rice and barley beer, for some reason popular in the hot coast. Capitan is their bar beer and is a light-ish, pleasant beer at 4% volume and a good time passer when you're there for a long and good night and have things to do the next day. My favourite local brewer and highly recommended, especially Dire Straits. It's a medium beer, don...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lusaka and Livingstone Zambia to Namibia By Road

Zambia is a pretty large country,  an exciting one and with no shortage of potholes.  For instance, take the direct route from Lusaka - Livingstone to Namibia through the Sesheke - Katima Mulilo border crossing. Typically, roads are either good or tend to have potholes here and there. However, the last 120 kilometres of the Livingstone to Sesheke/Katima Mulilo route are best described as potholes dotted by some road here and there for the just thirty kilometres past Kazungula town, which is also the Zambia - Botswana border crossing.  Trying to drive to Sesheke is so bad it will take you anywhere between 4 hours to 6 hours to navigate those 100 kilometres. You may or may not have your dignity at the end and your vehicle may be in more than one piece.  If you really must use the Sesheke - Katima Mulilo crossing as of December 2022, then take the 900 kilometre longer detour from Lusaka to Mongu then back to Katima Mulilo. It doesn't guarantee you absence of potholes, b...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Nairobi City By-Laws that Never Were

Well, you have all heard about the proposed Nairobi city by Laws, currently awaiting approval by the Local Government minister. The proposed laws seemed to be quite comprehensive, and ranged from simple laws governing traffic-lights-conduct to the outrageous ones which seek to limit the behavior of city dogs. We here at gramware have been having a feeling that some of the laws on dogs were referring to a word used to co-notate the gender of a female dog; and commonly used to refer to human beings with outrageous behaviours. Still, we think that there are some laws that city hall missed, and we decided to list some of them here. Most of them might be outrageous, and probably a reason why they didn't make the cut. Here they are: It shall be illegal for a city Resident to stop on a street to stare at a video screen for a period of time longer than 15 seconds. any resident contravening this shall be charged with obstruction. Pedestrians within the city shall attempt to walk in almost ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beers of Kenya. The Ultimate 2019 Guide

Four years ago, precisely in 2015, I wrote about beer in Kenya in what has gone on to be my most popular post this year with more than 5,000 people reading it. It seems that there is a lot of interest in exploring beer in Kenya, which is understandable. The brewing sector has grown since then and we now have lots of options, which means it is time for another review. Back in 2015, Kenya had one major brewer - EABL/KBL, challenged by Keroche and Sierra which is more of a small volume craft brewer, and arguably Kenya’s first craft brewery. It had also been joined by Brew Bistro which mostly sells its malted stuff at its outlets in Nairobi and later by Sirville, a bar located at Galleria Mall. Sirville was later sold to Brew Bistro and converted to the latter for a while, before shutting down in what is alleged to be a tax dispute.
Post a Comment
Read more