by Nyamanoko Bwire

A rip-off on cellular phones re-charge vouchers is currently sweeping Arusha, with various residents complaining of losing thousands of shillings.

Speaking to the Arusha Times, most victims pointed fingers at the recently reintroduced 2 dollar worth of Vodago recharge vouchers issued by the Vodacom service providers, as the main platform of the rip-off rackets.

Lucy Moses with a Vodacom line number 0744 -365050, said the 2 dollar recharge vouchers usually have just a dollar or less of air time and it’s important for customers to check their account balances before and after entering the 14 digits PIN numbers on the vouchers.

Hussein Salim with line number 0744 - 300740 also complained of having been losing plenty of money before deciding to start checking the account balances of newly entered recharge vouchers, when he thus discovered the swindle.

According to Hussein, he became suspicious when he bought a US$ 2 recharge voucher bounced and made him lose the Tsh.2,300 he had bought the card for.

Another voucher swindle victim, Mama Justine with line number 0744 - 761291 said she had tried to contact the Vodacom company through their free line number 161 but was told to wait for four hours. After the four hours were over, Mama Justine called again but this time they told her to hold on as they played her some music which went on for a long time until she hang up.

Amina Hussein of line number 0744 - 847805, who also suffered the loss of money on US$ 2 Vodago voucher was even more unlucky as she tried to dial the 161 customer service number.

"As soon as they heard me complaining, they simply cut me off abruptly!" lamented Amina who is among various Arusha residents who are annoyed by the service.

Various other Arusha residents have been lodging complaints to this paper about the US$ 2 Vodago recharge vouchers but also adding that, services being provided by other companies such as Mobitel, Celtel and Tritel also left much to be desired.

Arusha Times tried to contact Vodacom through their customer service line number 161 regarding the complaints.

A voice on the other end instructed us to tell the victims to next time switch their cell phones off and on again and the problem would be rectified.

According to the voice, this was simply "some computer problems!"

However, this paper has also discovered that, Vodacom has commissioned local retailers in town to print their own US$ 2 Vodago recharge vouchers and sell them.

"They just provide us with serial PIN digits which we print on our own machines," revealed a shop keeper in town who didn’t want his name to appear in the paper.

Vodago US$ 2 recharge vouchers are sold at between Tsh.2,000 and Tsh.2,400 per card.

There are four cell phone service providing companies currently operating in Arusha which are: Mobitel, Tritel, Vodacom and Celtel.

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Last modified: November 21, 2002.
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