Many mobile phone subscribers tend not to understand three basic fundamentals of gambling dubbed “promotions” by all suppliers be they telecos or the other products providers:
- The company behind the gambling promotion does not spend its own money to pay the winners, so that
- It is the contribution of several participants that pays the winners and that’s why
- You are unlikely to be a winner.
Personally I won, twice, with Safaricom’s Bonyeza Ushinde promotion. One was a 50 bob airtime and the other was a 100 bob airtime. The other time I won was during the 2006 world cup after being able to answer one of the trivia questions correctly and Safaricom was kind enough to reward me with a 40 bob airtime. That’s all there is to winning.
So when I read that some Airtel subscribers are complaining that “Airtel Kenya [is] robbing Peter to pay Paul in their Vurumisha Mamili promotion” I asked myself, don’t these guys know that that’s how gambling works?
But that was before I read the rest of the statement:
“Is Airtel Kenya robbing Peter to pay Paul in their ‘Vurumisha Mamili’ promotion”?The promo gives subscribers a chance to win prizes and cash every time they top up by sending a code send by the no 30888 at a cost of 1 shilling. Apparently am among the many subscribers who are complaining thatĀ Airtel KenyaĀ sends you the codes but once you send it to the 30888 no, despite them deductingyour cash, all you get is numerous response that the code is invalid. I’ve raised the issue at their online page but no solution yet. Could Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) kindly intervene to ensure that subscribers are not losing their cash over a shady promo”?
To make matters worse it is not just Winnie Kibet, the complainant at Cofek Facebook Page, that is affected. Tom and Lola, commenters on the statement, also confirmed having experienced the same.
No, stealing money from subscribers by Airtel is not limited to Vurumisha Mamili na Airtel alone. In the post, “I threw my Airtel line down the trench” I gave some six reasons why people should stop using the Airtel lines, one of the reason being they rob subscribers based on some “unintended” subscriptions to various premium services.
The other method of robbery by Airtel is just when you realize that you no longer have sufficient funds to make that call, even though your last balance was enough for more than three calls each lasting more than a minute.
Someone must stop these scams run by Airtel. CCK and Gambling Board, are you listening?
Whoa! Robbery is a big word.