The service charge by PHCN on their prepaid meter is an advance way of extortion.
The service charge is about N20/day for residents and N40/day for commercial. It is the number of days from your last recharge. If you recharge N1000 and after 30days you come to recharge again with N1000, they will subtract the service charge for the 30days i.e. N20 x 30 = N600. And you will be given a unit of N400 instead of N1000.

Even the areas that have light 24/7, i.e. 24mins in 7days, they will collect service charge for those days there was no light. And if your area had power problem and it took them 2 months to fix, when next you come to recharge, you will still pay service charge for the 2 months that you didn’t use light. It means that one is paying N20 or N40 service charge everyday whether he uses light or not. This is no longer pay as you go. Is it the same in the western world?

I don’t think there is need for this service charge because its supposed to be included in the amount of units you bought just like in telecoms. We have been using electronic cards for ATM, POS, etc and none of this is requesting for service charge. This should be stopped so that if one was properly utilizes a N500 unit, he can as well buy the same rate when next he comes to recharge.

everywhere in the world, this is a fraud apart from here in nigeria.
when you say a meter or anything is prepaid, it is another way of saying, PAY BEFORE SERVICE.or NO SERVICE, NO PAY.
only here in nigeria, u go and pay for internet and from 1 to 30, no network yet nobody will do anything about that. i have lived without nepa light for over 2 months yet i paid for service charge. which service am i paying for?
is it not funny that u have units in ur meter and you are still owing nepa.
i am living in a rented apartment and i have decided to buy like 20,000 card so that before my rent will expire, i will not buy card at least for 6 months and the next tent will end up paying for the services he did not use.
when i pack out, i will be ready to fight it out with nepa or whosoever will front himself. i will ask the authorities how i will have units in my meter and still owe nepa in a pre-paid system.
why is mtn not charging mobile phone users for service charge? useless country with useless policies.

P.H.C.N - Our Best Friend!

i tot the house of assembly asked them to stop collecting the service charge. i just forget that is a country where everybody makes Their own rule. Bleep nepa, Bleep national assembly and Bleep jonathan

PHCN is a big fraud in Nigeria. I still do not make any meaning out of the meter maintenance fees, even when you have not exhausted your credit, they still charge the fee at all times. I am yet to see a good legal practitioner who will take them on this matter, we are just a bunch of lame duck, all talk no action. We all open our mouth wide open while fellow men stick their long penis inside our mouth without any fight. I hate this PHCN

u guys don knw that PHCN is an another National Scam Scheme,

they just increase tariff without increase in power


i went to pay 4 my new bill in d bank (in my new location); only  to b informed after a lot of questioning that my account name is dat one of the PHCN`s manager
of PHCN Oshodi section,

on further enquiry; i was told that any money that`s paid into my PHCN acc. no. will b collected by that man whose name is written in d PHCN data base.

inother word; in my PHCN Bill; my new landlord name is there; the account no is there,

but in the bank data base ; the manager`s name is there while my account no. remains d same,

can u see fraud,

thats why when u talk abt privatising it; those 419ners (PHCN workers) will b compaining, because they knw that they are not offering any services,

I hate them with passion, imagine,After i paid for my pre-paid meter,2months later,i was asked to pay 15k to secure it,so that i'l nt lose it to another customer, light or no light,i haven't talkd about d crazy random bills(3k-4k) they bring monthly.
Where is our human right?
Whn wil dis monopoly stop?

are you sure or is this a joke? Where in the world do they pay for electricity service charge? it is only revolution that can change people thinking in this country. Enough of this inhuman feeling and oppress.

N20/day? hah! it depends on the meter you use, on some other meters it can be as much as N700 per month or even more, i don't know how much exactly i'm paying on mine but it's not small

I halt PHCN

Early this month, armed with a news item in the dailies last month that PHCN had been barred from collecting the criminal monthly charges, i breezed into the Akerele, Surulere office to buy some fresh tokens for my Meter, only to be met with a stern looking lady that told me bluntly that she is not aware of what am talking about.      

When i gave her 4k for the units, my receipt showed only 2,267 was the cost of my 107 units, while 1,551 went into monthly charge  , the rest is VAT.
I have tried several ways to beat them but none worked, i once bought bulk units once that lasted over four months, by the time i went to recharge again, i had to pay over 10k as arrears on monthly charges first before paying another 3k for some tokens.
This is Pure criminality! It has to stop!!!

PHCN has been a fraud. A conduit pipe to drain the common man. You pay for services not rendered and nobody wants to know. They behave like old NITEL whereby you beg them for the analogue phone we had then and NITEL staff will be behaving as if they are gods. Until Nitel went underground and other communication outlets came in, these NITEL staffs now beg food to eat. I remember some of them then that wouldn't like you to talk to them as they see you as nobody. Now, they own nothing and are begging to eat.

PHCN should be thrown out and let other people come into the industry and provide electricity same way we have communication outlets. Only then will it be business and you can subscribe to companies that will provide electricity for you. They send me bill of N3500 monthly from electricity not provided for, after I was told to pay N35, 000 for prepaid meter and since 3 months, I was not given any meter and still paying for bill hat I never had.

For about a month, I only cannot dust my chest and say that I have had up to 10hrs of PHCN electricity in about. I buy fuel of about 5,000 naira every week.

this guys are killing millions of nigerians with unresonable and outrageous bills. I live in awoyaya and the nepa people are giving me an outrageous estimated bill of 5k every month meanwhile as a new tenant that just came from transfare to lagos, i no get any electrical appliance just about 10 bulbs thats why i am being billed 5k by these guys, and the most annoying part of it is the arrogance that they have while extorting you.

no such thing in jos

i thought i read somewhere that the govt has ordered them to stop the service charge?

Una never see anything yet, Must nigerians copy everything

[size=14pt]HEAR MY CASES.[/size]
[size=14pt]

Case 1

mr A has a 1-phase metre, 1 AC, 2 ceiling fans, TV, Home theater and 5 bulbs,
Mr B has a 3-phase metre1 AC, 2 ceiling fans, TV, Home theater and 5 bulbs.

Mr A is charged N4 per KWH of electricity consumed, about N250 or N400 metre maintenance fee
Mr B is charged over N10 per KWH of electricity consumed, about N1250 metre maintenance fee

My concern is that it is so funny to think that the same amount of voltage is passing through these metres. the difference is just the fact that there are alternate live connection for the 3 -phase in case of a phase going down.


Case 2

A small room shop has only one (1) bulb and a fan only. No AC, TV, Fridge Radio etc. PHCN brings in monthly bill of over N6,000 claiming it is comercial.

This is real fraud[/size].

talk true:

The service charge by PHCN on their prepaid meter is an advance way of extortion.
The service charge is about N20/day for residents and N40/day for commercial. It is the number of days from your last recharge. If you recharge N1000 and after 30days you come to recharge again with N1000, they will subtract the service charge for the 30days i.e. N20 x 30 = N600. And you will be given a unit of N400 instead of N1000.

Even the areas that have light 24/7, i.e. 24mins in 7days, they will collect service charge for those days there was no light. And if your area had power problem and it took them 2 months to fix, when next you come to recharge, you will still pay service charge for the 2 months that you didn’t use light. It means that one is paying N20 or N40 service charge everyday whether he uses light or not. This is no longer pay as you go. Is it the same in the western world?

I don’t think there is need for this service charge because its supposed to be included in the amount of units you bought just like in telecoms. We have been using electronic cards for ATM, POS, etc and none of this is requesting for service charge. This should be stopped so that if one was properly utilizes a N500 unit, he can as well buy the same rate when next he comes to recharge.

@Op
you guys are enjoying oh, over here in kurudu, orozo, karshi  axis in abuja they just started the prepaid meter thingy and they charge us 51.70/ day as access charge for 3 phase meters, while its 11/day for single phase. i went to their office with 3k last saturday and got just 300 naira worth of credit. they deducted 2,533k minus vat as access charge for 49 days. almost cried back home. they are just thieves and its about time we echoe this fraud that is being perpetarated by nepa

We all know they are one of the products of the stupid leadership.
If you can't join them, arrange for them to be beatn. Trashing them may not be the best solution, but it helps. Have seen people beat the hell out of them coz of their stupidity & they stopped that madness. If you can't find them in court because u don't have money to do so. Why not fight them, many of you come here to complain while you are the greatest problems that ever happened to us as a nation. Any protest to fight the government, what y'all do is chicken out! Mcheeeww! Am tired of listening to stories that do not add values to my life as a Nigerian. Fight what you believe in & stop expecting results while you are doing nothing to fight back.

am really fed up with this nation.
I sent my secretary to purchase N3000 card from PHCN office, wot we got was 91 units. They cbollectebd service charge for 4 months. We had not recharged for that long. Now, we have exhausted the 91 units. What type of extortion is this. GEJ please help us.

I went to PHCN office a couple of days ago to recharge.
They told me to pay a service charge of N8600 being service
charge arrears for about 5months. I almost collapsed.
I had to pay a total of N11000 to get 247 units.
Your N20/day even beta sef.

Thats another way to extort money from us. Na wa

We were informed d other day that PHCN should stop charging persons on prepaid meters. Are we saying dey are still collecting it?

Jald007:

We all know they are one of the products of the silly leadership.
If you can't join them, arrange for them to be beatn. Trashing them may not be the best solution, but it helps. Have seen people beat the hell out of them coz of their stupidity & they stopped that madness. If you can't find them in court because u don't have money to do so. Why not fight them, many of you come here to complain while you are the greatest problems that ever happened to us as a nation. Any protest to fight the government, what y'all do is chicken out! Mcheeeww! Am tired of listening to stories that do not add values to my life as a Nigerian. Fight what you believe in & stop expecting results while you are doing nothing to fight back.

beating the ordinary junior staff is nt going to solve the problem bt rather aggravate it.,i was expectn to hear you mention a protest to there headquarters in Maitama and then start the beating frm those overfed ogas there.
I could remember wen one nepa guy that came for disconnection in my area was beaten to a pulp by angry youths in that vicinity.The management disconnected that area for 4months wtout electricity till they came begging wt a penalty and sum of 500k for attempted murder on a public servant who's discharging hs official assignment.

You guyz seems to amaze me o!

Don't you know there is a CABAL in the power supply in nigeria

ALL I KNOW  is that Mr. President is compiling a list to publish the names of the cabal.

Then you'll know those that have been extorting us of this N20/day or N30/day service charge as d case may be.

I thought no one would ever complain about this daylight robbery being perpetuated by the PHCN. I suffered it for over three years in my former apartment before I decided to relocate. In a year, I paid almost N60K as NEPA recharges overthis their nonsense Service Charge they call it. The worst thing was that my landlord then went and got the Three Phase one which attracted about N1500 monthly charge as Service charge alone. Told him I'll pay for the single phase one just to reduce my NEPA bills but he refused. So when I wanted to leave, I made sure I bought credit that will last me for six months, when I left he almost had to call me to come and pay for the service charges for six months - what a joker!!!

On a more serious note - I think the solution is for us to invest in Solar Panels, since the Govt has refused to come to the aid of the common man. National Assembly members will shout and holla but nothing happens at the end of the day. Some of them benefit from these callous exploitations of the common man. By the time we neglect their power and provide power for ourselves - no one will tell them before they drop their stupid and senseless charges. There is no where in the world where people pay Service Charge on a freaking metre. Why then do they make people pay for the meters in the first place? Paying almost N40K to get the meter is equivalent to having purchased it so where does the stupid and senseless service charge come in here? What are they servicing?

It is this same country where you have to renew ur Driver's License every Three years as if it takes three years for one to forget how to drive whereas in other countries, you only apply for Driver's License once and that's it. These people design these systems just to exploit us the masses and it's high time we stand up to all these injustices going on in this country through a revolution.

Civil Unrest is looming around the corner in this country, may be it'll burst loose in january when they increase the prices of fuel/kerosene/diesel all in the name of removing Oil Subsidy, hmmnnn!!!

Briz:

You guyz seems to amaze me o!

Don't you know there is a CABAL in the power supply in nigeria

ALL I KNOW  is that Mr. President is compiling a list to publish the names of the cabal.

Then you'll know those that have been extorting us of this N20/day or N30/day service charge as d case may be.

Which list? Se dat list they've been compiling since the days of Yar A'dua that is not yet ready!!! Abeg my guy forget that thing. Let us take our own Fates into our own hands - the time is ripe or else these idiots will continue to oppress us oh!

The National Electricity Regulation boss said the removal of the service charge would be removed from the october billing cycle.i.e it would reflect in November bills.

It remains to be seen if it will happen though!! We have a habit of saying things in Abuja and it never getting implemented where it really matters.

While leaving the country last year June, I bought about 600 units just returned few months ago and the units are about 102 now. So you are saying I'm going to pay for a year and 5 months of service charge? Bite me, I'll have to tap that light over the weekend. . . .

last time i went to recharge my card i was told our monthly fixed charge was now #1650 because we were using the 3 phase meter.i added #200 to the #2000 i was holding and bought #500.i was given 51 units and thanks to God since that september till date my meter has been behaving strange.i still have 50.87units left even though i use lots of appliances.i didn't tweak anything.

Odiaero Please start it first and rest of us will follow you.