Etisalat, one of Nigeria’s Cellular phone service providers has been slammed with a N10 Million law suit for illegally swapping a subscriber’s active number without his consent.

Taiwo Egbon, an Etisalat subscriber claim that he woke up one morning and discovered his Etisalat line which he uses in communicating with family members who frequently sends him money from overseas had been cloned.

Out of curiosity, he called the number and discovered someone in Kaduna State had been taking his calls.

Egbon told Pointblanknews.com that after getting a confirmation from one Mr. Chima, a staff of Etisalat that his line was indeed swapped for “no just reason,” he filed a complaint through the Nigeria Communication Commission, (NCC) and Etisalat, but the cell phone company in its response simply told Egbon “we are not liable” in a letter in May 2010.

According to him “I received a response from the NCC through a letter dated August 20, 2010 and signed by one Mrs. Lolia Emakpore with an attached response from Etisalat and I was shocked that they lied to the NCC that I did the sim card swapping myself, that I authorized it on April 3, 2010.”

“It was a blatant lie. I loaded my phone with credit in my house and about to use it to call the University of East London where I have applied to do a post-graduate program and when the network keeps failing, I used another line to call my Etisalat number and someone else picked the phone claiming that he owns the number.”


Not satisfied with Etisalat game over the swapping of his number, Egbon proceeded to court, filing a law suit against the cell phone company. The ruling has been fixed for March 16, 2011 at the Federal High Court, Benin where Egbon is demanding N10 Million in damages.

Egon told Pointblanknews.com that he is particularly piqued because the Etisalat number was his main number which he uses to receive calls from relatives overseas and from Universities abroad .

just 10M bucks?!wat was he tinking?!!he shuld hav made it 100M, i pray mtn try dat shit with my line, dey 4 hear wiam!

Lovely and brave.

We need more law suits like this to improve service delivery in Nigeria

It is going to be tricky to prove and claim those damages worth N10 million

You see in Nigeria, You are Guilty until proven Innocent (youusually have to prove yourself off accusations and suspicions) and as far as Etisalat can pull up records to show that he indeed executed the SIM-swap, then there is no case for him. (and Etisalat has the means to do just that if they were actually guilty in the first place). I had a similar problem with Glo 3 yrs ago when I used their Internet USB at 30k per month. I was out for a week and they produced a monthly bill displaying internet,SMS,GPRS usage during the time the modem was not in use. I ignored them and for 3 months they kept sending Bills and threatened to call their lawyers. Imagine that 3 month bills for an inactive SIM that was in a dirty gutter on Adeola-Odeku.

He cannot even prove that he did not have the intention to defraud Etisalat by using this scenario as a scheme to claim N10 million.

pitiful sham we live in, aren't there supposed to be authorizations for such services/actions as SIM swap? who signed it who paid for it, where there no passports taken/submitted?, no credit to the way we even buy SIM cards along the road sides, how do you prove actual owners, I wish him luck though

na wa oooooooooooo

This is why SIM registration is a brilliant idea. It will be difficulty for SIM-swapping without authorisation, at least there will be clear evidence of SWAP.

Nigeria need correct regulatory regime to protect consumers.

I hope Taiwo Egbon has a good lawyer. Etisalat can afford the best lawyer money can buy.

Tell Taiwo Egbon that he has a big fight in his hand.

For a start, you must provide a valid proof of your damages. You will need expert witness conversant with mobile telephone business.

Taiwo and his lawyer should prepare well oh.

mrtidy:

pitiful sham we live in, aren't there supposed to be authorizations for such services/actions as SIM swap? who signed it who paid for it, where there no passports taken/submitted?, no credit to the way we even buy SIM cards along the road sides, how do you prove actual owners, I wish him luck though

Mr Tidy , Your statement above summarises it all!! A very big sham.

From a Telecomms technical perspective it will be extremely difficult for Taiwo Egbon to prove he did not swap sims and here are a few reasons why :-

1. Credits are loaded via pre-paid cards of which Taiwo possibly will have thrown most away so no personally kept billing records. Etilasat will not provide their records as the case is against them so he should forget requesting these.
2. No identification Documents or formal contracts exchanged by both parties at initial purchase of sim. For all you know they can claim Taiwo stole it and he can't prove otherwise.
3. No governing body in Nigeria keeps Call data records of GSM providers so Etisalat can amend these or refuse to present these to any court. This is Sensitivie data which even the courts will find difficult to gain if requested.
4. The Courts in naija still run in an extremely backward age and have no clue on the operations of IT/Telecomm and unfortunately are deadweight to proper / correct resolution.  

The only chance of the court taking this into full consideration is if there are large amounts of legal proceedings against Etisalat of such standing. Admire this is good start to making a difference however from my perspective still pointless.

That being said this may well serve as a good medium to get all others in similar status quo heard and get Etisalat get their act together.

Don't know how the system works in naija fully but in the UK with the above list against anyone it is almost guaranteed you'll end up paying high court charges and higher Solicitor fees.

at OP
The only snag here is that the guy did not retain me. I would have gotten him his N10milla, appealed on the amount, gotten him N20milla at the higher court (appeal) and then go for the kill atthe supreme court where we will be asking for N50milla.

On a serious note, i think the guy might be able to prove his case. Etisalat might produce data, but the Claimant (through his solicitors) should get the 'traffic carriers' to come and testify on the claims of any such calls on those days when he is sure he never did make any. There is always data on all of these as the Company in question (Etisalat) will normally only pay based actual call traffic. This Claimant needs prove only one or two incosistences and the law will look favourably at his case.

Finally his solicitor should exaggerate a bit on how the populace are suffering because of those flagrant hi-tech abuses by all these telecomm companies. The judge is human and might be swayed to sympathize with the claimant. I wish him well sha, knowing that a stubborn company will be prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court by which time the man will be too old to enjoy the outcome of this suit.

Good luck ! I pray  you nail their ass and smile to the bank at the end of this episode.
Would have laughed louder if mtn was ur victim

It is also instructive that for sim swaps, passport (still) pictures and finger prints of the customer are taken, so Etisalat should be able to provide these on request. (if they actually do exist).

As for information relating to their data, the Claimant's solicitor can 'subpoena' the Company to provide and present any and all such data at the risk of being charged with contempt of court and sent to prison upon conviction should they refuse to comply with the court's directive on this.

I think this guy should press his case. i hope he has a good solicitor to pursue this.

well If this guy got his fact right he might win the case, otherwise it could be that he did not top up his sim for more than 90days, so it was re-allocate to someone else that could happen

however if he have prove that he purchase the sim then court would have to decide.

I wish him good luck

[b]This has happen to me too in the past, someone was using my MTN line in Kaduna. I just overlooked it because i was not really using the line then. I used it occassionally.

My cousin's Multilink landphone was sold to someone else at Ikeja .  He called customercare they told him to come to the office with the receipt of purchase, which he did and the line was given back to him.  

The GSM lines these days you bought them at the gutter side and there are no receipts.

The recharge card is a piece of paper that you through away after used.  

The guy must come up with a good evidence.  If actually he had been calling the university abroad through his lawyer he should be able to get transcript of the call from the university phone operator.  He should keep the cloned line he had with him as an evidence and should stop using the cellphone till the case is settle.  There might be a case where he will need software to scrutinize the cellphone to know which sim was used on the phone - sms, phone records,download etc.

It happen sometimes, the GSM or CMDA operators sold ones line without his/her knowledge, if you actually have good evidence which is exhibit on court cases ride on my brother.[/b]

If he gets a good lawyer, it will be pepper soup. The fine should have been higher.

@ POSTER, Egbon, 1 Question: DOES HUNGER RULE IN UR FAMILY OR KINDRED? 2. THE SWAPPING MAY NOT HAVE BEEN,BUT NETWORK ERROR. 3. ARE U SUBSCRIBING TO ILLEGAL CASE OF HUNGER, ANGER EFFECTS TO MERE , EGBON, UR CASE NO HOLD WATERS.

I like this! I like this! I like this! I like this! I like this!

If he wins this case (in considerable time), I wonder how much he'll have left. Minus lawyers fees and all.

The point is not about winning the case. We need to see more people daring to make an attempt to defend themselves against such injustices from mega companies.

The guy should just settle out of court. This happens in most cases, he might end up not even winning and that will amount to total loss of money and time.

well he should have asked for higher then they would have settled out of court.Companies some time settle out of court because their lawyers charge them more than the amount claimed.

Can the guy prove that he is the bonafide owner of that line?was it registered or/and did he purchase the line with his name and a receipt issued  

I enjoy attending my community meeting with Gov. Fashola. Reason is this; it is good to always think about your action before you act. Some people decided not to ask him "unnecessary" question anymore because the brilliant answer he would give would make you ask yourself "why did i ask this foolish question".

@ Taiwo Egbon, 1. Do you have the pack of your line that contains the PUK and serial number? 2. Do you know a swap can be done on Etisalat without you going to there office? 3. Do you know if a line is left dormant for some months, it will be recycled and resold to another customer? 4. Do you believe a close friend or relative can get all your information and call for swap? Let me stop here.

Think about all these and make a judgement whether to continue or back out of the law suit. so that you wont ask yourself later "why did i allow greed to finish me"?

For Etisalat to have boldly replied NCC, that means they have all facts around them, if not, they would have contacted you and settle amicably.
A food for thought!!!!!

Am sure after this lawsuit they will all behave and improve their service

I am sorry for this dude cos i think he has the biggest fight of his life on his hands.

As a former telecom staff, i will give you an insider's view.

The first way someone else can use his line is if he didn't recharge his line for 270 days, during which he must have been warned like 3 times that upon failure to recharge, his line will be suspended and sent back to the pool of numbers. After it is sent back to the pool of numbers, the company reserves the right to send the number back into the market, but usually with a separate serial no After 180 days, he wouldn’t be able to receive calls, cos he would be able to call just the customer care and emergency numbers.

Now if his number was “cloned”, then it may not be from Etisalat cos people phish for info online and from every possible avenue and use that to do whatever they want to do without even coming to the service provider. Bank account numbers, credit card numbers and details, UK numbers are cloned and used by different people for a lot of ulterior motives Some random person may have cloned the number without even calling etisalat.

Telecom companies do not just carry out swaps, unless the owner of the line or someone posing as the owner calls the customer care, and the person usually is asked questions or pumped for info believed to be possessed by the owner of the line only. Such info, like serial and PUK nos, 3 frequently dialed nos, date of last recharge etc. So, depending on how careless the owner has been, these info could be gotten by just about anyone that has access to your sim pack and prolly yor phone, but then if it is a swap, someone must have called in.

So for Etisalat to have confidently replied his mail, I am sure they have enough information and when I was in the telecom company, specifically the call center, I used to tell those under me to ensure that they got all the requirements and private info before carrying out a swap. Even tho subs complained that the questions were too much, if there was an issue, they will turn around and sue you immediately.
Wahala wa oo!

All he needs is the SIM certificate he broke the SIM card away from and the pack, that is all the evidence of ownership required by law. There's a good chance he can win the case fairly easily if he can locate this

there is no way mr taiwo can win this case. etisalat will easily adjust his sim records to suit their purpose. no be naija?

I wish him all the best

[size=15pt]This goes to show that one has to thread softly in business.[/size]

nothing good will come out of this.

Samo Hung:

I enjoy attending my community meeting with Gov. Fashola. Reason is this; it is good to always think about your action before you act. Some people decided not to ask him "unnecessary" question anymore because the brilliant answer he would give would make you ask yourself "why did i ask this foolish question".

@ Taiwo Egbon, 1. Do you have the pack of your line that contains the PUK and serial number? 2. Do you know a swap can be done on Etisalat without you going to there office? 3. Do you know if a line is left dormant for some months, it will be recycled and resold to another customer? 4. Do you believe a close friend or relative can get all your information and call for swap? Let me stop here.

Think about all these and make a judgement whether to continue or back out of the law suit. so that you wont ask yourself later "why did i allow greed to finish me"?

For Etisalat to have boldly replied NCC, that means they have all facts around them, if not, they would have contacted you and settle amicably.
A food for thought!!!!!

wise words. but i get the feeling that this laws suit was brought about by anger not by greed. if i was in his shoes and i was apologized to or soothed about the inconveniences, educated (if it was my fault) and given back my line (for the sake of peace and mutual friendship) the issue would have ended since. me thinks Etisalat didn't handle this well. true legal fees wise it won't mean shi*t to them unlike the guy but bad press should still be avoided at all cost. i also pity the agent, supervisor and personnel handling this issue; they should be queried for not nipping it in the bud at the onset.