MTN Lures Customers’ for Biometrics Revalidation with Free Airtime

MTN Nigeria has commenced massive customers' biometrics revalidation/profiling. The operator with over 65million subscribers is currently in legal fireworks with the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for her failure to deactivate about 5.4million subscribers with incomplete SIM card registration.

And, in a bid to lure the subscriber to the biometric revalidation exercise, MTN Nigeria has is giving the customers free airtime up to N10,000, usable only when the full biometrics registration is confirmed by the network, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can report.

The subscribers on the network who have recently updated their data capturing and user’s profile are also receiving the Short Message Service (SMS) apart from new users on the network.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations show that, part from MTN's regulator customer centres (operated by her partners), the operator has been creating new clusters of registration centres at some strategic locations in Lagos state in the bid to get closer to the subscribers.

A subscriber on the network who craved anonymity told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek  that she received the SMS during the business hours of Wednesday January 6, 2016, adding, "...all most the people around me who are using the network got the message. I was happy when I got the message until I noticed that you have to update biometrics before you can use the credit. Well, I have to do it, because this is the first time I'm receiving such gift from MTN".

Another subscriber, Stellamaris Oluka said the SMS sent to her reads: ‎"You have been compensated with 10, 000 valid for 7-days to activate, please visit any MTN registration outlet to update your biometrics".

MTN is the only telecom operator currently updating its biometrics, indicating that they are yet to reconcile their data with the government central database, while addressing the issues that incurred the wrath of NCC on them with record fine of $1trillion last year.