Consumer Protection Council (CPC) is set to investigate alleged consumer rights violations by Digital Satellite Television (DStv).
A notice of commencement of investigation signed by the Director General, Mrs. Dupe Atoki has been served on MultiChoice Nigeria Limited, the parent company of Dstv.
According to the notice of investigation, CPC stated that “these complaints in effect allege that the DStv service does not conform with international best practice and is specifically designed to exploit Nigerian consumers who have suffered loss by not being able to fully enjoy or receive the benefit or actualise the full purpose for which they purchased or subscribed to the service.
“The complaints against DSTV include poor quality of service such as incessant disruption of service without compensation while subscription is current; wrongful abrupt disconnection of service during subsisting subscriptions; monthly subscriptions lasting less than 30 days; and poor redress mechanism and customer services.
“Advertisements on customer care lines at the expense of consumers; poor implementation of decoder swap policy; and effecting price increase for subscriptions despite payment before due date of increase.”
The investigation will involve receiving evidence from the complainants, MultiChoice, satellite broadcast experts and sector regulators and MultiChoice is expected to prepare a written response and provide documents to absolve it of the allegations.