By
Dedeigbo Ayodeji
A law firm, Zion Chambers of Peters Ike Adonu And Co. has dragged multichoice Nigeria to court for refusal to renew its subscription after payment has been made.
The law firm also accused Multichoice of outrageous billing of its customers without proper information to allow them to plan for alternatives.
They demanded that the company should pay damages of N5million for barring them from accessing any programme after making the necessary payment that was required.
In a petition letter dated 7th of July 2020, sent to the Managing Director of Multichoice, Nigeria by the Law Firm which a copy was made available to newsmen in Enugu on Wednesday indicates that they paid for DSTV subscription on June 30 and till date cannot access any program.
The letter was titled; “Demand for Apology and Compensation For Refusal To Renew subscription after Payment Was Made’’.
The petitioner also warned that they would forward the petition to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection (FCCPC) for report of unfair dealings of Multichoice company’s services and eventually to Court of Law for redress if the matter was not treated appropriately within a week.
Part of the letter of petition reads: “I write to inform you that on June 30, 2020 our Principal in Zion Chambers who is a customer of your Company for over ten years, using decoder No: 41157123450 in our law firm paid for DSTV subscription through his Fidelity Bank APP, as it was his usual practice.
“On logging in to his bank APP, he went through to make a Bill payment to the category and he chose Cable TV and chose biller as a DSTV subscription.
“He checked for the available plans under the DSTV subscription and realized that the plan he paid for a month before “ACCESS’’ at the price of N1900 was no longer available.
“He chose from the displayed plan “XTRAVIEW ACCESS” which was listed for the price of N2,255 and he paid for the subscription.
“Till the time of writing this letter, the office decoder’s subscription remains unrenewed, thereby barring us from accessing any program on our decoder.
“In view of the above, we hereby demand for adequate compensation for your refusal to renew our subscription after we have done our part of making the payment for the available ACCESS as displayed”..
Prior to the letter, the Chambers effort to remedy the situation was rebuffed by DSTV staff leaving the chambers with no other alternative than to go to court.
