Safaricom has ordered a firm to refund over Sh. 10.6 million to its customers who were billed more than once to receive KCPE results.
The firm has said that the double-billing by Challa Communications Limited, a third party licensed by the Communications Authority of Kenya, was due to a technical hitch.
This follows thousands of complaints from subscribers who were unable to get exam results from texts sent to the 22252 short code through their Safaricom lines.
“Challa Communications informed us of a technical challenge that meant that customers who queried the system experienced delays in receiving results. This prompted some customers to repeat their query and in the process, they were billed multiple times for each attempt. As a result, a total of 424,011 requests were affected,” Joe Ogutu, the director of strategy, said in a statement.
He added that Safaricom had order Challa Communications to make the refunds. “We have instructed Challa Communications to refund all of the affected customers starting this afternoon, targeting those who queried the system more than once, as well as those who may have been billed without receiving any response,” said Mr. Ogutu.