(from Aproko.com)
When you listen to radio or watch television these days, you are sure to see the new Globacom Telecommunications advert which moved from using “Rule Your World” as their pay off line to using “Glo Unlimited”. But the one million dollar question here is: Is Glo Truly Unlimited? If it is, how unlimited it is?
By the time you are through with this story, you would form your own opinion.
But as far as this magazine is concerned, in the context of this story and its findings, it is a clear case of “Fraud Unlimited”.
Lasisi Alliu Olasunkanmi is a hard-working bricklayer in his late 20s and a Glo mobile subscriber. He is based in Ayobo-Ipaja, a Lagos suburb. Sometime in September 2011, he was on site working when his phone rang and on looking at the display the caller’s number was 121.
(read more after the cut)
Impulsively, he picked the call and he could not believe what the caller said. He was told his number had emerged as one of the lucky winners in the on-going Glo promotion at that time for an all expenses paid ‘Trip To Dubai’ for three days and that he should come to Glo office. At first, as a Nigerian, he wanted to dismiss the call as one of the usual tricks by fraudsters looking for unsuspecting victims to exploit.
So, he intelligently asked that how much should he bring along and he was told that he didn’t need to bring any money.
He was asked whether he has international passport and driver’s license. And he responded that he has only the international passport. He was told to come all the same to their Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island Headquarters.
So, when he got home from work he went straight to his pastor, Rev. T.A. Babatunde who also as Nigerian told him that the caller must be a fraudster but promised go with him all the same to Glo office on the appointed date to confirm.
Mean while, he had been given this number: 08055570212 when he was called with 121, said to belong to one Mr Bankole in the Glo Marketing Communication Department for him to call when he get to their office. And when he and his pastor got to Glo office, they called and met with the said Mr Bankole who cross-checked his number on their data base.
His number was the first on the ‘Trip To Dubai’ list and he was congratulated by Mr Bankole. He didn’t know that the congratulations was all he was going to get as the dream of travelling to Dubai for three days began to ‘glow’ on the screen of his mind.
He was later told to bring his international passport few days after which he did on a Monday. And afterwards, he was given an appointment, like they must have told other winners to come on a particular day for the formalities.
On the appointed date, all the Glo ambassadors were reportedly on ground with other winners and they were all given either dummy checks or dummy tickets as applicable. There were three different categories of winners in the promotion.
First category won one million naira, second category won Trip to Dubai and third category won Watch Man. United Live in the UK. And that was when the part of the fraud called promotion was committed against the whole Nigerians.
The pictures of the winners were all taken and the next day it hit the centre spread of some national dailies to convince everyone that it was real. But Alliu’s case as you read this and three other established cases; Adediran Folashade in Osun state, Adebola Olasimbo in Yaba Lagos and Taiwo Ariyo Nurudeen in Osun state, has proven otherwise.
If anything, it has been ‘Fraud Unlimited’ since 2011.
After their images had been fraudulently used to project the image of Glo as socially responsible organisation in the national dailies and making other Nigerians to believe the national lie, they were told to keep calling Mr Bankole who told them they would be travelling by January, 2012. But when they called him in January, he said there was a fuel subsidy removal crisis and that flight could not operate. So, he urged to tarry a little till after the crisis would be resolved.
But alas, when the ‘Occupy Nigeria’ was over, it became ‘Occupy Mr Bankole’s Phone’ as he constantly refused to pick their calls any more. Each time they tried his line with another phone, the line would go off once he realised it was any of them calling.
In the course of investigating this story, our reporter also tried Mr Bankole’s line and the response was constantly that the line had been diverted to another line which did not have enough credit to receive calls.
A Glo official in the marketing ‘communications’ department not having enough credit on his line to receive calls? That smacks of another fraud on its own.
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