A section of Safaricom customers are set to be refunded starting Thursday afternoon after a system failure with the 22252 short code that was used to deliver the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results.
Through a press release, the leading telecommunications company assured that it had initiated full investigations into the failure after receiving a number of customer complaints stating that they had been overcharged for using the service.
"The 22252 Short code is run by a third party named Challa Communications Limited, who are licensed by the Communications Authority and were contracted by the Kenya National Examinations Council to provide the service.
"On Wednesday, 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," the Director of Strategy Joe Ogutu explained.
[caption caption="Safaricom Customer Service"]
[/caption]
He added that the Telecommunications company had taken the necessary step to ensure that all customers were able to use the service and were not over-charged.
"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.
"We regret any inconvenience caused to our customers and want to assure them that we are dedicated to ensuring that they continue to enjoy the best possible experience on our network," he added.
The statement concluded with: "Our full attention remains focused on resolving this issue for the continued benefit of our subscribers and we shall extend our support to Challa Communications to help resolve any future technical issues that caused this incident."
On Tuesday, Goldalyn Kakuya emerged the top candidate in the 2017 KCPE exams with 455 marks out of a possible 500.
Goldalyn, who was a student at St Ann Junior Academy in Kakamega County, scored 99 marks in English, 85 in Mathematics, 99 in Kiswahili, 88 in Science and 84 marks in Social studies.
[caption caption="Goldalyn Kakuya celebrating"]
[/caption]
