Payments in Nigeria is a painful experience. Anybody that has tried electronic payment in Nigeria can attest to this. From using ATMs, to POS all the way to online payments, nothing is reliable. You literarily have to pray for your transaction to go through successfully with no hiccups.

Let me tell you a story, a few of days ago, I tried renewing a domain on GigaLayer for a friend and that was the beginning of my woe. I got to the checkout page, selected one of the payment options, I was redirected to Paga’s website, I selected my card type and I was further redirected to Interswitch to complete the transaction. I entered my card details on Interswitch, clicked pay, I was redirected back to Paga’s website and this was where the story ended.

After waiting for about 3 minutes amidst my browser spinning endlessly, I was greeted with an error message. Instinctively, I checked my account and I realised I had been debited. The big problem now is that, who takes responsibility for this? I tried reaching the hosting company and waited 4 hours for a feedback. The hosting company suggested I should speak to my bank and they will try to contact Page on my behalf. Paga reached out to me, got necessary information related to the transaction with the hopes of reaching Interswitch.

A representative from Paga called me about an hour later and said Interswith asked to wait for 24 hours. Twenty-four hours later, I got a reply from Paga, it wasn’t a nice one. Interswitch claimed the transaction failed, the Paga representative now suggested I should speak to my bank, United Bank for Africa(UBA).

I reached out to UBA and I was told the transaction was successful. The UBA social media manager asked me to go speak to the merchant (Paga/GigaLayer), but in the case where the merchant claimed they didn’t value for the transaction, I should request an official email from the merchant stating that they never saw value for the transaction. The Paga representative was gracious enough to write one for me to which I forward to UBA immediately. I didn’t get any feedback from UBA again that day. When I tried reaching them again the following day, I was told to wait for 2 weeks before a refund can be made. In the meantime, they need to conduct an internal investigation.

Where did I go wrong here?

At this point, I was very livid. I called UBA’s call centre. I spoke to a young lady who introduced herself as Mousun, I asked her why the bank needed 10 business days to investigate the situation and also initiate a refund. After speaking to her for about 3 minutes or so, she told me this was standard practice as this decision was taken by management. I asked her if I could speak to someone else and she transferred the call to her supervisor, Yemi. Yemi also said this was standard practice and he had no powers to reverse the process.

This post isn’t meant to throw anyone under the bus neither, it’s meant to highlight the cascading consequences that follow whenever service providers drop the ball. The said domain is still not renewed and it will definitely expire before UBA finishes their investigation. This is someone’s business, a source of livelihood.

Imagine I was in another city and I tried booking a flight back home with the last money I had and this issue occurred. I’m essentially stranded. Period. Imagine also that I needed to pay for medical bills for a loved one and this same issue occurred, will I need to wait for 2 weeks for this issue to be resolved while someone’s life is on the line? Let’s also imagine I was trying to pay my ward’s school fees and this happened, that child would be sent away from school. All of the scenarios I have painted above have far damaging consequences; stranded in another city with no means of going home, loss of live and denying a kid an education. Dear service provider, take a minute and think about the psychological trauma and stress that you cause your consumers every time this happens.

Every single email reply was one of those pre-canned messages you would get from a standard CRM. Devoid of personal touch or anything remotely close to empathy. They all ended with “we are sorry for the inconveniences this must have caused.” I still don’t understand why it will take 10 business days to recover funds from a bank.

All the intersecting parties aren’t a half way round the world, in fact, they are in close proximity. Isn’t there supposed to some sort of correspondence, someone like an account manager between Interswitch and UBA that respond to these sort of issues very quickly? There is nothing standard about using 240 hours to reach a settlement.

I’m still here, still hoping that somehow, I will get a refund. In the meantime, I will remain punished for trying to use a service that was supposed to make my life a lot easier.

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