How do you feel when your newfound bestfriend goes back on his/her promise without prior notice? Angry, betrayed, cheated, name it. That’s exactly how several OPay users felt yesterday.
The OPay platform has been making the rounds on social media since yesterday over claims that it made deductions of a 2% bank transfer fee without prior notice. For most of the users, their anger was not the ‘exorbitant’ fee per say, but the fact that it was not made known to them earlier.
Seeing the outrage by many of its users online, OPay has since put out a notice of the change on its Twitter platform.
Beyond the apology it offered, the platform also made known the new charges on transactions going forward. Its statement read in part, “We have now reviewed our bank transfer fees and from 6 AM tomorrow, the fee for our bank transfers will be N45 for the first transaction of the day and 1% for subsequent ones.“
Interestingly, there was no mention of a refund for users who were already affected by the unannounced move. And as expected this new announcement was received with renewed outrage by users of the app.
Beyond the belated Twitter announcement, there appears to have been no further communication from OPay to its users over the new charge – not even an app popup/notification. This leaves unsuspecting users and users not privy to the Twitter announcement vulnerable to the new charge, a move that reinforces unending cries of poor customer service.
Furthermore, this is a quick shift from OPay’s launch strategy.
Since its launch in May, OPay has carried out several sales promotion to capture the Nigerian market.
From ride promos to food freebies and charging N10 transaction fee for bank transfers, Opay has endeared itself to Nigerians. And as such its customer acquisition was astronomical which has led to the company processing over $10 million worth of transactions daily.
The startup has also undergone aggressive expansion of its verticals across Nigeria having one or more of its services in several states.
This model has been questioned over and over by many industry analysts wondering just how sustainable it is.
Many are of the opinion that it is only playing the long game and its true intentions will be made known soon. And the announcement of this new charge lends some credibility to that – looks like honeymoon is finally over.
Now, coupled with its poor customer service, it remains to be seen how much longer the platform is able to keep users before they port to other services.
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