OPay arrived in Nigeria with a bang and positioned itself as a super app that offers key services that include but not limited to payment, bus and motorcycle ride-hailing, loan and food.

The company’s strategy coming off raising $50 million from Chinese investors; was to attract as many customers as possible regardless of whether they have the capacity or not; by making their services extremely affordable.

OPay

Expectedly, a significant number of Nigerians trooped to Opay to enjoy the massive discounts.

Some of the massive discounts include:

1.) Reduced its transfer fee to any bank account from N32 to N10. Banks charge N52 per transaction.

2.) 3 to 5% off every airtime purchase.

3.) 20% discount everywhere for trips less than N1000 for ORide. It is way cheaper than the regular motorcycles popularly called Okada.

Opay Pulls The Rug From Under The Feet of Their Customers-Honeymoon over!

Without informing customers, Opay unwholesomely increased its transfer fees from N10 to 2% and removed the  3 to 5% cashback on airtime.

Customers only realized the increase after they have funded their wallet.

For example, for a N25,000 transfer, the customer pays N500 fee.

This attracted so many backlashes from customers as they trooped to @Opay_NG to lodge their complaints about the fees.

https://twitter.com/byjerstyk/status/1191802403986784258?s=19

Perhaps innundated by the unpopular fee increase and the fear of losing customers, Opay apologised for not informing its esteemed customers and announced a review of the fees.

For now, a customer’s Ist transfer is pegged at N45 while subsequent transfers will attract a 1% fee. Meanwhile, the fluctuating %  off airtime has been restored.

Despite these, customers are still unhappy.  Fortunately, other services like ORide and OFood were unaffected.

OPay Customer Service Team Not Helping

The OPay customer service team appears unprepared for their overflowing customers. Their in-app and social media response is beyond unsatisfactory.

For social media, it is a ‘copy and paste’ response with customer complaints going unresolved for weeks.

For calls, the customer service associate appears to be poorly trained with no helpful response to customer complaints or inquiries. Sometimes, the number is unavailable.

Below is the OPay social media signature ‘copy and paste’ response:

“We sincerely apologise for the delayed response. Please check your DM, a response has been given. Thank you.”

 

No specific explanation for the increase from management

Iniabasi Akpan, OPay’s country manager did not offer a specific explanation for the increase.

He, however, said that the move is to improve financial inclusion through peer-to-peer transactions.

Akpan said: “Peer-to-peer transactions do not attract any fees within the OPay app. Evidently, with the new policy, users are encouraged to do more transfers and payments within the app.

“Our peer-to-peer activity alone has enabled us to provide thousands of agents with jobs while at the same time getting more people into the financial system. You’d agree with me that more people are excluded from the financial system than those accounted for in the system.”

The Honeymoon appears to be over

OPay has so far distinguished itself since its debut in the country.

But, with its impromptu increase in transfer fees and its delayed response in resolving customer complaints, it will definitely lose customers.

Trust Nigerians, they are already looking for cheaper alternatives as the Opay honeymoon seems to be over.

1 Comment

  • John, 02/01/2020 @ 3:30 pm Reply

    Thanks to OPay transport service “Oride”, I have been able to reach my destinations Lagos State on time be it weekdays or weekends. I blog also and truly appreciate your write-ups. The article has really gotten my interest.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.