About 28,000 Airtel Zambia subscribers have lost their airtime balances amounting to K900,000 as a result of the Airtel system erroneously marking their numbers as roaming.
Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) Public Relations Manager Ngabo Nankonde says this follows the intermittent services some Airtel customers have been experiencing in the last few days.
Ms Nankonde however says by 18:00 hours on Tuesday 17th June, 2014, Airtel had refunded the affected subscribers and given them 30 minutes of free talk-time for use within the Airtel network as compensation for inconvenience caused.
She adds that ZICTA is still monitoring the situation and has encouraged subscribers who have been affected by the erroneous deduction and may not have been refunded their talk-time, to get in touch with the Airtel Customer service.
Ms Nakonde further states that ZICTA has also directed Airtel to ensure its customer services team attends to callers promptly as a number of subscribers have complained to that some of their calls are not being attended to.
She has also appealed to subscribers who are not satisfied with the way their matter has been handled to contact ZICTA on the toll free line 7070.