MTN Recharge card vendors now selling cards above normal price

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday January 28, 2014 at 12:52:36:

I have been receiving alerts from MTN informing me that they have not increased the prices of their recharge cards. I had been receiving the message since December till now and had been wondering why thye were doing so.

It so happens that a few days ago, when our Landlord sent his gateman to buy recharge cards from a vendor, he had to come back empty handed to report that they had increased the prices of their cards. According to him, the N1500 card was now selling for N1570. Imagine that!

I don't know if this is just for MTN recharge ards or other networks as well but it seems that most recahrge card vendors have now ganged up and literally jacked up the price of MTN recharge cards. Even the 100 paper voucehr now sells for N110 and others are like that.

One can no longer buy paper or card vouchers from GSM vendors at thee regualr printed amount but they've all added an additional price to it making it cost more to consumers.

I'm not sure what caused this and I thank God it's not really affecting me since I mostly buy airtime recharge from ATMs, Internet banking and Mobile money. I don't even mind patronizing people who would sell recharge cards to me at a discount rather than at a premium.

If I ever do try yo buy recharge cards on the roadside from a vendor and noticed that he is not selling at the normal printed price, I would just boycott him.

MTN has voiced out already that their recharge cards should be sold at normal market prices and not at a premium and so I'm wondering why the increase in price of recharge cards. Perhaps the GSM vendors got a bad deal when they bought from wholesalers during the Christmas season and want to now impose the bill on end consumers.

If you would rather buy airtime top up for your GSM phone at the normal price, I'd advise you just buy it from ATM since there are no additional fees for doing so. Mobile money and internet banking are also other cool ways to buy direct airtime topup and you don't have to pay any other price just to buy your recharge cards or load airtime credit to your phone.