The first moment you see money missing from your Airtel money account, you wonder what could have gone wrong. Common practice is to check all your former transaction messages and when you cannot find any message to reflect the transaction for the missing money, you are left with one option, to call customer call service.
Unfortunately, calling customer care services does not sometimes seem to be helpful if they only keep referring you to your financial statement. The annoying part is finding payments that read; “deallocation transfer” on your financial statement. You cannot but wonder, who in the world approved transactions on my Airtel Money account without my consent?
Of course, now you know, that Airtel does not need your consent to remove money from your account. But that does not explain what a deallocation transfer is. So what the heck is a “deallocation transfer” on Airtel money in Uganda?
According to an Airtel customer service agent whose name I will reserve. A deallocation transfer refers to a payment that Airtel made on your behalf without deducting money from your account. For instance, if you bought Yaka and received a Yaka token but for some reason Airtel forgot to deduct money from your account, in the future they will come back to collect that money from your account at any time they find convenient.
On a sad note, Airtel does not send you any messages when they deduct money by these means. It is as if they are doing a stealthy job to go unnoticed. The only challenge is; it is hard for Airtel agents to even give explanations as to why or for what service you received without necessarily paying!
When Airtel deducts money for failing to clear a loan in time. They always send you a message. But when they do a deallocation transfer, it is up to you to figure out what service you received without paying. There is no room for a proper discussion on why money was deducted because some facts are held back by Airtel.
What do I have to do in case I find a “deallocation transfer” on my statement?
Just take a chill pill; do not expect Airtel to refund you your money. If the amount is reasonable. Visit their service. But again I cannot promise that you will be helped. Just like Umeme has in some instances charged a “service charge” twice in one month without anyone calling them to account; similarly, Airtel has been charging the deallocation transfer without anyone calling them to account.
I cannot recommend you to use MTN too. It’s a duopoly; you cannot expect anything good from either company because technically no one holds them accountable.