My Horrid Experience Buying Apps With MTN’s BlackBerry Appworld Recharge Card
While the present Governor of Central Bank Of Nigeria continues to plug his Cashless Nigeria policy, we the netizens are still having a rough time using our Naira MasterCards online. These MasterCard branded debit cards issued by the banks work on some sites and don’t work on others and it’s pretty frustrating.
We BlackBerry users are facing the same issue with BlackBerry’s Appworld and thus one can imagine the joy I felt when a colleague shared the news that MTN Nigeria was planning on launching some sort of recharge card for BlackBerry Appworld.
This card pictured to the left, was supposed to enable users acquire paid apps without the stress of worrying about owning a Visa or MasterCard.
I was pretty quick to secure two of the promotional cards my colleague had been given, in hope of downloading some precious apps I had been eyeing for a very long time.
On accessing the MTN BlackBerry Apps site, I noticed that without the serial number and download code of the recharge card, one was denied access to the content of the site. A little bit of poking around their terms and condition revealed that they were linked to Mobiroo.
There and then I made the *fatal mistake* of checking out Mobiroo only to be wowed by an awesome display of apps that totally clouded my judgment and before I knew it, cash exchanged hands and I became the *proud but later angry* owner of one of the first MTN BlackBerry Appworld recharge cards.
Within 1 minute of logging into the download section, I knew I had been scammed again by MTN Nigeria! Warra hell was all I could mutter.
Instead of the plethora of apps Mobiroo were offering for both the Android and BlackBerry mobile operating systems, I was welcomed by a measly 19 apps including
- A+ Chat for Facebook
- Aces Jewel Hunt
- Awesome! Bubble Breaker
- Blink
- Bubble Defense
- deBattGym
- Fat Face
- Fonts Ultimate
- Football Calendar – England 2011-2012
- Hidden Files
- iBlocker Pro (Call Blocker) – Call Block and Send Custom SMS
- iLock – The KING in Lock King Apps
- Light Bulbs
- Memory Booster – RAM Optimizer
- Photo Editor Ultimate
- Pinball Deluxe
- Screen Muncher
- Slide Lock – Slide to Unlock
- Wallpapers PRO
To even make matters worse, some of the apps were over priced with markups of up to $2 above the official BlackBerry Appworld sales price.
To the management of MTN Nigeria, I hope for your sake the MTN Apps site is still under construction ‘cause if you plan on launching this card with the site looking the way it is and poorly stocked for that matter, NCC will come down heavily on thieving a** as this is just plain deceitful. Why not show the customer what he’s paying for upfront before he makes a decision to dine with your sorry a**? It’s stuff like this that make peeps rejoice whenever they hear the NCC has fined you.
Giving that the damage had been done, I quickly asked for a refund on the second card which I got and I used the one I had scratched already to download Pinball Deluxe, Photo Editor Ultimate and deBattGym. I’m only enjoying Pinball Deluxe right now. Photo Editor seems to be increasing the size of edited images instead of reducing them and deBattGym was creating issues for me thus I dumped it as well.
If anyone offers you these cards and the apps you want to buy are missing in action on the list above, RUN oh!
Finally do please take note that Mobiroo and MTN Apps are in no way affiliated with BlackBerry Appworld. They just offer a service that makes BlackBerry apps available to users who don’t have a PayPal account or debit/credit card.
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OMG!! MTN has done it again. This is absolute nonsense. I can’t find a single app on that list that is interesting. ZeniThbank prepaid buxz card is better than this bulls**t.
My point exactly! As an ibo boy that doesn’t joke with money, after calculations, I realized that I was better off using my Zenith Visa card and dashing them their $2 commission instead of using this hot mess of a card!
when will EmptyN stop this exploitation. You know what? Personally even when they say- make free call, I dont believe them. When they do any promo, hmm, na lie they are after something. Something always benefitial to them and them alone.
Well, Dr. They said once beaten twice shy. I thought MTN has once beaten you and I expected you to be four times shy, but you fell for them again like a babe who will always think- “This time I might get it right” with her beloveth ex-b.
yoruba said KPELE. So KPELE
Lol. Seriously if checking out Mobiroo hadn’t clouded my judgement I would have run for hills! This one twice bitten thrice shy. Next time I’ll wait for other peeps to act as guinea pigs when trying out new offerings from EmptyN