Faith Masita
Consumers lodged 563 complaints with the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) in the third quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year after failing to secure satisfactory resolutions from service providers, pointing to ongoing concerns in telecommunications, mobile money, cybercrime and digital consumer protection.
Consumer Complaints Highlight Rising Telecom, Mobile Money Fraud
According to the CA Consumer Complaints Report for January to March 2026, 504 complaints were resolved while 59 remained under review, translating to an 89.5 percent resolution rate.
Telecommunications recorded the highest number of complaints at 197 cases, representing more than a third of the total. Within this category, data services dominated grievances, with billing disputes and unexplained charges emerging as the most frequent issues.
Network accessibility challenges also featured prominently, with 170 cases resolved and 27 still under investigation by the end of the reporting period.
Digital financial services and mobile money ranked second with 109 complaints, reflecting the continued growth of cashless transactions and associated risks.
Fraud and scams accounted for 47 of these cases, while others involved disputes over compensation, warranties, and service delivery failures.
Cybercrime and the criminal use of ICT infrastructure accounted for 68 complaints, highlighting increasing concerns over online safety.
Most of these cases were linked to social media incidents, followed by vulnerability exploitation, online abuse, and data breaches.
Broadcasting services recorded 48 complaints, mainly related to content standards, programming concerns, signal quality, and frequency interference.
Postal and courier services registered 11 complaints, largely involving delayed or failed deliveries.
The report further noted complaints in e-commerce, unfair trade practices, and customer premises equipment, reflecting the widening scope of consumer protection issues as digital adoption accelerates.
While the high resolution rate signals active regulatory enforcement, the volume of complaints underscores persistent challenges among service providers, particularly in customer service, fraud prevention, and network reliability.
Recurring issues such as billing disputes, scams, outages, and digital fraud continue to affect consumers, reinforcing the need for stronger collaboration between regulators, operators, and users to improve trust in Kenya’s digital economy.
