While telecom services dominate complaint volumes, consumer data from the CA shows that some of the most frustrating and risky experiences happen elsewhere, particularly around fraud, customer care, and data protection.
Fraud and cybercrime are persistent consumer risks
Complaints related to fraud, scams, and cybercrime form a sizable share of reported consumer issues. While most of these cases are eventually resolved, the number of reports remains high.
This points to a worrying trend where consumers are often reporting incidents after harm has already occurred, rather than being protected upfront. The upside? Awareness is growing. More consumers now know where and how to report scams, SIM misuse, and digital fraud — and those reports are being acted on.
Customer care is still failing consumers
A significant number of complaints fall under customer care and unfair trading practices, with many remaining unresolved by the end of the quarter. These complaints aren’t about outages or system failures. They’re about:
- Unresponsive support channels
- Confusing or misleading information
- Delays in refunds, reversals, or dispute handling
For many consumers, the support experience itself becomes the problem, compounding the original issue.
Privacy and advertising violations are rare, but taken seriously
Complaints involving privacy or confidentiality breaches, misleading advertising, and exploitation of vulnerable users were relatively few but nearly all were resolved. That suggests that when these issues arise, they trigger faster and firmer responses, likely due to their legal and reputational implications.
For consumers, this reinforces an important point: privacy and advertising violations are worth reporting because they’re less likely to be ignored.
Taken together, the data shows a mixed consumer experience:
- Fraud is common, but reporting works
- Customer care remains a weak link
- Privacy complaints are rare, but effective when escalated
It also explains why dissatisfaction remains high in sectors like telecom, where both service quality and support responsiveness lag behind — a contrast explored in our earlier explainer on telecom vs mobile money complaint trends.
