NECO provided inactive phone numbers as support lines – Candidates allege

7 years ago

NECO provided inactive phone numbers as support lines – Candidates allege

The National Examination Council, NECO, has been accused by some candidates who are anxious to see their results for the June/July 2016 Senior School Certificate Examination, SSCE, (Internal) of providing support phone numbers that are not active.
Some of them who spoke to DAILY POST complained that the exam body provided “fake numbers” as support telephone lines, adding that mails sent to the two email addresses provided were not replied.

NECO had on Friday afternoon announced the release of 2016 June/July SSCE result, directing those who sat for the exam to visit the weblink: http://www.mynecoexams.com/results/ to check their results.

On the website, seven phone numbers (08069232760, 08052218069, 08052218070, 08126886938, 08126886939, 08189342653, 08189342754) were provided for candidates who may run into difficulties in the course of getting access to their result online. But earlier checks by our correspondent had shown that none of the phone numbers was active.

This was confirmed by some of the candidates, some of whom stated that they have been trying to put calls across to the line since weekend without success. One of them who identified himself as Joshua said on Monday morning that: “if only any of the lines was ringing, I would have had hope but it won’t even connect, not to talk of it ringing.”

Aminat is another candidate, who expressed disappointment with the exams body for providing “telephone lines that were not working,” adding that “All through Saturday and Sunday, I was at the Cyber Café trying to check my result. My exam number was not recognized. I called all the lines provided to be told what to do. But the lines were dead.”

Another candidate named Idris, on his part, dismissed the lines provided as “scam”, adding that he was lucky to have finally succeeded in checking his result without relying on the “so-called support lines.” For Theophilus Madu, NECO should have activated the lines for Whats App chat so that “people wouldn’t be this stranded.”

However, DAILY POST eventually got through to one of the call agents at about 3:32 on Monday afternoon, who explained that the lines have been on since morning, adding that they have been bombarded by calls from even candidates who sounded desperate.

The lady at the other end of the phone declined revealing her identity, saying “we don’t give out our name, Sir.”

She denied that the number had not been going through, stressing that, “we have been receiving calls from candidates since morning when our phones were turned on.”

Asked whether the support lines were on over the weekend, she said they weren’t, explaining that the support lines “are on to receive calls between the hours of 8am to 4pm every weekday.”

The NECO agent also told our correspondent that they have a team that promptly attends to messages sent to the two email addresses (neconigeria@yahoo.com, support@mynecoexams.com) provided on the website.