There was a time when Ecocash was the beginning and end our lives here in Zimbabwe. The bulk of transactions involved us using Ecocash thanks to the cash shortages which still persist to this day. Thanks to constant system failures, agents who abused the system, cash sellers and money changers Ecocash turned from being a loved system to a loathed system. The bulk of people who used the service didn’t do it out of love-it was because they had no choice. As the economy has redollarised Ecocash has fallen from grace even as it continues to be the biggest mobile money wallet.
Now Ecocash wants to woe us back into their arms. The problem is that the service suffers from bad publicity mainly driven by customer complaints that dominate its social media pages. Almost each post they make is littered with complaints from people who want transactions reversed or are failing to get the promised USD cash after they were receive money from abroad.
It is this last issue that has Ecocash concerned. As remittances are an important part of the economy Ecocash wants a share of that pie. The problem is that they have now quite the reputation when it comes to failing to give people the cash they want. When people send money to Zimbabwe the people here want is as cash because anything else is less valuable.
Ecocash for it’s part wants people to know that it is the responsibility of those who send money to Zimbabwe using its services to choose exactly how they want the recipient to spend money. Once that choice has made the person receiving money here in Zimbabwe cannot change that option.
As EcoCash, we are an Agent of several international remittance organisations as their last-mile partner. There are 3 options for receiving international remittances namely; Cash Pick Up, Credit into Bank Account and Credit into a Mobile Wallet. It is the choice of the Sender to select the option they would like the recipient here in Zimbabwe to receive the funds. For all remittances terminating into the EcoCash FCA wallet, the customer has a choice to either withdraw exclusively from Econet shops as cash or convert the funds into local currency through our Bureau de Change facility at the prevailing Auction rate.
Part of Ecocash’s statement on the issue
You can still find it hard to get cash even if cash pick up is selected
A quick perusal of their page shows that even if cash pick up is selected recipients are still having a tough time getting cash. While Ecocash’s remittance service is cheaper than say Mukuru, getting cash out services like Mukuru is a breeze. There is very little chance of you walking into a Mukuru agent and failing to get your cash. Cashing out of an FCA wallet is even harder.
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