Users of SafeBoda encountered challenges Monday as the application failed to accept mobile money transfers to the ride-hailing app’s customized wallet.
“Money transfer unavailable: Money transfer is not available at the moment” is the statement that pops up when you try to make a transfer.
For the better part of the day, complaints trickled in on social media, calling out the company to fix the problem. It’s at 7:29PM that the company finally issued a statement, explaining what was causing the problem.
“Dear customers, the mobile money Top Up option has been temporarily disabled bse (sic) our payment providers are currently off. We have done this to avoid failed transactions as both our teams work round the clock to have the function back up as soon as possible,” reads the tweet.
NOTICE
Dear customers, the mobile money Top Up option has been temporarily disabled bse our payment providers are currently off. We have done this to avoid failed transactions as both our teams work round the clock to have the function back up as soon as possible
— SafeBoda (@SafeBoda) February 4, 2019
The failure in the mobile money transfer system actually occurred before Monday but it seems the company has been grappling with identifying the problem.
When a tweeter named Moris Atwine tweeted SafeBoda, asking how long it took for the funds to reflect in the wallet after making a transaction, the company offered an indefinite response.
Hello Moris, unfortunately, there is a problem with the system but our technical team is working on getting it resolved as soon as possible.
— SafeBoda (@SafeBoda) February 4, 2019
As it works to address the problem, SafeBoda has made a somewhat weird call, urging its ever-growing userbase to visit its office to have their wallets topped up at the company’s headquarters located on Bukoto Street, Kamwokya.
“You can come by the SafeBoda office on Bukoto street between 8am and 8pm to top up as we resolve the issue. Apologies for the inconveniences caused and we are working hard to fix it. Thank you,” the company tweeted.
This is not the first time the SafeBoda application is malfunctioning; last year, the app was struck by a bug which resulted in overcharging customers.
The damaging incident also comes at a time when the company recently made extensive updates on the app. We were not immediately able to get an independent comment from SafeBoda.
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