The contents of this article are incorrect, Econet’s eLearning Bundles are indeed working. Please refer to the link below for the full story:
Econet eLearning Bundles Are Working
I have seen a number of people on WhatsApp expressing curiosity about the very affordably priced eLearning bundle that is available under *143#. Some have asked whether they should buy the bundle or if they are even allowed to do so. The answer is no on both counts. Do not buy that Econet eLearning bundle! Don’t do it!
What’s the worst that could happen?
I grew up in the Eastern Highlands and back when I started primary school soldiers would come to each school and conduct lessons about landmines and how to avoid them. You see when the Liberation War ended and everyone was celebrating their supposed new-found freedom, nobody bothered to go back for those perilous mines they had planted. As a result, a lot of people and animals lost their limbs and lives.
What am I on about? Well, Econet sometimes forgets live real code that actually debits your account when the associated service is not live. A case in point is their eLearning bundle which are prominently displayed but is not active. If you buy them you will lose your money and go through the nightmare of trying to get a transaction reversal.
The troubled history of bundles
eLearning bundles were introduced and scrapped last year by Econet in response to COVID-19 lock-downs which disrupted traditional learning. Econet and NetOne introduced cheaper bundles that were aimed at students but ended up being abused by black market syndicates.
In a widespread practice, individuals with an Econet connection (doesn’t mean they worked for Econet it just means they had an in) would create WhatsApp groups and ask people to pay a premium if they wanted the discounted bundle. These people would then submit the numbers and pretend the beneficiaries were actual students.
The end result was that there was a thriving data bundle black market. People didn’t mind paying the premium because even with the premium they would still end up way paying less per GB of data than they would if they bought for example monthly bundles or Private WiFi bundles.
While some resellers were genuine a lot of them were not. Scammers would create groups where only admins were allowed to post and create the impression that they had an in at Econet where they could get cheap eLearning data. They would ask hapless victims to pay for the data in advance and then once they had collected what they deemed enough money, they would disappear into the ether and set up shop using new fake details.
Buying eLearning bundles will not work
In response to all these things plus the fact that bundles had to be manually processed, Econet scrapped the bundle sometime last year. Officially Econet says they are working on improving the bundle but we all know better. I mean how hard is it to perfect a data bundle?
The bundle doesn’t work right now but for some reason, the eLearning bundle option still remains in the bundle menu. To see the option follow these steps:
- Dial *143#
- Select option 5 eLearning bundles
- Select 1 Monthly Bouquets
- You will be presented with one option of a Monthly Boquet going for $1720 for 10GB
- If you choose to go on you will be asked whether you want to buy for yourself or someone else
- Then you will be asked whether you want to pay using Airtime or Ecocash, if you know what’s good for you, you should stop here
Going further will see Econet either “eating” your Ecocash money or airtime and you not getting any data. As already pointed out, Econet has already stated that the bundle is not currently active as they are working on it. You will probably get your money back but anyone who has gone through the process of trying to reverse an Ecocash transaction knows it’s a nightmare.
You are better off buying Private WiFi bundles or NetOne’s OneFi bundles than throwing your money into the pit that is Econet’s eLearning bundle. It’s not clear why Ecocash has left this option available to the public when it clearly doesn’t work as shown by the countless people who go on their Twitter timeline complaining about not receiving their eLearning bundle.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened either. A while back Econet had a service called EcoShopper which was a grocery remittance service. Thanks to the bond note era chaos the service simply fell into one of Econet’s dustbins and the live code on the site was simply abandoned. Those involved in the project even went on to forget about the service.
Going onto the site for years after that would see your Ecocash wallet being debited when you attempted to place an order. Your beneficiary would not be able to receive the goods and getting your money was a painful process. These days the EcoShopper site is still up but thankfully someone has changed the price amounts for each service to $1 ZWL.
If you really must have eLearning bundles, the only network provider that has such bundles is Telecel. Their Funda bundles are aimed at students although their network speeds are almost always nowhere near what you get with the other two providers.
10 comments
It’s true! They had to reverse my transaction. Econet needs to be more professional.
Look into the issue again! The bundle is working well for me. I tried it and it credited
Don’t advise people what to do with the monies. To say Don’t buy is kinda like out of context.
You commented without reading didn’t you.
l bought internet el-learning bundles with objective of getting an extra 2gig from their 8gig private bundle but to my suprise l got nothing at all after forgoing the 8gig ,@econet lm not happy rather remove the package feom your ussd please
Don’t advise people on what to do with their cash especially on this one.
Definitely sounds like something Econet would do. I remember some years back Econet had a service (this was before the Cassava split) under EcoCash Menu called Diaspora remit. Basically it would allow one to electronically recieve either Western Union or Moneygram transfers. When i saw this the first time in my mind i thought the money would go direct to the Ecocash forex account, i mean this makes sense right. Well i tried it once ( i was feeling lazy , you know , i did not want to stand in a line) . I went through the whole process on my phone until i got the reassuring message that money had just landed in my account. At first i was pleased with myself since i could cancel one more chore off the list, until a few hours later when i was paying for something using Ecocash, at that time i knew before hand how much Zim dollars i had in my account, so i was surprised to find there was a litte more money in there, i checked the balance again, there was definitely more money which was equivalent to $137. I put two and two together and realised that the Diaspora remit service had deposited my US$150 as ZW$150 in my Zim dollar Ecocash account.
What!!!!
The next day i spent the whole day at Econet explaining my situation to Econet staffers. In the end they traced the transactions on their end and allowed me to cash out the money as US$ but they still charged me cash out fees, so got less than
US$150. I was left with a hella bitter taste in my mouth and a battered ego. It was then on, that my perception of Econet totally changed. Hell hath no fury than a customer scorned.
Clearly Diaspora remit service was a remnant of the days when there was no local currency. Its amazing that in all that time they didnot bother to update their systems or at least remove that menu option.
I bought mine last week and am still using it
I have been using it for the past 3 months. Before the recent price update, it was impossible to buy on 143…threw an error. Self care did the job and there weren’t any problems at all. I don’t know where you got that
techzim kindly enquirer on disbandment of Econet hourly bundle this weekend.