The Shit Show at Popotepay
Update 1: Popotepay reached out and promised to resolve the payment in three days.
Update 2: Popotepay has completed the transactions and I received my money in full on Thursday 15th May at 12:49 pm — one day ahead of the promised resolution date.
Today marks two weeks since I made a money transfer on Popotepay to cater for my household needs. That’s a simple transaction. However, to this hour, the transaction has never been completed. The intended recipients of the money are busy hounding my hind parts, and Popotepay is numb and quiet. The transactions still read ‘under process’ on the app, more than two weeks later. I called Popotepay to inquire about the lateness of the delivery and that’s when the shenanigans began.
Preamble
Two years ago, while in search of a budgeting app, I stumbled upon Popotepay. Most budgeting apps were American and only integrated into credit cards. A solution built on MPESA would be ideal for the Kenyan market and exactly what I sought. Enters the Popotepay — spend management and payables platform.
It is worth noting that the fintech innovation space in Kenya is crowded with solutions offering mobile credit and transaction wallets. Since I worked in the financial sector, I created a quadrant of credit, wallets, and transactions to understand FinTech products, and Popotepay seems to be a holistic fintech product.
I gave Popotepay and spin and it worked well save for a few delays. Done with the budgeting need at that time, I shelved Popotepay until one month ago. I transferred KES 70,000 to my Popotepay wallet in order to set payments in escrow to pay wages to workers on my payment list. On payday, I authorized the payments on Popotepay and the faecal matter soon spread all over.
The Nonsense
When I called Popotepay, the customer care representative informed me that the company is experience a technical problem, and the technical team is working on it. I informed the workers to wait a day or two for their wages. On the fourth day, the transactions were still ‘under process’. I called back Popotepay and inquired about the status of the technical problem, but I couldn’t get a straight answer.
I waited for two more days while dodging the workers' calls — the transactions were still ‘under process’. At this point, If I had sent the money via smoke signals it would have reached the destination. At this juncture, I resorted to calling customer care twice a day, in the morning and in the evening only to get the same answer — we have escalated the issue to the tech team. After one and a half weeks of calling, the customer care team blocked my number. I experienced what the Romans referred to as “Estuans interius Ira vehementi” (Burning inside with violent anger).
The Revelation
I couldn’t hold my anger anymore, so I decide to the Court of public opinion (Twitter) to lambast this pretender company. Before I could put my rage in writing, I searched Popotepay and it is at that moment that I knew I have been scammed.
Twitter is awash with complaints on Popotepay. In some cases, pending payments are pending for months. I lost my nerve. I used another phone to call customer care and asked for a reversal to my MPESA, I was informed that the feature does not exist, I inquired when the transactions will be completed, and I was informed there is no ETA. I further inquired about the technical problem experienced, the customer care agent didn’t know the issue. Now I can only wait if the money will be reversed, perhaps next year.
How do you seek recourse against such ill behaviour? I managed to get the CEO and support team emails, but when I penned my wrath to them, both emails bounced. Life can’t get any harder than this. In the midst of desperation and searching I happened to find an email sent in January by Sam Wanjohi, CEO of Popotepay to all customers. I missed the email since I wasn’t using the system in January. One line in the email made me want to pee in my pants.
The CEO claims that during system downtime, the company resorts to manual settlement of payments. I don’t believe Popotepay has built any technology save from user management. There’s an overworked accountant with an Excel sheet checking MPESA statements from the Pay Bill and making payments — what we referred to as Human API in my previous job.
If you track Popotepay's delay problem on Twitter tracks back to 2020. No, API goes down all day every day. Even if so, it should have been resolved 3 years down the line.
Finito
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call a LOOSER!
