Friday, January 4, 2013

Wrong charges to some SingTel subscribers - Charges for 3rd party provider services

Source: CNA

This is not the first time we see similar complaints and certainly not a new answer from SingTel (or likes). The standard reply is to "offer discount" or claim that "

Under IDA guidelines, content providers like TMG Asia Pte Ltd required to state upfront the charges for transactions. Customer have the option to opt-in or opt-out."

What Service Providers forgot(?) to mention is that they themselves are taking profit from these not so clear transactions.

If service providers were to really help subscribers, they should stop charging customers on behalf of third party content providers. End customers see "SingTel or Starhub or M1" charging them illegally and start to complain. If it is a real requirement from Customers, and they are interested to "subscribe" to these third party services they can (and will) always subscribe directly.

Service providers on the other hand, can maintain a "list of services" in their portal and charge 'specific amount' from the third party providers. In this way, Service Providers doesn't have to loose money when there is a conflict while still getting some revenue in a much fairer way.

If not, the unhappiness will continue as long as Service Providers tend to charge customers without a clear and intended consent from customers.

2 comments:

  1. I didn't know there is such thing until i receive my starhub bill 19 Feb 2013 and there is a $40 charge for 10 Msg which i don't subcribe to. Probably this is because i have recently re-contracted the service with starhub.

    i thought they should have solve this problem long ago or star hub just have this issue recently and singtel have them since Jan 2013?

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  2. Well, it happens and not really unique to singtel or sh. Atleast singtel did something called premium rate barring.
    http://info.singtel.com/personal/phones-plans/mobile/vas/premium-rate-service-prs-barring-service/detail

    This is great and believe SH may have similar service. Use it and bar all the premium services which we don't need anyway.

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