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Complaints - Victimized by SMS scam - DIGI deducted amount from number without our knowledge and approval PDF Print E-mail
Written by Administrator   
Thursday, 15 October 2009 12:08
Attached complain also to Star Probe for your reference.. Dear Star Probe Team, First of all, I wish to praise the effort by your team which have helped highlight issues that otherwise would be swept under the carpet.. Currently I have encountered a problem involving one of the big Tel Corp (DIGI), which I feel would be a worth while issue to address..

The whole issue started with my son hand phone which was being deducted on a regular basis by DIGI without the knowledge and approval of the user.. Up until last weekend, the total amount deducted was about RM100.. When my son approached me to ask permission to changed new number due to the missing credit, I have called DIGI to investigate and verified the matter..

To my surprise, and also to my son's surprise, in a short span of about about 3 months (end June to early Oct) there were close to RM100 deducted by DIGI as claimed to be deducted for reason of "services provided".. NOW this was DIGI story.. DIGI claimed that it is one of their outside merchant that involved in business of providing some sort of services for tel user.. It belongs to those SMS provider that group under 36989 (or something like that) number..

DIGI claimed that my son has replied to this service provider and they subsequently started to charge their services to my son's number.. The charging mechanism is not specified, but according to DIGI's record, it seemed that they can just send SMS and then proceed with deduction.. Each SMS cost RM3, and over the short span of 3 months, more than 30 SMSs' have been send and deducted from my son's number.. When we learnt about this, we were obviously furious, as my son and I are both budget consious consumer.. I only allow my son RM30/month for his hand phone and not a single cent more.. And my son has been very sure of his action which he has insisted that he did not subscriped any of this sort of services.. Frankly, i belived my son after some heart to heart talk..

After that I begun some investigation myself with some of my friends that are also in the Tel co business.. According to them, (and also to some of DIGI customer care line operators after I begun my complains with them) that this kind of things are indeed present and is a comment problem.. Only different is that NO ONE has taken the trouble of bringing up the issue and confront the business operators and also the big Tel Corp, so problems have remain until now..

To their estimate, this kind of unscoupious scam could run into hundred of millions each year, praying on unsuspected victims (or soft consumers).. I think it is time that we bring this issues to the surface and get the Government to close this kind of loop holes..

My point in these issues are;

According to DIGI, when we subscriped, we are authorizing them to deduct credit from our telephone number.. But the strange thing is that they are no detail of they deduction or service charging mechanism made known to user.. So they basically treated this as an OPEN BLANK CHEQUE to them and they can deduct howevermuch they feel is appropriate..

There are NO proper account of the authorization process in regard to the user (consumer), and as made known by DIGI, some complains have actually came as a result of phone user that are being prescriped recycle numer and fall victims to previous phone user arrangement with these service provider.. OR even worse that the previous phone user could be victimize as a result terminating their service..

These kind of problems are actually undermining our country in further developing the e-commerce platform.. The Government should look into these loop holes and take action to protect the consumer and also the geniune e-commerce operator.. I hope you could take up this case as this issue go FAR BEYOND our personal problem, but it concerns with the benefits of the consumer at large.. I am ready to provide you with ALL materials if you require, and am ready to come in person to back up our claim..

Thank you and looking forward to hear from you
 
NCCC's Advice:
We have forward the complaint to Digi centre for their action in solving the matter as soon as possible.

Abdullah Bin Mohamad Abu Bakar
Legal Executive/Complaints Manager
Pusat Khidmat Aduan Pengguna Nasional
National Consumer Complaints Centre
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


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