The National Consumer Commission is still keen to take action against South African cellular service providers and retailers who sell BlackBerry devices despite a move by the cellular network operators to offer free SMSes and airtime to users affected by the BlackBerry outage last week.
However, the cellular operators, who have absolved themselves of blame, claim their actions are not an admission of guilt and are merely a gesture of goodwill.
“Twenty free smses is a good token but it doesn’t mean that they are completely off the hook… It doesn’t mean that they are out of pocket,” national consumer commissioner Mamodupi Mohlala said in response to an offer from Vodacom, which on Friday said it would reimburse its BlackBerry users with 20 free SMSes and 20 minutes of talk time.
By late last week Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, was still fumbling for clarity on the exact cause of the failure that cut off 70 million users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa from using the BlackBerry Messenger service and internet from Monday to Wednesday.
By Thursday, RIM said its service had been restored close to normal operation.
RIM said the failure was caused by a malfunction of a core switch in the group’s data centre in Slough, England.
“Consumers cannot afford to institute action in a British court against RIM. If they can give us the monetary value, we can claim it from the operators,” Mohlala said.
Mohlala entered the spotlight last week urging consumers to seek retribution under the Consumer Protection Act and saying they could seek new handsets under contracts issued after the act was implemented in April.
But the commission has received a weak response. Only four complaints trickled in. Two complainants had requested new handsets.
However, a legal opinion has disagreed with the validity of Mohlala’s interpretation.
Albert Aukema, an associate in the competition practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said it was unlikely a challenge by the commission would be in line with the provisions of the act.
“If anything, the interruptions should be accurately categorised as impacting on the quality of the service rendered to consumers. Although the scope of these sections is yet to be interpreted by the courts, it is unlikely that such a challenge would be in line with the provisions of the act.
“From the reports and information provided to consumers by service providers during the course of the interruption, the interruption appears to have been unrelated to defects in the handsets supplied to consumers as part of the service offering.”
Aukema declined to comment on the reimbursement by the cellular network operators and said there had been no precedent of reimbursement in the telecoms industry since the act was enforced.
Virgin Mobile was the first company to reimburse clients. It issued its customers with R50 airtime for the three days in which the BlackBerry internet service was interrupted.
Cell C also said on Thursday that it would deduct R10 from the cost of the service from its customers’ bills for this month and allow 10 free SMSes. On Friday Vodacom said it would give customers 20 minutes of talk time and 20 SMSes. MTN said as a gesture of goodwill it would pass on R10 credit to affected customers. - Asha Speckman