Barely a day goes by without me getting at least one e-mail from a reader who has discovered they are subscribed to a so-called “value added” cellphone service at, for example, R5 a day - and they are adamant they neither wanted nor authorised the service.
Their anger is directed at both the Wireless Application Service Provider (Wasp) - supplier of “content” ranging from expensive ringtones and “inspirational quotes” to pornographic material - and at their network for enabling the allegedly unauthorised deductions.
They almost always feel betrayed by their networks, and, in my opinion, for good reason, as in many cases the networks’ call centre people do relatively little to help when they receive panicked calls about these deductions, other than tell the callers to take up their case with the “third party” Wasp in question.
The fact that the industry has coined the term “auto subscribe” suggests that the practice is not uncommon - that is, cellphone subscribers find themselves subscribed to such services at a hefty cost without their knowledge or authorisation. Outrageous!
To its credit, MTN recently took a stand against a Wasp by the name of T-Mobile, possibly because of the massive numbers involved.
I took up the issue with MTN recently after receiving quite a few complaints from MTN subscribers about the allegedly rogue T-Mobile charges on their cellphone accounts.
One of them, Mike van Zyl, said he received the following SMS from MTN on his cellphone on May 3: “Yello! T-Mobile debited your account for R5 for content ‘Inspirational Quotes’. Please contact them if you wish to query the transaction.”
“I phoned MTN to query where this transaction originated, and they informed me that I should contact T-Mobile directly and gave me the number,” he said.
He called the number and was told the subscription would be cancelled “but the agent could not tell me how and where this transaction originated”.
Two days later, he was among the thousands of affected subscribers to receive the following SMS from MTN: “Dear Customer, your account was irregularly deducted by T-Mobile. We are in the process of reversing the deduction and taking action against the provider. MTN.”
According to MTN, T-Mobile was found to have “irregularly” charged more than 100 000 MTN subscribers between late April and early May for “inspirational quotes” - at R5 a time.
Kevin Jacobson, MTN SA’s general manager of business indirect sales, said MTN had been told by its subscribers that they had received “no voluntary request” via web or SMS to subscribe to the T-Mobile service, nor did they get a “double opt-in” - a mandatory confirmation that the subscriber does indeed wish to subscribe. They also didn’t get an SMS from T-Mobile confirming the content charge.
Wasps are required to follow these steps in order to comply with the regulator Waspa’s (Wireless Application Service Provider’ Association) Code of Conduct. That’s why the network sent that SMS about irregular deductions, he said.
They also suspended T-Mobile, for the second time, for unauthorised billing. MTN also reported the issue to Waspa and began refunding those rogue deductions to affected subscribers.
“This serves to confirm that we are listening to our customers and continue to implement processes that seek to protect our customers,” Jacobson said.
Waspa has made several rulings against T-Mobile relating to complaints of unauthorised billing.
Oh, that the networks would take such decisive action in every case of suspected auto subscription.
Usually when the subscriber finds out they are subscribed to a Wasp service they are told by their network that the service will be cancelled, but they won’t be getting any refunds.
*So what is the relationship between the networks and the Wasps?
The networks provide Wasps with access to their customers and a billing platform, and they carry the credit risk on behalf of the Wasp - for a decent “cut” of what the subscriber pays, of course. Wasps are required to be members of Waspa and are bound by the regulator’s Code of Conduct, but transgressions are common, as you’ll see if you check out the Adjudicator Reports on the website: http://www. waspa.org.za/code/complaints.php- Pretoria News