Cellular phone companies rob subscribers

CELLULAR phone companies in the Philippines are robbing their subscribers – both pre-paid and post paid – millions of dollars everyday. Just imagine one of the leading networks sending an average of ten alerts/advisories a day to its more than 25 million subscribers at an average cost of ten cents (the equivalent of one peso, which is the basic charge per text message in the Philippines). That’s a whooping $25 million!

But the robbery doesn’t stop there, it is perpetrated wantonly, brazenly, and with impunity. Even requests that such advisories and alerts be stopped are disregarded. Repeated requests would only illicit more advisories… and further charges until one’s precious and hard-earned load is all but consumed, without a call made or an all-important business or personal text message sent.

How about the second biggest cellular phone service provider? The third? And the others? All in all, estimates of cellular phone ownership and usage in the Philippines could easily reach 50 million. As a matter of fact, the Philippines is the runaway texting capital of the world with an average of 2.5 million text messages every hour.

But how does one stop the cellular phone companies from sending such alerts, some of which cost as high as 35 cents. Sending text messages to stop all alerts and advisories are ignored. Perhaps, the programs used in sending these alerts are deliberately set not to respond to customers’ requests that such be stopped. Ah, talk of deceit. How about robbery?

Indeed, when one perpetrates this kind of scheme on unsuspecting and unwilling subscribers, it is nothing but a crime called robbery. And by using technology, the crime becomes even more heinous.

So, who does a subscriber turn to? Obviously, this robbery, in simple terms, violates a subscriber’s right of choice. Doing something against a person’s will is a serious crime that must be addressed by the authorities. More appropriately, it should be stopped. But apparently, even the authorities, most of whom have two or three cellular phones, are also victims of this type of fraud. But they suffer less, because they have more to spare.

Unlike the ordinary cellular phone subscriber, who scrimps from a pitiable budget just to purchase a pre-paid load equivalent to 35 cents. How about the student, who foregoes a 35-cent snack, opting to go hungry, just to be able to load his or her cell phone to text a friend or a family to inform them of her or his whereabout or wherefor.

If the cellular phone companies are not doing injustice to their subscribers by sending this unwanted alerts and advisories, what is? But the robbery continues unabated.

Once a subscriber is really pissed off by constant alerts and advisories that eat up his or her load, he or she simply throws away the SIM card, hoping that a new one will not be getting the same deluge of alerts and advisories. But that’s only for a while. After the cellular phone companies notice that a SIM card is active, alerts and advisories flood the subscriber again. Thus, the poor subscriber get’s robbed not once, but twice – via alerts and advisories and a new SIM card. Or worse, as the cycle continues, so does the robbery.

If only traditional telephones – land lines – are as efficient and as convenient as mobile phones, subscribers will just abandon their cellular phone units and relegate them to the dustbin of history.