Unfair data charges
Published:Saturday | February 15, 2014 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I write to complain about charges incurred on my Digicel phone, even when without signing up to a data package. Also, when customers purchase time-limited data plans, they are charged well beyond the time that the plans expire. This practice is unfair and intolerable.
There are two main ways in which customers are hit through data charges.
1. A postpaid customer signs up for a voice plan, not including data. If certain settings change on the customer's handset (inadvertently or otherwise), Digicel begins to charge the said customer for data usage. Even if the customer does not browse the Internet directly, background data can be used by applications on modern handsets. Digicel should under no circumstance admit a handset to its data network without the express wish of the customer.
2. A prepaid customer pays for a one-day data plan, which expires, naturally, 24 hours from activation. The customer expects the plan to expire and that the handsets would become barred from Digicel's data network at the end of this period. However, Digicel, without the customer's instructions, proceeds to renew the plan and charge the customer for a second day. This continues until all credit has been removed from the customer's accounts for data charges.
Modern cellphone technology means that practically all cell phones are 'data ready'. Digicel has the demonstrated capacity (and responsibility), however, to restrict access to its data network only to customers who request and pay for such service. I, therefore, urge the company to desist from charging unsuspecting customers for data they did not request, do not need and have no intention to pay for.
NIARO GELBARA
Huddersfield, St Mary