That was the shock of my life. Perhaps it had been in waiting to catch me speechless. When I checked on the balance amount in my mobile phone after a refilling recently, the operator's SMS read that I had only Taka 9 left. The amount should have been over Tk 100 including the newly refilled money. The message said that the Internet package 'that I paid for' had duly started. The charge it mentioned as having been spent for the 'service' was almost half of what I had been expecting in total amount after the refill. I was astonished to find that my earlier balance had also vanished! Moreover, I became stunned. I did not ask for any Internet package at all. I just wanted to increase the amount of my balance used for making calls only. The special-figure amount of the recharge which the young roadside vendor took from me and sent to the mobile phone company was meant for the charge against an Internet package. He did not seem to be aware of it. Not me either. What all this boiled down to was I had to lose an amount of Tk 100, which included the balance already kept in my SIM (Subscriber Identification Module). What should one call it -- a deliberate irregularity resorted to by the vendor, a technical fault or negligence on the part of the relevant cell-phone company's staff? To add to my bitter experience, a fortnight back I refilled a certain special-figure amount for a service in my phone at a refilling corner. I got the mobile operator's SMS that the service had started. But to my incredulity, the balance kept showing the previous amount. The refilled amount was not added to the total. It had just disappeared.
It is sad to note that a lot of persons manning the refilling outlets are not aware of the nitty-gritty of the charges for the different services offered by a company. Their inefficiency causes monetary losses to many who are solely dependent on these recharge-handling people. This very fact prompts many to know about the status of these people in charge of refilling mobile phone balance. Do they receive licences or formal permission from the cell-phone companies or other government authorities? Or anyone can start the business one fine morning?
These days a lot of mobile phone users complain about regular 'vanishing' of money from their total balance amount. The other day, a middle-aged gentleman rued that he lost around Tk 400 in a single week from his balance. On enquiry with the company's particular desk, he was told that his call list showed outgoing overseas calls. He vehemently denied it. His cell-phone SIM also showed no record of these so-called overseas calls. He became so devastated and perturbed that he stopped using the phone for some time. To add to his discomfort, someone told him that his SIM may have been cloned by unscrupulous quarters. It seemed so absurd! But the same vanishing of money resumed after the gentleman started making calls over his phone after the pause.
This gentleman, and all mobile phone users including me, began using their SIMs after formal registration. They have also duly completed the re-registration process as directed by the regulatory authorities. Then why are these irregularities and sufferings happening? As for the recharge vendors, they ought to be under strict regulations. Moreover, the cell-phone users should be timely informed about the new Internet services along with their charges through SMS. This will dispel the bitter feelings that crop up during and after balance refilling.
Sarwar Alam
Kamalapur,
Dhaka
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