The Consumer Council has recorded a sharp upsurge in consumer complaints related to fixed telecommunication network services (FTNS), rising from 546 in 2002 to 1,481 in 2003 - by an increase of 170 per cent.
To assist consumers in their choice of FTNS - and avoid the pitfalls and thus the need for complaints - the Council has surveyed the residential FTNS market in respect of their fees and charges.
Prominent among the consumer complaints last year were disputes arising from price and charges (488) and sales practices (444), with the remainders concerning mainly service quality, installation and maintenance.
According to the complainants, one of the tactics adopted by FTNS salesmen to gain access to consumers was by not clearly identifying the company which they represent.
For instance, the salesmen would simply identify themselves as staff from the telephone company, and proceed to ask the household to hand over the telephone bill on the pretext of processing for price reduction.
In the more insidious cases, the salesmen would falsely claim that the telephone company has merged with another company to become one same operator, or that the name of the telephone company has been changed.
It would appear that there are still consumers, particularly the elderly, who are not aware that the FTNS market has been liberalised and has now 5 service providers operating in the market.
Section 7M of the Telecommunications Ordinance specifically prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct, including promotion and marketing, in the provision of telecommunications services. The cases in question were referred to the Office of the Telecommunications Authority for investigation.
The Consumer Council urges telecommunications service providers to strengthen their training of salesmen and to provide clear and sufficient information to consumers on the company's identity, service fees and charges, details of the contract and restrictions.
Highlights of the Council's price survey covering all 5 FTNS operators included:
- For basic telephone lines, the standard monthly fees for the 5 operators ranged from $78 to $110.
- Some operators would offer new customers promotional discounts but the discounted fees are invariably limited to only the first few months of the subscription period.
- Taking into account the discounts, the average monthly fees (over the entire subscription period) would be lowered ranging from $60 to $110.
- Nearly all promotional plans require the users to be contractually bound for a period of 12 to 24 months. Should the consumer decide to break off, the user is required to pay a penalty fee (i.e. the installation fee of $475 and/or the total monthly fees of the remaining subscription period).
- In some contracts it is stipulated that unless otherwise instructed, the agreement for service upon completion will be automatically renewed for a further term of one year.
- Some operators resort to value-added-services (VAS) as a means to price discount. Apart from the common VAS such as Caller Number Display, Call Forwarding, IDD Security, innovative VAS such as Fixed Line SMS, Duplex Ringing, etc are now also available for FTNS consumers.
Consumers are advised to thoroughly understand the terms and conditions of the contract paying particular heed to: the subscription fees and services provided (including any VAS or free gift), the minimum subscription period, and the penalty of terminating the service prior to the expiration of the subscription period.
Furthermore, apart from price comparison, consumers are advised to find out the availability of service, and also to compare the quality of service (e.g. quality of voice reception).
Over-spilling of mobile signals in boundary areas
Meanwhile, the attention of mobile phone users is drawn to the possibility of over-spilling of mobile signals in boundary areas.
Due to the close proximity between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and the inherent propagation characteristics of radio waves, mobile phone coverage near boundary areas inevitably overlaps, causing handsets to connect to Mainland's mobile networks erroneously. If this happens, the call will be charged as a roaming call.
To prevent this from happening, when you are in a boundary area, you should select your Hong Kong network by "manual network selection" or other similar function.
As an alternative, you can de-activate the roaming service temporarily when you are in Hong Kong and restore the service when you travel overseas, though this function is not available to most prepaid SIM users.
The Consumer Council has surveyed 8 operators on how to de-activate/activate their roaming services temporarily, with the information published in CHOICE for the reference of consumers.
The Consumer Council reserves all its right (including copyright) in respect of CHOICE Magazine and Online CHOICE ( https://echoice.consumer.org.hk/ ).