Archive for April 24th, 2008

Open Letter To PTA About Consumer Protection & Alerts

Published by Babar Bhatti on April 24, 2008 under Consumer Rights, Government Regulations

The draft of the Consumer Protection Regulations 2008 states the rights of consumers, among other items. Many industry watchdogs have observed instances where these rights are in violation (for instance, see the warning issued to PTCL). What are the consequences for telecommunication companies if they don’t comply with these regulations?

Are the consequences so minor that telecom companies can shrug it off and keep doing the same thing? It needs to be significant enough that it provide motivation for compliance for telecom companies.

There’s one thing PTA can improve easily and it will make a big difference. The Consumer Alerts page on PTA web site is not good enough. It does not have archives of past alerts, is maintained on adhoc basis, is not user friendly and is probably not easy to find. If that was not enough the url keeps changing! It was www.pta.gov.pk/calerts.htm a while ago and now it is www.pta.gov.pk/Ref.htm.

Please make it easy to access the alerts from your home page, make it a part of your content management system and ask PTCL to provide a link to these alerts from their website.

Excerpt Of Consumer Rights From the Proposed Consumer Protection Regulation

  • to have clear and easy-to-understand descriptions of the services for which they are paying.
  • to know exact costs for all services prior to purchase, clearly expressed in local currency, without the confusion of moving, scrolling or otherwise difficult-to-read text;
  • to know in advance of any price changes, associated terms including service contracts and the governing provisions of licensed telecommunication services;

As I have written before the consumer protection regulation is a good start but we need to see it implemented soon. And while we are on the topic, can you fix the 0800-55055 number for complaints?