The Solution – the vanishing and expiring mobile credits

There are only two possible reasons why its happening – wrong billing and unauthorize deduction of mobile credits. Wrong billing and delayed billing are problems of telecommunication companies. They should upgrade their billing system and make it real time. Real time meaning as soon as the credits are used, it should be deducted right away to avoid misunderstanding of charges.

Unauthorize deduction happens when a content provider sends a ringtone or any other services to a subscriber and the subscriber was charged without his/her knowledge. Or an opt-in message was sent and the subscriber accidentally accepted the opt-in.

The solution is simple – prohibit the sending of opt-in messages or messages that invites users to avail of services. Content providers and the telecommunication companies are making a big profit out of this extra services, so why not pay for advertisement? Promote your services via print, television, radio and other media available outside of text messaging. If we probihit the sending of opt-in and ad messages, then we solve the accidental acceptance of the subscriber and no unauthorize charging will happen.

Let us now go to the expiration of mobile credits. According to a comment I got from my CNET Asia blog, Thailand do it this way, which I think can be adopted here in the Philippines. If lets say I bought a P100 pesos load and after the expiration date, I was only able to use only P60 pesos, so that means I still have P40 pesos left. If I didn’t load up, then I won’t be able to use the P40 pesos unused credit. But if in case I bought a new load regardless of the amount (or even a minimum amount of credits), my previous unused P40 pesos should be added to my new load. A win-win solution don’t you think?

I always maintain that mobile credits should not have an expiration date. I bought it already so its mine and nobody should tell me how I should use it and how fast should I use it. But since telecommunication companies are so business-oriented, at least give the consumer a chance to use their unused mobile credits.
Let me tell you a short story, a regular employee came up to me and told me that he just bought 30 pesos load. He was able to send 5 messages from the time he bought it. The next day, much to the surprise of the employee, his entire P 30 pesos load was gone. How do we explain it to this employee that because of a crazy expiration rule or crazy delayed billing system, his hard earned P30 pesos was taken away? You tell me!

To read more click here 6.21/09 blog