Protect consumers from high mobilephone bills

28 July 2007

Editor
Today paper

Many people are not aware about the high cost of using the mobilephone, such as:

* receiving incoming calls when they are away from Singapore (for which they are charged expensive roaming rates)
* chatting for a long time on the mobilephone
* when their phone is used by an unauthorised person

They learn about the high charges only after the bill arrives at the end of the month. By that time, it is too late. These bills can amount to a few hundred dollars, or several thousand dollars.

For low income earners and students, these unexpected bills can be a heavy burden and could lead to bankrupcy.

I suggest that the consumers should be protected from these risks. The authority should make it mandatory for the telephone company to place a reasonable limit of say $200 on the monthly bills. If this limit is exceeded, the telephone company should be required to contact the customer and get his or her specific request to extend the limit. This will ensure that the customer is aware about the charges.

Tan Kin Lian

Share an umbrella

I am involved in a community development council that arranged a job fair for mature workers.

I took the MRT train to attend this job fair. It was raining heavily. I had to cross the road in the heavy rain. I did not have an umbrella.

An elderly person spoke to me, "Are you Mr Tan Kin Lian?". He offered to share his umbrella with me. He was attending the job fair to look for job opportunities.

He told me that he reads my blog regularly. I wish to thank him for his kindness.

Build a good work record

An mature worker approached me at a job fair. He asked for my assistance to use my influence to get a certain taxi company to rent the Mercedes taxi for his use. Apparently, this type of taxi is in high demand.

I suggested the following approach:

* rent the ordinary taxi (which is easily available)
* produce a good work record over one or two years
* after that, approach the taxi company to allow him to rent the Mercedes taxi

I hope that people can make progress by building a good work record, rather than to approach people to use their influence.

Frankly, I do not have this type of influence. Even if I had, I will not use it inappropriately.

Free incoming calls

My mobilephone bill was around $50 a month. Last month, it shot up to $100. Half of this cost is for incoming calls.

I decided to change to a new service provider that offers free incoming calls. They also offer a discount for having my cable, internet and mobilephone on the same account.

I did not subscribe for the data services (for downloading from the internet) of the new provider, as it is quite expensive.