Frugal Customers Infuriated

Chung, a 26-year-old woman, recently subscribed a new mobile phone service with IMT-2000, which allows users to enjoy movies and music videos. She also was persuaded to apply for a ‘trial service for customers’ that provides her with various multi-media services and relatively cheaper charge. However, after she watched four and five music videos through her mobile phone, the bill was charged with 100,000 won more than usual. She complained, “I heard that only with a monthly 5,000 won, I could use 30,000 packets. But it was hard to understand for me what it is and how much it will cost.”

Telecommunications companies are alluring subscribers with new services and charging system. They are taking advantage of customers with unfamiliar terminology and concepts.

SK Telecom has won over 667,000 customers in three months since it launched a new service with a blurb, ‘free 11-hour phone calls for only 10,000 won’. However, the hours fell short of customers’ expectations.

It is because telecommunications companies consider 10 seconds as a basis message rate, and charge the customers. Accordingly, it turned out that subscribers can use only four to five hours, even though they thought they could enjoy for an hour and a half with additional nine hours and a half free of charge (during the daytime, 20 won for 10 seconds).

When the message rate applies, a phone call for only 11 seconds is considered as 2 message rates. Therefore, customers are as good as charged for 9 more seconds that they have not even used.

The same goes for the charge system of wireless multi-media service, which secured a total of 200,000 subscribers. In the manual, it says, ‘30,000-packet calls free of charge, for a monthly 5,000 won’. However, there are no explanations of what ‘packet’ is and how much it will cost when downloading a file.

A 27-year-old office worker, who subscribes a multi-media service, got infuriated, saying, “They charged me with over 10,000 own only for one bell sound download.” He added, “On my mobile phone display, it only says ‘200 to 900 won of fee’, but no explanation of what ‘packet’ is.”

Packet is a unit of the amount of transmitted information through a terminal. The amount of information for a file of music and moving images is 4,000 to 20,000 packets. Accordingly, 6,000 to 30,000 won is charged for a file.

Under the current law, there is no way to regulate companies when the advertisement is hyped or it does not specify the information on the use. Therefore customers should be careful when they use such services.

“We are trying to solve the problem by helping customers with a large amount of bill change the service to a fixed charge system, so that they can use the service for unlimited hours temporarily,” said a SK Telecom official.

sublime@donga.com jaykim@donga.com