Round 1 – Hearing On Lost Prepaid Phone Loads
The first Senate hearing on the issue of expiring prepaid phone loads was held yesterday, June 16, 2009 and based on news reports, the cellular phone companies do not have much of a defense on their irregular practice. The hearing was instigated by an incident that happened to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile where he lost some load credits on his prepaid Globe cell phone. Sen. Enrile who fumed over his lost phone load, delivered a privilege speech, asked for investigation and the result was the hearing yesterday.
The representative to the hearing of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Commissioner Ruel Canobas said that the case of disappearing prepaid phone loads might have been prevented if local telecommunications companies allowed government to implement stronger rules on consumer protection. Comm. Canobas admitted that the cellular phone companies had been blocking the implementation of a memorandum circular that provides guidelines for the expiration of subscriber identification module (SIM) card and the prepaid phone load.
The NTC Commissioner is referring to NTC Memorandum Circular No. 13-06-2000 which was created in 2000 but was actively countered by the telecommunications companies who got a court injunction that prevented the implementation of the circular. Memorandum Circular No. 13-06-2000 provides that prepaid loads and the SIM card shall be valid for two (2) years from date of first use. The circular also provides that a buyer of prepaid SIM be required to present valid identification card such as driver’s license, passport or Professional Regulation Commission ID card.
The cellular phone companies are given the option to lift the court injunction and allow the implementation of the NTC circular or face some modifications of their franchises (check this article for information) which the legislature has the power to do. The telecommunication companies have yet to issue statements regarding the issue.
For the uninitiated, the current practice of cellular phone companies is to expire unused prepaid phone loads depending on how much airtime credits a subscriber buys. The usual equation is that a ten-peso load is good for one day so if the subscriber bought a thirty (P30.00) load, it will be gone in three (3) days whether he use or not. A SIM card which has no load for six (6) months will become invalid after the said period. Anyone (even without identification card) can buy a SIM card.
When the news about Sen. Enrile’s fuming mad and promising to conduct investigation, negative comments like he’s just politicking because election is coming were heard all over the place. Now that the first Senate hearing was conducted with promise of better deals for prepaid cell phone subscribers, we can only hope that we get a fair deal out of this proceeding.
NOTE: Your comments are welcome here but you may wish to proceed to Café Forum for your questions and comments.
Just got a message from Load Central:
“Please be informed that due to the current Senate investigation on the “Vanishing Load” issue, Globe has temporarily cut its services on our 2948 access number.”
Seems like globe strikes back on its client because of this.
Good thing Load Central has a webtool.
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While some LC retailers may lose revenue because of that action by Globe, I should say they should take it as a blessing in disguise. Globe’s e-loading system is actually very erratic since the start. There was a time that we decided to drop the line because of so many complaints from Globe subscribers of non-successful Autoloadmax transactions.
I also read in the other forum that there were suggestions for retailers to convince their customers to shift to Smart or Talk n Text. We actually did that before and it’s quite easy to convince the subscribers to shift especially these days when a Talk n Text SIM card costs P30.00 only. All e-load retailers must do that to relieve them of complaints from Globe subscribers.
what I really hate about globe is its weak signal on our place, like what you mention what they call missing loads are actually expiry date for a certain amount of loads in which we don’t really like. so I switched to smart!
The issue of vanishing prepaid loads was existent and prevalent ever since the prepaid scheme was started by these greedy telcos. I just hope there is reform on telco industry because we have long been a victim of robbery of these telcos. It is the only industry where the consumers are without any concrete remedy for abuses by telcos.
When you air a complaint for vanished prepaid load, they will tell the consumer they will take a look at it but actually the telcos will not do anything about it. When you complain about errors in postpaid billings, they will tell you their records don’t lie even if it was physically impossible for you to make those errant calls. It is time for the telcos to suffer the consequences of their greed and insensitivity to the consumers.