Honest 836 Report post Posted June 26, 2008 Telcos should probe all complaints of inflated bill: Panel 26 Jun, 2008, 1840 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: Whenever a consumer questions his exorbitant telephone bill, the service provider should conduct an "in-depth" inquiry to find out the truth, the Delhi Consumer Commission has said. "Whenever a consumer raises such allegations, an in-depth inquiry be made to find out whether the telephone numbers which are responsible for highly inflated bills have ever been used in the past or has any nexus or relationship with the consumer...," Commission President Justice J D Kapoor said. Highlighting several instances in which the CBI had unearthed unauthorised use of customers' telephones by the employees of service providers, the Commission quashed bills issued by MTNL to Ashish Prakash, who alleged the STD/ISD facilities of his telephone were misused by the officials of the service provider. Allowing the appeal of Prakash, the Commission reversed findings of a district consumer forum, which had held that the secret dynamic STD/ISD codes was known to the user only and allegations of telephone misuse was unfounded. "Merely because the dynamic STD/ISD code was known to Prakash and A-class officers does not mean that it cannot be misused," Justice Kapoor said. The Commission also considered the fact that the calls were made to various countries including Italy, Estonia and Sumo Island and that Prakash had never made calls to those places earlier. It ordered the MTNL to raise bills on the average basis against Prakash, a resident of Vasant Kunj. Prakash had complained that he received inflated bills for his landline phone for January to July 2006 and MTNL had refused to conduct an inquiry into his complaint. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
