Duplicate Sms, Mobile Users' New Worry

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Duplicate sms, mobile users' new worry

By Vineet Khare and Mansi Dovhal

Sunday, 10 October , 2004, 10:32

New Delhi:

Here comes the most surreptitious, smartest and almost foolproof move by mobile companies

to fleece customers. It's called duplicate messaging.

Take the case of Meena. A Delhi Idea connection holder, she received the same SMS

25 times, that too while roaming, from a relative holding a BSNL connection in Jabalpur.

With no device to stop the repeats, Meena would be billed for one message 25 times

- on STD rates. Her kin, too, paid Rs 15 instead of the 60 paise she would have if

the SMS had gone only once.

Meena's is not an isolated case. Similar outrage has emanated from customers of Reliance,

Hutch, Dolphin, BSNL and Airtel. Even MPs are not spared. After being nominated to

Rajya Sabha, one gentleman was away on work to London and got a congratulatory sms

from a friend 34 times. He had to finally call her up to inform her that she was

paying Rs 5 per message and should do something to stop the messaging. Himself on

global roaming, his bill for that one sms was considerably higher.

Jyoti, who holds a Reliance connection, came to know that her money was being gobbled

up by her service provider only when friends chided her for sending multiple messages

on Friendship Day. "My friend in Mumbai received the same sms 27 times. Some days

later, I was shocked to find that I had been charged Rs 170 for that message," says

Jyoti.

"A Reliance customer care executive told me to call later. She said they were updating

the system. After I called again, my call was forwarded to a supervisor, but no one

picked up the phone," she adds. The harassed lady is still awaiting feedback.

When contacted, Anjali Kumar of Reliance Infocomm's corporate communication division

admitted that "I have got the number checked from the Mumbai office and there have

been occasional cases of multiple messaging but Jyoti hasn't been charged for them,"

a contention hotly debated by the client.

When Meena's complaint was brought to Idea's notice, a senior official, speaking

from Thailand on condition of anonymity, first said that the problem was technical

and had been reported from customers of all networks, but later changed his version

- to "no such case had been reported in the past 10 months".

BSNL's senior deputy director general, cellular mobile telephone service (Operations

& Maintenance), Rakesh Agrawal, too is in total denial. "I will have to check before

commenting."

Despite being presented with specific numbers and cases, most companies refused to

accept the problem.

Said an Idea executive: "It's not the fault of the company. Mobile numbers are floating

around and it's possible that some customers might have received spam messages. Also,

many a time, a customer sends multiple messages after not receiving the delivery

report."

However, MTNL's wireless chief general manager Kuldeep Goyal, was more upfront. "Yes,

the problem exists and it may be due to a technical snag. We are looking into it."

But, such promises can barely console clients like Mahmood, who carries a Hutch connection

and is ruing the day he bought it. "A few days back, I SMSed a friend at night. To

my shock, I found Rs 50 had been deducted from my balance the next morning. Later,

my friend called up and said he had received my message 10 times," he says.

Reliance customers have an added problem. Though the company deducts money for calls

immediately, it waits for around four days before billing SMSs, by which time, users

forget the number of sent messages. Ms Kumar refused to comment on this.

Kamlesh Sharma of Airtel denied his customers faced the problem, but added: "A customer

may receive a message more than once if he has just entered the network coverage

area. This is because the gsm technology ensures that the receiver gets the message."

Despite all this mumbo jumbo for an explanation, it's the customers who are pre-paying

for mobile companies' money gobbling ploys.

[Shabz 8]

this thing is more prevalent in reliance as sometimes when u send the sms your mobile says it is not sent due to some error but the sms is recd by the person Many times it has happened to me I try to send a message after a long time the animation of message being sent error comes that message not sent and the next moment I receive the delivery sms that the message is delivered

Now what do you call this error in network or mobile

[karpar 1]

Yes, I've noticed something similar too. It keeps saying sending message and even after I cancel it abrubtly, the message seems to be going as I've faced this lots of times with 4-digit services(I get a reply for messages I've cancelled this way).

And I've been getting these duplicate messages too, I think once you delete one duplicate message, all of them get deleted...

Thank God I was one of the early BIRDS!