KumaarShah 143 Report post Posted January 7, 2012 NEW DELHI: In an effort to protect the interests of pre-paid mobile services users, telecom regulator Trai today said they can now get an itemised bill from service providers on request and at a price not exceeding Rs 50. "To ensure that pre-paid consumers get their itemised usage of their account, the service providers have been mandated to provide the same within 30 days to the consumer on request and at a reasonable cost not exceeding Rs 50," Trai said in its 'Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012'. The sectoral regulator has announced the regulations with a view to protect the interests of telecom consumers, particularly pre-paid users. The consumer can also get details of his tariff plan, available balance in his account and details of any value-added service activated on his telephone number at any time from the service provider, free of charge. According to the regulations, it will be mandatory to provide a start-up kit (SUK) to each subscriber at the time of enrollment to the telecom service provided by an operator, which will include the SIM card and mobile number, besides an abridged version of the citizen's charter provided under the Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2012. The vouchers offered by the service providers have been simplified and standardised into three categories -- plan vouchers, top-up vouchers and special tariff vouchers (STV). The plan voucher shall be used for enrolling a consumer into a tariff plan. The top-up voucher shall contain only the monetary value in rupees and such monetary value shall be without any restrictions in terms of the validity period or the services used, Trai said. To promote further transparency and easy identification by consumers, a distinct colour band is to be provided on the reverse of each voucher. According to Trai, at present, about 96 per cent of consumers are in the pre-paid category and unlike post-paid consumers, the pre-paid consumers do not get any bills for their usage and the amount charged. As part of its sustained efforts to address the needs of consumers, Trai had initiated a consultation process to review various measures already in place and to evolve appropriate further measures to safeguard the interest of consumers by issuing a consultation paper, 'Review of Measures to Protect Interest of Consumers in the Telecom Sector' on August 2, 2010. Yesterday, Trai had announced the 'Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2012' to ensure redressal of complaints and service requests in accordance with the timeframe specified under the authority's quality of service regulations. Link Courtesy: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/pre-paid-users-can-get-bill-by-paying-rs-50-trai/articleshow/11389738.cms 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
csmart 472 Report post Posted January 7, 2012 really a good move. now long battle with Telcos in order to get refund of "wrong" charges.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
commonman 228 Report post Posted January 7, 2012 (edited) so now subscribers would start receiving SMS in the format - "dear customer, your request for itemised billing has been processed and Rs.50 deducted from your account. your bill has been despatched to your registered address". and the customer would run from pillar to post to prove that he had not sent any request. Edited January 7, 2012 by commonman Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sathishq 27 Report post Posted January 7, 2012 Humorous ... Joke.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted January 7, 2012 Thanks for the info Kumaar Sir. +1 Atleast Trai is doing good for prepaid subscribers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karthik R 246 Report post Posted January 8, 2012 Commendable move by TRAI but hope it doesn't get abused by sly operators as Common Man pointed out. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kkkooolll 10 Report post Posted January 8, 2012 Very good initiative... Atleast for those whose balance got deducted every other day... Without any actual reason. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HetalDP 947 Report post Posted January 8, 2012 more then 90% peoples in india are on prepaid, this is a welcome Move but they sud go further for Strict rules to stop VAS looting by operators from Prepaid customer Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KumaarShah 143 Report post Posted January 8, 2012 Afaik, TRAI is in the process of implementing very strict rules for VAS services Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rajanmehta 4,056 Report post Posted January 8, 2012 TRAI has already announced Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations 2012 on 6th January 2012. Everything in that is mostly related to Prepaid Consumers for Tariff Vouchers, VAS etc. Please refer to the attached PDF File for details. Telecom Consumer Protection Regulations 2012.pdf Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sgiitk 32 Report post Posted January 9, 2012 The itemised billing in the long term will reduce the false charging. Also, I suspect the motive behind this nothing as noble. It is to allow prepaid customers in Govt Departments to also claim the charges of the Phone Allowance. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
