THE Public Utilities Commission (PUC) resumed hearing, on April 9, about a complaint by Mr. Leonard Craig against U-Mobile (Cellular) Inc. trading as Digicel.The company is a mobile provider and the issue is with respect to the provision of a prompt, prior to a voice mail service, for which charges were levied on customers.
The resumed session was, again, held in the Woodbine Room of Cara Lodge in Quamina Street, Georgetown.
At the continuation, Craig reiterated that he has exhausted all his options for a direct resolution of the matter and is now seeking intervention of the PUC.
Craig is complaining that, whenever he makes calls to another Digicel number, if the called party does not answer – is already on the phone or for any other reason does not take the call, he is routed to a voice prompt for which he is charged G$1.20 or more on every occasion.
“This voice prompt is merely a notice that the called party is not available or that my call is about to be transferred to a voice mail (VM) service,” he said.
DELIBERATELY UNFAIR
Craig described the practice by the cellular service provider as deliberately unfair and deceptive and calculated to earn it profit by cheating customers.
He continued to give his background information and concluded: “I am arguing that Digicel has drawn unsuspecting customers deliberately into a paying relationship that the customer has no desire to pay for and, if you tally the quantum of calls terminated to voice mail because of only the four rings, then Digicel is literally relieving thousands of customers their hard earned cash that they have no desire of surrendering.”
Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Stephen Fraser, for Digicel, submitted that it adopted a standard voice mail protocol like networks worldwide and “after circa twenty seconds of an unanswered call, this is about four rings, it defaults to the voice mail system if the called party has one set up.”
The lawyer argued that the charges imposed on a voice call is different and does not encompass voice mail service, which is separate and customers of Digicel have a choice whether they wish it or not.
“Digicel has chosen not to have a voice prompt,” he said.
Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) Chief Executive Officer, Mr. R.K. Sharma and Mr. Jean Evlyn, together, presented their views on the complaint.
NO BILLING
They, collectively, related that during the prompt, no billing takes place until the customer’s private message or the beep to leave a message.
Their recommendation is “that we try to harmonise our approach to voice messages and customers are using both services and bound to be confused afterwards.”
This was complemented by the Digicel representatives as “workable” and they applauded the recommendation.
The previous hearing was held on February 20, 2014, also in the Woodbine Room of Cara Lodge.
Craig is seeking compensation in excess of $60,000 for thousands of calls he claims were unfairly terminated via voice prompt notices; cost for time and effort invested and expenses incurred in making this challenge, as well as legal or other costs that may be associated with appearing before the Commission to present his case.
By Rebecca Ganesh-Ally