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Unwanted Cellphone Costs Still a Problem in Indonesia
Ismira Lutfia & Imelda Rahmawati | January 19, 2012

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padt
11:41am Jan 19, 2012

It's the creep somewhere in a certain bank who has given (sold?) my mobile number to various companies who plague me every day with text messages wanting me to sign up for something I don't want and haven't asked for, that I should like to boil alive in hot oil.


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Tifatul Sembiring, the communications and information technology minister, has said the country’s telecommunication industry is still rife with unwanted mobile phone service costs.

“As of the end of 2011 there are three issues that have not been resolved by the Communications Ministry. They are the mobile phone credit theft, development of some infrastructure and digital television,” the minister told a hearing at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Tifatul said the ministry and the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) had issued an advisory on how to stop unwanted subscriptions to SMS services following a series of complaints.

Both institutions, he said, had submitted their findings to the police. Despite months of investigation, police have yet to charge anyone with a criminal offense.

The case came to the public spotlight after Feri Kuntoro first reported the alleged credit scam in early October.

Feri was a victim of a type of phone credit scam that is believed to have affected a substantial proportion of Indonesia’s mobile subscribers.

Users can inadvertently sign up for pay-per-message content and ring tones, unaware of the deductions being made. It can be difficult to unsubscribe from the services, as Feri experienced when he repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to unsubscribe from a premium SMS service.

“Those responsible for the phone credit theft must be punished and sent to jail. This is a criminal offense,” Tifatul said.

He also said the ministry would estimate the amount of losses to each consumer before ordering communications providers to reimburse victims.

“So far we have registered some [of the victims], but it is not complete. The amount is significant but not as spectacular as the Rp 1 trillion [$111 million] earlier predicted,” he said.

On Monday, BRTI head Syukri Batubara said the number of complaints had fallen from 1,800 per day in October to 200 per day in December, indicating the die hard nature of the problem.

But Golkar Party politician Tantowi Yahya, who chairs a House special committee on the issue, said the BRTI was not serious about eradicating the scheme, only issuing a circular to communications providers and operators and not ensuring better customer protection.

BRTI member Nonot Harsono said the body was not authorized to sanction its members believed to be operating the scheme.

The Indonesian Cellular Phone Association (ATSI) has said it was a case of false advertising as operators often failed to inform their customers that some of the services were not free despite making it appear that they were.

With reporting from Investor Daily