No Need to Pay for Unused Extra Services
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Mobile telephony users won't be paying for supplementary non-voice services if they do not use them for more than three months, the Korea Communications Commissions (KCC) said Monday.
There have been growing consumer complaints about wireless carriers requiring them to sign up for these unnecessary services in exchange for cheaper handset deals.
``Mobile users are often surprised to learn that they are actually paying for these services they didn't know about. Sales offices often require the users to sign up for these extra services in their contracts, often for the first three months and many users forget to sign out of these services after the required period, ending up paying for them without using them,'' said an official from KCC's customer protection division.
``Mobile users are always advised to check exactly what they are paying for and what they sign up for in the fixed-rate plans. Each mobile carrier has a different policy about charging users for these supplementary services and there was a need to adopt a consistent standard.''
Wireless carriers have been requiring subscribers to sign up to at least one or two supplementary services, usually data applications, in exchange for cheaper phones based on subsidies.
Currently, SK Telecom, the biggest wireless carrier, doesn't charge for any supplementary services the user doesn't use for three months, but LG Telecom, the smallest of the carriers, waits until the fourth month before doing the same.
KT delists users from the supplementary services if their usage is below 100 kilobytes in the first three months.
According to the new rules applied by the KCC, which are to be enforced in August, users will be allowed to sign off from the supplementary services at any time, rendering the three-month ``requirement periods'' by the mobile carriers irrelevant. The carriers will also be required to notify users of the services they are signed up to every three months through text messages.