KARACHI, Feb 10: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company has no foolproof mechanism of warning its 800,000 plus subscribers of misuse of phone, even for expensive long-distance calls.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday that while in theory a system existed with the help of which the phone utility could inform its subscriber in time that his phone is being misused for making costly long-distance phone calls, in practice the system is as good as useless.

PTCL officials claim that in all the 24 exchanges of the city a system is in place which keeps a watchful eye on long-distance international calls being made by a subscriber. “When a subscriber exceeds a certain limit of international calls, measured in terms of money, he is called by the department concerned and asked if he has made those calls. If the subscriber says yes, his phone connection is left untouched. But if his answer is in the negative, his phone connection is immediately proscribed, that is disabled from making long-distance international phone calls.”

The PTCL officials say that subscribers should make use of the code barring facility — a service offered gratis by the phone utility with the help of which a subscriber can bar others from using his phone without his permission.

Insiders, however, pointed out that the so-called foolproof mechanism of the PTCL suffered from an inherent flaw. “The system is so designed that it compiles data in 24 hours. "

Two residents of an apartment block on Sarwar Shaheed Road were at their wits’ end when they received extremely inflated bills in January showing phone calls made to the United States. They said they had never made those phone calls. Incidentally, Sohail Ahmed, having telephone number 5688617, showed his bill to Ali Tahir, having telephone number 5688773. They were both astounded to find that their bills showed telephone calls made to the same number in the US. Mr Ahmed’s bills showed that he had made five calls to the US on this number: 7732753010. His five calls had been of the following duration: 12 minutes, 12 minutes, 3 minutes, 15 minutes and 12 minutes.

Mr Tahir’s bill showed he had made two calls to the US on the same number: 7732753010. His two calls had been of the following duration: 3 minutes and 12 minutes. His bill also showed three calls made to Indonesia.

Both Mr Ahmed and Mr Tahir were not informed by the PTCL that their phones were being misused. Now the PTCL insists that they pay the bill even if their phones were misused.

Interestingly, when Mr Ahmed approached the International Gateway Exchange II about the name of the person who had booked those calls to the US, it came out that the calls had been booked by a person called “Pappu”. A receipt issued by the International Gateway Exchange II shows that all the five calls were booked by ”Mr Pappu” without arousing suspicion among the PTCL staff.

INFLATED BILLS: Another subscriber of the PTCL, Ahmed Hamesh, telephone number 629190, received an inflated bill of Rs43,880 in May 2001. He protested to the authorities concerned that he had not made the calls for which he had been billed. When he asked for a detailed list of the calls, the PTCL refused to give him any list. He was asked to pay up or face disconnection.