February 21, 2002	Thursday	Zilhaj 8, 1422

KARACHI, Feb 20: The 24 telephone exchanges of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company have been inundated with complaints regarding the so-called premium rate service. The complainants insist that though they never used the premium rate service, they have been billed for it.

The PTCL has allowed two firms to run the premium rate services: ZRG with the telephone number 0900-10111 and ARY having the telephone number 0900-27936.

A large number of PTCL subscribers told Dawn that they had received monthly phone bills showing that they had made phone calls to 0900 numbers.

A subscriber said his office hours were from 9am to 5pm. “My monthly phone bill says that I made phone calls to 0900-10111 between 2pm and 4pm on weekdays. Does the PTCL believe that I come home from work on the sly to make those calls and afterwards dash back to work?”

“According to my bill, my family made phone calls to these 0900 numbers at 5 o’clock in the morning. First, we never made these calls. Second, why would anyone use the phone at such ungodly hours?” wondered another subscriber.

When contacted, a senior PTCL official said in unequivocal and usual terms that all those subscribers who had complaints about the premium rate service would have to pay their bills. “The PTCL offers a code-barring facility free of charge. Using this code-barring facility, a subscriber can stop his phone from being misused. All those who did not use the code-barring facility chose to be careless at their peril. Now they will have to pay the bill.”

Sources, however, said that inadvertently bills had been issued to some subscribers showing use of the premium rate service while the subscribers had not used that service. “In that case, even the code-barring facility is of no use.”

The PTCL official, however, denied that bills had been issued to some subscribers showing use of the premium rate service while those subscribers had not employed the service.

Another subscriber pointed out that few people knew how to use the code-barring facility. “While large advertisements are placed in the press about the premium rate service, the PTCL remains silent on the use of code-barring facility. Few people know how to use the code-barring facility and those who do say that it is quite complicated and difficult to remember.”

The PTCL official said the phone utility had advertised the use of code-barring facility in the past. “A subscriber has to select four digits and feed them into the code. In order to activate the code, a subscriber has to dial: *33*nnnn*04#. In order to deactivate the code, a subscriber has to dial #33*nnnn#. In place of nnnn, a subscriber should put the digits he has selected.”

Sources told Dawn that the premium rate service provider in the country, ARY, charged the following rates. For social info, Rs6.93 per minute; for legal info consumer service, Rs13.86 per minute; for financial info, chat line, Rs27.73 per minute; for sports, Rs41.60 per min