HARIPUR, Aug 20: A number of telephone subscribers have accused the PTCL authorities of issuing inflated bills. Local subscribers who approached newsmen while providing details of wrong calls , pointed out that they were being over-billed by the PTCL authorities who had, for the last four months been constantly issuing bills with wrong entries and amount, and their complaints fell on deaf ears said Sadiq Awan.

Showing the telephone bill of his residence Mr Awan told Dawn that last month he was issued a bill amounting Rs 830 which carried 14 calls to a number 090077755 about which, according to him, neither he nor his family members have any knowledge. He said that this bill was actually of Rs 530 or Rs 600.

Likewise, he said the bill for July was also full of errors, which carried over 48 calls from the same telephone number. He termed this bill, which was amounting Rs1680 90 pc wrong.

Javed Qureshi advocate, another subscriber, told Dawn that last month he received bill showing 318 local calls while, according to him, his house remained closed for half of the month and the telephone was not used for a single local call.

He said that in the bill for July there were over 120 wrong entries of calls made on a single mobile number, which was neither of their relatives nor of any family acquaintances.

Mr Qureshi said that the sequence and duration of calls shown in the new bill suggested that six mobile calls were made on a single number within 10 minutes and each call was of 3 to 5 minutes interestingly.

About the modus operandi for redressing such complaint, Mr Qureshi termed it faulty and time wasting exercise adding that the department did not revise wrong bill instantly rather a complaint was discussed at a committee meeting of department in Abbottabad for which a subscriber was required to appear before this committee which was seldom held, he added.

He said that when he filed a complaint regarding over-billing last month he was asked to pay the same wrong bill and assured that if any wrong call was detected by the committee, it would be adjusted accordingly in the next bill.

But the committee meeting was not held for the whole month and on day he received a letter from Divisional Engineer Office PTCL Abbottabad that the complaint had been decided in the favor of department as the complainant failed to appear before the committee.