Scams on your phone

What irritates you the most about your mobile phone carrier? The "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" rigmarole when you call for help? Their sleight of hand with rates? "Value-added services" that quietly jack up your bills?

A reader came to us last week with an angry complaint about his service provider. He'd had trouble downloading ringtones, and was charged for something he hadn't got. The guys at the counter had been far from helpful; in fact, they had been downright obnoxious. Hundreds of such mobile user stories are waiting to be told

Personally, I am irritated by the text promos my phone company sends for its friendship chat service. These are awfully worded, and cause offence to the copy editor in me. I also know they're trying to lure me into something perfectly useless so that they can make some quick money. (But then, a colleague told me this service wasn't always as innocently useless as I thought. Two years ago a mobile chat service promoted by a newspaper was all the rage on the college campus because his friends could use it to chat, flirt, get a date, hook up, and more.)

But carriers ripping you off when you aren't looking isn't just the usual Indian cleverness at work. David Pogue, my favourite personal tech writer, has been, by his own admission, "ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by US cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions".

He writes in The New York Times that he is disgusted with canned messages that say things like (I have slightly modified this example to make it sound Indian):

"The number you have called is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press hash for more options." Pogue gives compelling reasons why these messages are outrageous: "First, they waste your time... Second, we're PAYING for these messages."

He calculates that those 15-second messages rake in about 620 million dollars (Rs 3,038 crore) a year for Verizon, one of that country's leading carriers. That's a lot of money about a tenth of Assam's budgetary expenditure for 2009-10!

Pogue is now spearheading a campaign against the scam. He is getting readers of his widely read column to send written complaints to the carriers.

"If enough of us make our unhappiness known, I'll bet they'll change," he says. He believes the volume of complaints will make the mobile companies stop their deceitful ways. There's much we in India could do about the mobile phone scams we live with. A mobile users' association that could lobby against unfair practices, even with a small percentage of Indian mobile users as members, could force service providers to listen to grievances with greater respect and seriousness. Pogue knows where his campaign is heading. He writes: "If they ignore us, we'll shame them. If they respond, we'll celebrate them."

Good luck, David. We will follow your campaign for hope and inspiration.