The case of the mysteriously vanishing load

TODAY is the first hearing of Senate committees on Trade and Industry and Public Services on the issue of pre-paid loads of cellular phones that always seem to vanish.

I am glad it was no less than Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile who called attention to the problem. You could scour the Internet and there are legions of Filipinos with similar complaints. Enrile experienced it first-hand when the prepaid load he bought from Globe Telecommunications had disappeared even if he did not use it to make calls or send text messages.

What happened to him happens to millions of pre-paid phone subscribers every day. It has happened to me many times, and it is not just relegated to Globe. Smart and other telecommunication companies or telcos are just as responsible and accountable.

In a privilege speech delivered last June 2, Enrile recounted his experience.

“Last Monday, May 25, 2009, I used my prepaid unit to make a call. A voice recorder intoned that my prepaid unit had no load, that it had a zero balance. I was amazed because at seven o’clock in the morning of that day my prepaid unit had a balance of Three Hundred Eighty Nine Pesos [P389.00].

“The next day, Tuesday, May 26, I loaded Six Hundred Pesos [P600.00] in my prepaid unit. At eight o’clock in the evening of that same day, the Six Hundred Pesos [P600.00] load was down to Five Hundred Nineteen Pesos [P519.00]. I never used the cellular telephone at all that day.

“The next day, Wednesday, May 27, at seven o’clock in the morning, the Five Hundred Nineteen Pesos [P519.00] balance the night before went down to Four Hundred Forty-Five Pesos [P445.00]. My prepaid cellular phone was closed and never used throughout the night before.

“This unusual happening made me wonder. I asked my secretary to report the matter to Globe Telecom and request for an explanation. I was simply curious to know why my load was declining even though I was not using my prepaid unit. I was not thinking of any misconduct or wrong-doing on the part of the service provider. I just wanted to unravel the mystery of my dwindling load.

“On my way to the Senate, I called Chairman Rowell Canovas of the National Telecommunications Commission. I related to him about my disappearing load. He promised to check it immediately. My conversation with Chairman Canovas was in the morning.

“At eight o’clock in the eve-ning of that same Wednesday, May 27, I was even more dumbfounded when I found out that the dwindling load of my prepaid unit suddenly and mysteriously rose to Five Hundred Thirty-Four Pesos and Thirty Two Centavos [P534.32]. I did not add any additional amount to the load of my prepaid unit, and no one ever did.”

Welcome to the club, Mr. Senate President. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) had investigated complaints of similar nature before, but nothing came out of that investigation. The NTC is the government’s telecom regulator.

Perhaps now that a Senate President has once again brought this issue to light we can get some action.

As Enrile said, most of the victims of this problem are ordinary citizens who do not have the political and economic clout to protect themselves and the Senate is duty-bound to make the telcos explain why this is happening and to hold them accountable to the public from whom they earn their huge profits.

“This representation and most of us here in this Chamber can probably afford to shell out money to keep buying the cell phone load we need without even noticing that there is something wrong. But the general public, mostly belonging to the low and middle income sectors of our society, are crying out with disgust over this injustice. They are helpless against these practices which they say, and I don’t blame them, amounts to robbery,” Enrile said.

Enrile wants to find out if the vanishing loads are a result of some technical and unintentional error on the part of telcos, or if it is the result of the negligent conduct of some employees of these telcos, or if it is being done dubiously, systematically and intentionally for profit.

Another thing he wants to discuss is the expiration dates of prepaid loads—unconsumed prepaid loads that expire and whose payments are forfeited in favor of the telcos. Enrile called it a confiscatory practice that is unconscionable and must be stopped to protect the general public.

Enrile is inviting all parties who have encountered this same or similar problems with the cell phone loads they purchased to lodge their complaints in his Senate office. He has set up a special desk manned to receive all reports and complaints in relation to this and to collate all materials that will be presented at the public hearing.–Ernesto F. Herrera, Manila Times

ernestboyherrera@yahoo.com