Grahakjago (S.K.Virmani)©

whether the charges for SMS alert fee being deducted by Punjab National Bank are ethical?             This blog had earlier published following articles on SMS alert fee being charged by banks specially State Bank of India (SBI) to draw the attention of the Bank, Regulator namely Reserve Bank of India  (RBI) and Ministry of Finance. The links to the articles are given below for an easy access.  1. Do the charges for SMS services being charged by State Bank of India  are ethical ?      http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2014/04/do-charges-for-sms-services-being.html 2. Unethical business revenue by banks on account of charging SMS Alert Services      http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2014/08/unethical-business-revenue-by-banks-on.html 3. Need for intervention of Reserve Bank of India to put a stop on the unfair business practices of the Commercial Banks on a/c of SMS Aler...

An article titled "Do the charges for SMS services being charged by State Bank of India are ethical?" was written on the blog on 5th April 2014. A copy of the article was mailed to State Bank of India. However, the amount got refunded. Such unethical charging for SMS Alert Services is not only by the SBI but almost all banks with exception of UCO Bank resorting to. While most of the banks are charging Rs. 15/- per qtr., UCO bank is just charging Rs. 0.12 per SMS for transactions. All the consumers are facing the same problem and even the consumers may not be aware of such money being deducted from their account.  It is understood that the matter was taken up by  Department of Consumer Affairs  with Department of Financial Services of Ministry of Finance. The view points were concurred by the Ministry of Finance. It is learnt that Ministry of Finance has also directed all the Banks and RBI and IBA to ensure that RBI's directives are implemented immediately and furthe...

Value Added Services (VAS) – Unethical Trade Practices of activation and renewal without seeking subscriber’s consent - Is it not the Anti-consumer Practices by the Telecom Service Providers? The Telecom Industry has grown over a period. With growth of telecom industry, the problem being faced by the subscribers also have increased with newer and newer problems. The total number of mobile subscribers is estimated to be about 90 crores. More than 96% of the mobile subscribers are in the category of prepaid connection. More than 70% of the subscribers belong to under privileged class of society.            One of the unethical practices being followed by the telecom service provider is the activation of certain Value Added Services (chargeable) without seeking the subscribers consent. As per TRAI Regulations, the Telecom Service Providers are prohibited from activation of any Value Added Services (VAS) which is on a ...

Do the charges for SMS services being charged by State Bank of India are ethical ? To keep pace with the technology for safe banking, SMS alerts are issued as and when any banking transaction (credit/debit) take place. However such charges need to be levied not as a scope of generating revenue to their business. As a normal telecom users, the charges for SMS usage is Rs. 1.00 per SMS. However, the bulk SMSes cost something around Rs. 0.05 per SMS. Some of the banks even do not charge any money from their customers as it is a win-win situation for both i.e Banks as service providers and the customers on the other hand. Service Providers are benefitted as their liability also get reduced due to safe banking and the customer also get benefitted as he is immediately informed if some fraudlent transaction take place.     However a glaring example has come where the customer has carried out two transactions in one year namely one transaction of crediting online transf...

If you are getting such SMS on your mobile? Do not respond to such messages!!!   As per TRAI regulations, the telecom companies are not allowed to activate any value added service (VAS) on your mobile without seeking your explicit consent. If any of the service which is chargeable is activated without your explicit consent, the companies are required to refund double the amount deducted from your prepaid balance.Such problems are prominent only in prepaid mobile connection. In the past the companies were in the habit of activating such service on their own and deducting the amount from subscriber's prepaid balance. The customer who were able to raise their complaints, were getting refund. We demanded that the amount of refund should at least be10 times of the deducted amount so that the companies should think 10 times before activating any service without seeking customer's consent. TRAI brought out a regulation that the companies will have to refund double the amount...

Do you feel that the latest TRAI regulations of unsolicited commercial communications is going to save you from telemarketing calls? An article : Are you still getting disturbed from Telemarketers despite strong regulations by TRAI- Why so?                     was published on this blog and the attention of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was also drawn about the problems being faced by the mobile users from telemarketing calls. We are thankful to TRAI for their intervention in making regulations further rigid. Thanks to the telemarketers who were also creating nuisance to Hon'able Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister through such telemarketing messages. However, the basic issue of unregistered telemarketers may not get addressed which is the main source of all such nuisance. Merely by increasing the cost of the SMS from 100 nos. onwards is not going to get relief to the telemarket...