TRAI directs Idea to refund charges without customers' consent
New Delhi (PTI): TRAI has issued direction to Idea Cellular to refund the charges for value added service (VAS) provided through tele-calling where the customers have denied or disputed having given their consent.
It asked Idea Cellular to refund to all consumers, within fifteen days, the charges levied for value added services marketed through tele-calling, where the consumers denied or disputed having given their consent for activation of value added services.
The Authority had received a number of complaints from the subscribers of Idea Cellular regarding provision of value added services without consent.
TRAI had been in correspondence with Idea which failed to submit any evidence as to what was the offer to the complainant based on which the complainants had consented to the service and also any evidence to show that the subscribers had given their explicit consent as most of the offers were reportedly made through tele-calling.
"The Authority is of the view that in the absence of satisfactory evidence of the offer made to the consumer through telecalling and the consent obtained from the consumer, it cannot be concluded that the value added service was provided with the explicit consent of the consumers, particularly when the consumers have denied having given any such explicit consent", TRAI said.
The report of Audit of the Metering and Billing system of Idea or the Andhra Pradesh service area for the year 2006-07 submitted to TRAI, in accordance with the Quality of Service Regulation 2006, also contained observations by the auditor that many instances of complaints (35.86 per cent of the total complaints) wherein subscribers have been charged for dialer tones and other value added services activated without the explicit consent of the consumers.
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