China Consumers Association: The telecommunications industry needs to strengthen standardized marketing and business behavior

2023-11-17

Recently, the China Consumers Association (hereinafter referred to as the "China Consumers Association") released an analysis of the complaints received by the National Consumers Association in the third quarter. In recent years, although relevant regulatory authorities have increased their supervision of telecommunications operators, non-standard marketing and business practices in the telecommunications industry are still prohibited, and some pain points have not been eradicated. The main problems are: first, inducing consumers to upgrade their packages. Some operators frequently make promotional calls to consumers, using the gimmick of new packages being more favorable and cost-effective to induce them to upgrade packages, and intentionally conceal restrictive terms such as contract terms and liquidated damages. Secondly, it is easy to upgrade the package but difficult to downgrade it. Operators set obstacles to prevent consumers from lowering package fees, such as only displaying higher priced packages on the app page. If consumers want to lower the package fees, they need to go through manual customer service or offline business halls to handle it. Thirdly, it is easy to open a business and difficult to cancel it. When consumers open some value-added services, they only need text messages or customer service phone numbers to handle them. However, when canceling or unsubscribing, they need to go to the business hall to handle it on-site. Some businesses are also subject to high liquidated damages when cancelled. The fourth reason is that after purchasing a traffic package, the speed is still limited. Consumers purchased a traffic package in order to lift the speed limit after exceeding the package limit in the current month, but the internet speed did not return to normal, and they still need to purchase a speed package to lift the limit. According to the case released by the China Consumers Association, on July 22, 2023, Ms. Wang, a consumer, filed a complaint with the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Committee. She applied for a mobile phone package at a certain communication company's Shanghai branch around 2023, with a monthly call fee of 168 yuan. The package has no traffic restrictions, and if the usage exceeds a certain amount of traffic that month, the speed will be limited. But starting from January 2023, the speed limit has further tightened, causing consumers to slow down their download and browsing speeds. The consumer then purchased the stacked traffic package provided by the accused enterprise, but the speed limit phenomenon has not been alleviated. They contacted the customer service of the accused enterprise and were informed that if the speed limit needs to be lifted, they need to purchase an additional speed increase package, which the consumer does not approve of. After mediation, the company provided consumers with a compensation of 30 yuan for phone bills. The Notice of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Further Standardizing the Marketing Behavior of Telecom Tariffs (Communication Letter [2018] No. 276) clearly states that telecom business operators should do a good job of "list style" publicity of tariffs, and set up a tariff special area in the business premises through manuals or electronic displays, as well as in a prominent position on the homepage of the website, to publicize all publicly available tariff plans in the form of "list". When promoting the tariff plan, it should be comprehensive, accurate, and easy to understand. Users should fulfill the obligation to remind them of the restrictive conditions, validity period, billing principles, and other matters that need to be noted by the tariff plan. The telecommunications industry provides infrastructure for social informatization and is also an important livelihood service industry, closely related to the daily lives of the people. Telecom operators should fulfill their social responsibilities, regulate their marketing behavior, respect consumers' right to know and make independent choices, and maintain the image and reputation of state-owned enterprises. (New News Agency)

Edit:Hu Sen Ming    Responsible editor:Li Xi

Source:XinhuaNet

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