Charged for opening a message

Charged for opening a message

I am working in Dubai and have one du prepaid number that my wife has been using for the past seven months. Recently, I noticed that the balance had been deducted when we didn’t use the mobile service.

I called du’s customer care service and spoke to a representative. After I explained the problem, he gave us the breakdown and sent a message that we did not have any noticeable charges. When we inquired about the Dh9, I was told that this problem was happening for some of their customers and this was not du, it was a third party that was charging this for wallpapers and they charge Dh9 per week.

Then, we explained to him we hadn’t subscribed to any plan regarding what he was saying. Despite having asked for explanations, I didn’t receive any responsible answer and they simply said they couldn’t do anything.

I have clearly told him that I will use the remaining balance and change the network provider. I am sure this Dh18 or Dh27 will not affect much, but there are many people in the UAE who use this service without their knowledge and lose money. Kindly think about low-income customers who can’t read their account balances. I am writing this email only to save those who are paying for no reason and not necessarily to get my money back.

From Mr Prabhu Balagothandapani

Dubai

A spokesperson from Du responds:

In response to Mr Balagothandapani’s query, we have investigated this matter and can confirm that the charges are valid as the customer had subscribed to the wallpaper service through our Web Services. The service has since been cancelled by our call centre staff this month. The issue is closed from our end. We apologise for any inconvenience he may have faced.

Mr Balagothandapani responds:

I am really concerned about their reply. I got a call from du and they said that their third party had confirmed that I had subscribed to this service and I was okay with this charge.‎I said I had not confirmed anything. Later, the third party called me. I have asked them if they have any message or any details that we filled out on the website, asking for this wallpaper. He kept on saying that I had subscribed. Then, I told him clearly to ask somebody else to call me. As of now, I received no reply from them.

We have not subscribed to any wallpaper. I would like to highlight a point that I mentioned in my first complaint: I was told that if I open the message, I would be subscribed to this wallpaper. Also, a du employee told me this other customers faced this problem as well. When we are using du and a third party is deducting money from the customer account without the customer’s knowledge, who is responsible for that?

Again, I would like to highlight that I have not sent any message or filled out any details on their website for this wallpaper.

A spokesperson from du responds:

In response to Mr Balagothandapani’s query, we have further investigated this matter and can confirm that, as per the evidence in our system, the charges are valid as the customer had subscribed to the wallpaper service on January 12 this year. This service was cancelled by our customer care staff on April 22 as mentioned previously.

Mr Balagothandapani responds:

I would like to thank Gulf News for their support. Nevertheless, I have not gotten a complete answer. Really, I don’t need my money back, which I had mentioned previously. My concern is — how could they charge me for opening a message that we received on our mobile phones? Anyway, we do not have any other option. I would like to thank Gulf News again for this service.

(Process initiation: April 28. Response from organisation: April 28. Reader confirmation: May 13.)

Editor’s note: Do you have similar issues that you would like to raise with us? You can write to us at readers@gulfnews.com.