This is regarding my communication with du, about a service I apparently activated on my number. Du says that these are third party services, which I activated, by clicking on a link while surfing the internet. To this, I raised certain questions, which they are unable to answer till today. I have exchanged around 26 emails with them. The basic questions I raised are:

1. Did I ever authorise du to charge me for third party services? Did I click any link on any website regarding this matter?

2. Why is du acting as an agent of third party services, and adding charges for its own customers?

3. Why doesn’t du have any system control, whereby they can get a confirmation from their customer before adding such charges to their bills, in order to know the genuineness of the transaction?

4. Is it impossible that a customer, while surfing internet, might click on something like this by mistake? If it is possible, and the customer has been accidentally charged, what is the control mechanism du has in place, to prevent customers from making such mistakes?

Now, du is sending me the same reply every time I raise this issue, which shows how reluctant the company is, about answering my questions. It is very convenient for them to add Dh30 in the customer’s bill to raise their sales. But it’s not just about Dh30. It could have been Dh300 or Dh3,000 or more! The point is — why don’t they protect customers from such unfair practices?

I want Gulf News to kindly raise my issue with du or tell me the recourse I can take to bring an end to such wrong practices, whereby several people’s hard-earned money is just taken away without any confirmation from them in the name of third party services.

From Mr Kamran Khan

Dubai

The management of du responds:

In response to Mr Khan, following an investigation into the matter, our billing team has found that third party services were activated by the customer, and the team found his charges to be valid. There is a consent gateway that customers have to agree to before any third party service is offered to avoid fraudulent activity.

At du, we give our customers the power to choose and take corrective actions in simple steps based on the promotional messages they receive. These can be promotional bulk SMSs, Service SMSs and subscription SMSs. Customers can block individual promotional bulk SMSs and Service SMSs by texting ‘B’ followed by SPACE then the service SHORTCODE/CENTRE ID to 7726. Subscription SMSs require consent from the customer for charges to be incurred. Similarly, the customer can unsubscribe from these services. Every SMS that the customer receives contains the details of how to unsubscribe any time.

du offers customers the opportunity to activate the Do Not Disturb (DND) service by sending a blank text to 5293 which will ensure that they will not receive any promotional or subscription messages. The DND service blocking promotional or subscription messages does not work with non-du messages.

Further details are available on our website, du.ae.

Mr Khan responds:

The charges under discussion were never communicated to me before being added to my bill. Neither have I received any message seeking my confirmation to activate such services, nor have I got any message or intimation regarding the activation of such a service. I don’t know how du has conducted its investigation. Before this, one more time, I had mistakenly subscribed to a service online by clicking on an advertisement and at that time, I received a message, intimating that such and such service had been activated on my number. It also included the instruction to deactivate the same, which I immediately did. At that time as well, I didn’t receive any communication from du asking me for confirmation before activation of such services. Since that service was for Dh1 per day, I ignored it. But later, when I was charged Dh30 for a service that I did not remember subscribing for, I came to know about it coincidentally, when I logged into my du account to check my bill.

Furthermore, I have been continuously following up with du to check who authorised them to make a payment to a third party on my behalf, without my consent, and I am still awaiting their response.

I also asked them another question — what mechanism do they have to ensure that such third party services are not activated by customers by mistake, when they clicking on links that randomly appear while they surf the internet? Their reply is still pending.

If a customer is genuinely interested in activating any service, he or she would choose the appropriate payment method, which could be credit card or bank account or through their mobile bill. How can du make such payments on its own, when the customer has activated it by mistake? It is highly objectionable and unfair on their part. I request Gulf News to raise this issue.

The management of du responds:

In response to Mr Khan’s query, our billing team investigated the matter and reached an amicable solution that was communicated to the customer.

Mr Khan updates:

Yes, du called me and refunded the amount, but that is a one-off solution for me after I followed up with them for months, and finally approached Gulf News. The real issue is when customers are charged without their consent, just because of their ignorance. I hope they look into this matter seriously and save the common man from getting duped by third parties.

(Process initiation: May 10. Response from organisation: May 25. Response from reader: July 28.)