Allegations of charging customers without their consent, against telecom value-added service (TVAS) providers have been found to be true.
An investigation has been launched against eight such operators by a seven-member Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) committee, which has 45 days to submit its findings.
This decision was taken during the telecom regulator’s 246th commission meeting in Dhaka.
The accused TVAS providers are – SSD Tech, Purple Digit Communications Limited, JoyCalls Bangladesh Limited, Four-DL Bangladesh Limited, GAK Media Limited, and Azra Tech.
Primary investigation revealed that the customers –losing money against their will – are not that well educated and most of them are feature phone users.
They are mostly being targeted during midnight through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and SMS while customer information is being provided to the TVAS providers and digital marketing companies by the mobile operators.
However, content providers and mobile operators blame each other for such illegal acts.
TVAS operators make millions through forced services, which could not have been possible without the help from mobile operators, according to BTRC sources.
BTRC conducted the survey on users belonging to all mobile operators of the country, ranging from a minimum of 49 to a maximum of 120 consumers of each company.
Robi and Banglalink were accused of charging their customers without their consent last year.
Based on those allegations, BTRC had sent a notice to the two operators on November 12, seeking an explanation within seven days, and suspended their value-added services.
However, the BTRC temporarily reversed its decision at a meeting on November 22.
According to the mobile operators, they reached a solution after a discussion with the BTRC.
Banglalink was supposed to implement OTPs in their IVR services by January 10.
The public relations department of the company said that they have already implemented the BTRC directives.
Robi is also said to have implemented the instructions given by the regulatory body.
Although, Grameenphone, which was also expected to implement OTPs by January 19, this year, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.
