I was shocked when I received my latest mobile phone billing statement from Smart. It listed “30-minute Browsing Subscription” from dates Dec. 11, 2009 continuously up to Jan. 5, 2010, with charges of P9.09 per “unit” used.
The total: a staggering P2,581.56 browsing charges! To be honest, I have not been using this browsing service. I could not bear reading those small letters that can only be contained in such a very small phone screen. I cannot punish myself with that despair.
I called up *888 immediately and talked with a Smart call center agent named Lotis. She explained to me that it has something to do with my phone setting which I need to send to a phone shop for configuration. She stated that I gain access to browsing because I have availed of it thru my phone settings.
I told Lotis that I am not that literate in phone settings. I asked her to let the Smart system bar me from using the browsing services. In that manner, I cannot use it or gain access to it even if I intentionally or unintentionally configured my phone to access it.
But Lotis told me that their system is not capable of doing it and she passed the burden to me by having my phone configured to have no access to said service. Ridiculous! How could Smart compel me to subscribe to a service which I do not want to have?
I clarified to Lotis if “Smart system is not capable of doing it (barring the use of browsing)” or that “Smart has the policy of not doing it.”
There is a big distinction to this clarification. If Smart can offer browsing subscription, it should have the system to bar its use when one would unsubscribe to this service (or failed to pay for it).
It would be different if Smart would simply refuse to disconnect the service even if the subscriber does not want it anymore…. and why would Smart not do it? Money… millions of it.
This is compulsion and Smart can continue to outsmart the non-smart who are ignoramus in phone configurations.
Imagine, how many millions of pesos can be earned by the ignorance of phone users? Smart must be laughing at people like me. Laughing and earning!
I must be wrong when Sharon Cuneta influenced me to be Smart. For sure, Senator Enrile would not like this.
The total: a staggering P2,581.56 browsing charges! To be honest, I have not been using this browsing service. I could not bear reading those small letters that can only be contained in such a very small phone screen. I cannot punish myself with that despair.
I called up *888 immediately and talked with a Smart call center agent named Lotis. She explained to me that it has something to do with my phone setting which I need to send to a phone shop for configuration. She stated that I gain access to browsing because I have availed of it thru my phone settings.
I told Lotis that I am not that literate in phone settings. I asked her to let the Smart system bar me from using the browsing services. In that manner, I cannot use it or gain access to it even if I intentionally or unintentionally configured my phone to access it.
But Lotis told me that their system is not capable of doing it and she passed the burden to me by having my phone configured to have no access to said service. Ridiculous! How could Smart compel me to subscribe to a service which I do not want to have?
I clarified to Lotis if “Smart system is not capable of doing it (barring the use of browsing)” or that “Smart has the policy of not doing it.”
There is a big distinction to this clarification. If Smart can offer browsing subscription, it should have the system to bar its use when one would unsubscribe to this service (or failed to pay for it).
It would be different if Smart would simply refuse to disconnect the service even if the subscriber does not want it anymore…. and why would Smart not do it? Money… millions of it.
This is compulsion and Smart can continue to outsmart the non-smart who are ignoramus in phone configurations.
Imagine, how many millions of pesos can be earned by the ignorance of phone users? Smart must be laughing at people like me. Laughing and earning!
I must be wrong when Sharon Cuneta influenced me to be Smart. For sure, Senator Enrile would not like this.
