TRAI has issued new guidelines on activation and de-activation of Value Added Services to subscribers of telecom services. The salient features of the new guidelines are:
1) VAS activation procedure to encompass all forms of Value Added Services such as WAP, SMS, Mobile-Internet, Tele-Calling etc.
2) Second consent of the subscriber is necessary before the VAS can be activated. The second consent should be on a dedicated consent gateway which is owned on a third party platform whereas the first consent is on the service providers platform. Only after receiving the second confirmation should the VAS be activated.
3) Common de-activation procedure and all de-activation to be completed in 4 hours
4) De-activation procedure to be widely published and disseminated for information to the subscribers and the general public
5) Auto Renewals to be done only after 24 hours of providing information to the subscriber about the auto renewal on SMS etc.
6) In case of wrong activation amount to be refunded within 24 hours of making the request where the VAS validity is for more than one day and where the VAS validity is less than 24 hours, then the refund should be carried out within 6 hours of the request.
7) In case of SMS mode of activation, no response time should be 60 minutes and in case no response is received within that time i.e. 60 minutes then it should be treated as "no activation required"
8) When the VAS service is activated, then immediately the de-activation number, validity of the VAS service and renewal amounts should be intimated to the consumer.
This ensures that service providers activate VAS only upon service the positive consent from the subscribers and not otherwise as hitherto, many service providers were randomly adding the VAS without taking any consent from the subscribers and creating many problems for the subscribers when the de-activation request was made.
A copy of the TRAI guidelines can be found here
1) VAS activation procedure to encompass all forms of Value Added Services such as WAP, SMS, Mobile-Internet, Tele-Calling etc.
2) Second consent of the subscriber is necessary before the VAS can be activated. The second consent should be on a dedicated consent gateway which is owned on a third party platform whereas the first consent is on the service providers platform. Only after receiving the second confirmation should the VAS be activated.
3) Common de-activation procedure and all de-activation to be completed in 4 hours
4) De-activation procedure to be widely published and disseminated for information to the subscribers and the general public
5) Auto Renewals to be done only after 24 hours of providing information to the subscriber about the auto renewal on SMS etc.
6) In case of wrong activation amount to be refunded within 24 hours of making the request where the VAS validity is for more than one day and where the VAS validity is less than 24 hours, then the refund should be carried out within 6 hours of the request.
7) In case of SMS mode of activation, no response time should be 60 minutes and in case no response is received within that time i.e. 60 minutes then it should be treated as "no activation required"
8) When the VAS service is activated, then immediately the de-activation number, validity of the VAS service and renewal amounts should be intimated to the consumer.
This ensures that service providers activate VAS only upon service the positive consent from the subscribers and not otherwise as hitherto, many service providers were randomly adding the VAS without taking any consent from the subscribers and creating many problems for the subscribers when the de-activation request was made.
A copy of the TRAI guidelines can be found here
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment