Hong Kong Regulator Clamps Down on 'Bill Shock'

Hong Kong's telecoms regulator, OFTA has published measures that have been implemented by individual mobile operators to prevent mobile 'bill shock'.

These measures include allowing customers to opt-out of individual services; setting a charge ceiling; setting a usage cap for all kinds of usage-based mobile services; and alerting customers through short messages as their pre-determined usage threshold is reached. "Bill shock usually refers to the shock customers experience when they receive unexpectedly high mobile bill charges. Alongside with the increasing popularity of smart phones and advance mobile devices, there has been an upsurge in the number of bill shock complaints related to mobile data services," a spokesperson of OFTA said. In the first half of this year, OFTA has received a total of 535 complaints relating to mobile data services (as compared with 337 cases in the whole of 2009). Billing disputes accounted for 65% of these complaints. In some cases, the bill shock was caused by unintentional or inadvertent use of mobile data services.