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Korea Federation of Housewives Clubs
Consumer protection provisions are insufficient in standard agreement for mobile phone service
Most frequent consumer damages are accountable to handset troubles and troubles with payment of subsidy
It was confirmed that same consumer problems are repeated, through an analysis by Korea Federation of Housewives Clubs of consumer complaints and damage cases related to mobile handsets and mobile phone services, received by the Federation from January to July 2004. The consumer complaints and damage cases would greatly decrease if accurate information is provided to the consumers and if the criteria for accountability are provided. Thus, the Federation attempted to derive new guidelines and improvements to the agreement and contract provisions to provide the criteria and grounds to prevent consumer damages by comparing the service agreements and subscription forms of three mobile phone service providers in addition to the Federation’s analysis of the consumer complaints and damages related to mobile handset and mobile phone service.
A total of 374 damage cases related to mobile handsets and mobile phone services were reported to the Federation from January to July 2004. The handset troubles represented the highest percentage of 20.1%. The next highest were fare related complaints representing 16.0%, damages related to handset subsidy payment representing 15.5% and damages related to unauthorized use of others’ identity, violation or leakage of private information representing 10.4% of the total.
A total of 41 cases of number portability troubles were confirmed, representing 11.0% of the total reported damage cases. 39.0% out of them were handset related damages, remarkably high. This is quite higher than the handset subsidy related damages which represent 15.5% of the total. This shows that the hidden illegal acts, by the mobile phone service companies, were increased by their overheated marketing after the number portability system was introduced.
The current agreement has insufficiently clear provisions concerning the service provider’s responsibility as it provides only their minimum accountability, increasing the users’ complaints. Furthermore, the consumer protection is virtually impossible for damages not specified in the agreement, which provides basic compensation provisions only. The user complaints will be reduced when the service providers’ accountability is clearly indicated in the agreement and subscription forms and the agreement terms are amended or new provisions are inserted to enhance the consumers’ position.
(See the attached file for further details of the survey results.)
▷ Information: Consumer Protection Department (02-779-1573)
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