Recently, the joint memorandum of the DICT, NTC and the DTI Circular No. 05-12-2017 to prolong the expiration of load to 1-year was implemented effective January 5, 2018. While this is a help to consumers especially senior citizens and less savvy cell phone users, we see one elephant in the room that the government agencies still need to tackle.
To be clear, load or top-ups 300 and above is now covered with the 1-year validity starting January 6, 2018 onwards. While below 300 load top-ups will be covered starting July 2018 due to the system configuration of telcos in their servers.
Now that prepaid loads now have longer validity, your load is now more prone to scams such as useless content downloads through third-party services such as games, java games, ringback tones or even subscription.
One experience we always encounter every year is the famous 2151 number from Gamepad which will suddenly text subscribers of Globe for sudden charges such as Php5 load for 1-day access to games that are java based and mostly no longer compatible to android phones. Aside from the Php5 access, the internet access to download the game is different which will waste precious data allocation in your mobile data subscription.
Text Sample from Gamepad from http://www.howtoquick.net/2017/05/globe-sms-from-2151-or-gamepad-5-pesos-charge.html
We personally encountered this even on a postpaid line and it was annoying, we immediately texted STOP GD to 2151 but there was another text the next day. Making the whole process annoying because you were randomly texted without any concent and they deducted Php5 from your account immediately.
What’s more are ringback tones, image subscriptions that sometimes a child might have texted into your phone. Like the subscription numbers of ABS-CBN 2366 for ringback tones, alerts which cost around Php3 per text. These are mostly unregulated services which are hard to unsubscribe, more of leeches into your prepaid load especially if you have a legacy number that is more than 5 years.
We say the DICT, DTI, and NTC should have more strict guidelines about these 3rd party mobile services. Almost anything can be downloaded now in the Google Play store or Apple App Store, why would anyone avail an inferior java based mobile game cost that Php5 and charge you without your consent? This kind of money grabbing has to stop, cause this “Nakaw load” scams are just one of the many reasons why your load is getting consumed to waste.
To avoid these nakaw load subscriptions, here are some tips
How about you? What’s your nakaw load experience?
