Tall talk about Teletalk

1. There was an announcement that on account of the reduction of VAT from Tk.1200 to Tk.900, the Tk.300 overpaid by customers during the interim period before finalisation of VAT would be repaid as talk time credit. No such credit has yet been made and there is no statement as to when it will be done.

2. Though I can make the extremely expensive normal ISD calls based on the old technology from my Teletalk connection, the economy international call based on the more efficient modern VoIP technology that every T&T landphone, including those without ISD facilities, can make (using the prefix 012 in place of 00) is not allowed by Teletalk. This effectively means I actually cannot use Teletalk for my usual international calls.

3. Teletalk is so callous about its customers that they do not bother to advertise where refill cards are available.

4. Worst of all, and the most suspicious part of the Teletalk set-up is that even when I do not use my Teletalk cell phone for days, using my land phone instead, the talk time credit (as heard from 1515) keeps decreasing by itself. Even if it can be established that Teletalk did not issue multiple cards with the same account, it is up to the authorities to explain how this can happen, since there are no incoming charges, and of course no line rent for prepaid service.

5. Teletalk never advertises any value added service, such as Friday reductions, concession for a set of chosen numbers or GPRS service, as other operators do, and yet the finance minister made many sarcastic remarks about the high call rate and profiteering of the private operators, which are true, but which could be curbed only if Teletalk could set a highly competitive example.

I think the BTRC is as useless as the Anti-Corruption Commission and should be abolished. Consumers should get together, and with support from the media, they alone can bring this unsatisfactory state of a promising public enterprise to order.