Father regrets daughter asked to pay for bogus phone line

A female school teacher was shocked when asked to pay a telephone bill of RM640 by a telecommunication company whereas she had never used the line.

This matter was exposed by her father when making a complaint at the Consumer Association of Kedah (CAKE) here, Thursday.

The man said his daughter, 25, who is a school teacher in Kuala Lumpur contacted him in November to say she received SMS from a telecommunication company asking her to pay for a telephone line.

"My daughter went to the telecommunication company to query them on the matter but they confirmed that the line was registered under my daughter's name.

"When checked, it was found that a copy of my daughter's Mykad was used to register for the line which contained her complete details but did not have her image. She suspected that her Mykad was misused by a third party to register for the line.

"I even tried calling up the number that was answered by a man in Johor, before the line was disconnected," he said.

Following the incident, a police report was filed in Kuala Lumpur together with a statutory declaration denying the use of the line which was submitted to the company for further action.

"I thought all was settled after submitting the required documents, but the same notices continued to be sent, reminding my daughter to pay the bill.

"I fear that my daughter's name would be blacklisted if this issue is not resolved, creating problems in future."

He hopes the company would resolve the problem instantly as it involved falsified registration of line by irresponsible parties.

Meanwhile, CAKE secretary Mohamad Yusrizal Yusoff said they often received similar complaints and believed the registration system used by telecommunication companies had flaws.

"I would like to suggest that telecommunication companies use a biometric system where the consumer would personally come and validate the registration using their fingerprint to avoid being cheated."

Mohamad Yusrizal who is also deputy chairman of Communications and Multimedia Consumer Forum said, to date there were more than 6,000 reported cases involving communication and multimedia since 2001.

"Last year alone, there were 97 recorded cases of false registration of telecommunication lines, an increase from 89 cases in 2015," he said. - Bernama