I recently subscribed for a post-paid connection with du, which had a package of 400 local minutes, 5.5GB data and 200 SMS. The first three months of billing went fine, but now, in the fourth month, I have realised that they charged me Dh80 extra, which I never used. On enquiring, I was told that this was sent to a special number. I do not understand this. Why in the world would I send this SMS? I have 200 SMS free that I don’t use.

I feel this is a new way to extract more money from customers. I cannot pay Dh80 as this is something I have not used.

From Mr Macquine Sumantha

Dubai

The management of du responds:

In response to Mr Sumantha’s complaint, an investigation by our billing team found that the charges to which, he refers, are valid for several SMS sent by the customer. These were sent to a short code which is approved by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and which charges a set tariff. We have reached out to the customer to inform him of the same.

Mr Sumantha responds:

Thank you for your response. Please note that from my end, this matter still remains unresolved. What I fail to understand is that if I have not used this code at all for sending one or many messages, as it appears to be from du’s perspective, how am I supposed to be convinced about the billing? If Gulf News is unable to pursue my case further, then there is not much I can do.

The management of du responds:

In response to Mr Sumantha’s queries, our billing team can confirm that per our initial investigation, the Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) was trying in app purchases. Following each purchase, the user received a confirmation message regarding this transaction. We have tried to contact Mr Sumantha to explain the case to him, and the matter is closed from our side.

(Process initiation: September 4. Response from organisation: September 18. Process completion: September 26).

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