The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday issued an advisory asking the public to exercise caution and check charges for online conferencing platforms beforehand to avoid ‘bill shocks’. “It has been brought to the notice of TRAI that a few consumers have experienced bill shocks when they joined online conferencing platforms inadvertently dialing international numbers,” it said.
It added that considering that a large number of people have been using online conferencing platforms due to the continued lockdown, it is necessary to alert them to check applicable charges for dialing such numbers or helplines of such platform/app providers.
The regulator said that there have also been instances where the customer care centres of some of such service providers are either premium numbers or international numbers, resulting in consumers paying higher rates as applicable.
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“Accordingly, the members of public are advised to carefully check the terms and conditions before using dial-in service provided by online conferencing platforms and cost applicable for contacting the customer care centre of such platform in terms of tariff for voice calls and other charges as may be applied by the service providers,” it said in the advisory.
TRAI warned that any inadvertent lapse in this regard may result in significant bills causing bill shocks.
“Thus, all the members of public are advised to exercise full caution and make themselves aware of the details of terms and conditions of using the online conferencing services particularly nature of numbers to which voice calls have to be made for joining the online conference and/or contacting customer support and details of tariff applicable for each of such services,” it said.
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