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It makes sense that a professional poker player would live by a similar creed that says it's a crime not to part a sucker from his money. It's a fact of life that we all have to use our wits to protect ourselves from criminals. But if we enter into a contractual agreement with a legitimate business, it's reasonable to expect that business to try to protect us from those who aim to abuse our trusted relationship.
In the ploy involving the quarterback’s IQ, we find a perfect example of an unethical business that is permitted to abuse the trusted billing relationship between wireless service providers and their subscribers. Without question, the unethical types that run the IQ test scam deserve harsh punishment. But there's an easy way to put these guys out of business – wireless carriers should not pass their charges through to customer's bills.
The idea of turning billing infrastructure into a revenue-generating service is extremely smart. Billing infrastructure is capital intensive
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If we enter into a contractual agreement with a legitimate business, it's reasonable to expect that business to try to protect us from those who aim to abuse our trusted relationship. |
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But billing isn't just about the infrastructure. It's about that trusted relationship with the customer. The IQ test guys might deserve a good flogging, but the CSPs that have allowed them to become a partner also deserve a good slap. There needs to be a thorough and continuous vetting process that stops such scams before they get started. Wireless carriers need to have high standards that are well defined to which all partners must adhere. It's not enough to terminate their billing rights when the complaint level escalates – which rarely happens without lawyers getting involved. It's also not enough to remove unwanted charges from the customer's bill after the fact. There are real consequences here.
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Figure 1: Wireless Bill with Unwanted Premium Content Charges
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and far more difficult to replicate and perfect than many services. Just ask all the folks who decided to charge flat rates for VoIP rather than attempting to create complex, usage-based billing infrastructures. As communications service providers (CSPs) seek new revenue streams and avenues for growth, it just makes sense to take all of the OSS/BSS systems hiding in back offices and find ways to turn them into profit centers. The processes they manage, and the data they house, are probably the most valuable untapped assets these companies own.
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Credit for Dollars We Never Meant to Spend
In a limited way, CSPs are trying to do the right thing when it comes to unwanted 3rd party charges. Figure 1 shows an example of a wireless customer who, after uploading his wireless bill to www.fixmycellbill.com for analysis, discovered that his bill included $19.98 in charges for premium MMS services for which, as far as he knew, he'd never subscribed. The online service helped to request not only that these charges be
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