WASPA code is in practice

According to Michael Hainebach, chair of the Wireless Application Service Providers' Association (WASPA) Code of Conduct Working Group and a member of the association's recently announced 2010 Management Committee, the decision to require members to reconfirm consent from a subscriber to continue billing for a service when the customer's mobile content bill reaches R200 is yielding encouraging results.

He says that the mobile spend notification limit, put in place in October 2009, has virtually eliminated the number of 'bill shock' complaints where a consumer would generate thousands of Rands in charges during a single month without being made aware of the mounting bill.

"The organisation has always required members to obtain explicit consent right from the start of the commercial relationship. Requiring members to obtain permission in order to continue billing customers was a further step in the right direction," said Hainebach.

"What's also important is that the onus rests on the member, and not the customer, to keep a record of the confirmations provided by the customer, or of the notifications sent to the customer." This important provision implies the innocence of the subscriber until the WASPA member could prove otherwise by producing confirmations of notifications and consent.

The WASPA Code of Conduct can be viewed at www.waspa.org.za/code/codeconduct.shtml and the public, who believe a member has broken these rules, can lodge a complaint on www.waspa.org.za/code/complaint.shtml.