Ali Ahmad Sahfan Al-Madina Competition among telecom companies is getting fierce, especially with regard to which company will attract the largest number of customers through promotional offers. But what are these promotional offers? Are they real or fake? The telecom sector is a large sector in terms of consumer spending. According to a report by the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), Saudis spent SR68 billion on telecom services in 2014. CITC also conducted a study of the market and the results showed that the percentage of Internet usage reached 91.27 percent among consumers aged between 12 and 65. The average monthly spending on Internet packages that come with mobile phones reached SR209 for each consumer. The monthly average spending on data was SR154. Are the telecom companies satisfied with these profits? I don't think so. Monthly phone invoices are almost double the above amounts. With all these profits, the telecom companies are still working on presenting more promotional offers to customers. An Internet user told me that the customer service officers at a telecom company called him and offered to double his Internet speed free-of-charge for 10 months; he agreed and began using the service. Shockingly, his bill the following month was doubled. Upset, he called the customer service officers to enquire about the bill and was told that he misunderstood how the promotional offer worked. They explained to him that the promotional offer said that the first bill would be 25 percent less than the actual amount and that it would increase over the next few months. Who will protect this customer against the fake promotional offers that telecom companies continue to offer or the misleading information they provide? How many victims have “misunderstood” promotional offers and ended up paying more? What has CITC done to monitor the communications and information technology sector? What has it done to protect customers from being ripped off by such companies?
