Screenshots

June 7, Screenshots had questioned on the consistency of law enforcement on the part of MCMC. Is the CPs are faulted for repeat "technical glitches", does it mean that the Celcos' network security is susceptible and vulnerable to frauds, which is in breach of their licensing conditions under CMA1998? Will the MCMC publish a record of such technical glitches, nothing short of commissioned, independent technical auditors of world repute, any time soon?

Without such benchmarking, a service provider's claiming of innocence due to "technical glitches" is not scientifically and morally acceptable. Incompetent CPs who perpetrated repeat "technical glitches" should be chased out of the race as their victimes are ultimately the consumers. The Celcos must not be derelict in its duty of care towards their customers, especially prepaid users who are not given itemised billings for cross-checking for data download.

On the other hand, isn't the indefinite suspension of MacroKiosk's 32400 shortcode since October 2006 an overkill for mere "technical glitches... not out to cheat"?

3 ) Maxis admitted the existence of black sheep in the industry and all telcos will weed them out from the industry.

This hangs in the balance. The industry black sheep -- especially those who flouted more than the maximum tolerance for triple offences evidenced in the case of MacroKiosk and Nextnation -- can only surface after MCMC published the updated non-compliance in addition to the one published in April/May for offences investigated up to November 2006.

4 ) Maxis could not implement itemised billings for prepaid users -- the major bulk of victims under the SMS Scam as they have no means to cross-check the charges for their data usage -- as it was "definitely not as straight forward as doing it tomorrow". Maxis head of content development, T. Kugan, interjected by giving a vague timeline: "By Q4, 2007".

This is akin to the act of a snake oil peddler.

June 7, Screenshots pointed out to me that DiGi had started offering itemised billing for its prepaid customers since three years ago, in April 2004. [ Read the DiGi Press Release dated April 27, 2004. ]

According to an industry insider familiar with the implementation of itemised billings for postpaid users, what DiGi implemented was not rocket science and its has been the de facto practice in many countries to make itemised billing of prepaid users mandatory.

The architecture is relatively straight forward. General, one needs to allow the CORBA API on IN, or the SOAP API on UMB (Starcode function) in order to pull and display transaction records. DiGi's itemised billings for prepaid users roughly work on these logics.

The fact that DiGi is three years way ahead and Maxis intended to delay it till Q42007, it indicates that the delay was deliberate rather than complication due to technical viability.

It is to be noted that the DiGi model also enables backtracking transaction history that goes back to seven (7) years! of archive for system house-cleaning.

To date, my claims that Maxis and Celcom have yet to provide itemised billing for their prepaid subscribers shall remain UNCHALLENGED and UNCHANGED -- three solid years after DiGi has 'been there, done that'.

Maxis is right that "it's not as simple as doing it tomorrow". But what's stopping them from doing it by next month-end three months after DiGi in 2004?

Does Maxis have anything to hide?

5 ) Maxis will stand by the Content Providers it listed under the Elite Content Providers Programme, and if they continue to be in violation by doing it deliberately, Maxis will distance itself from them.

Without firm and consistent action from MCMC, this can't help the rogues from getting close to Maxis, by hook or by crook.

The MacroKiosk argument

At the press conference held at PJ Hilton yesterday, Macrokiosk Bhd COO Henry Goh told the media that in all three instances of non-compliance involving his ciompany, SMS content continued to be sent to mobile users who had asked it to stop. He blamed it on "technical glitches".

Goh admitted to the fact that three of their shortcodes were suspended, namely 33380, 36116 and 36226, and they had already been lifted by MCMC. He was very confident, even prior to any invitation from MCMC, that the fourth shortcode, 32400, would also be lifted soon.

On the issue of why the company had refunded the customers -- prepaid or postpaid -- were refunded after the short codes were suspended, he explained:
1 ) For short code 33380, the STOP order sent by customers was not processed because of huge volumes of SMSes being received at the same time.

2 ) For short codes 36116 and 36226, the STOP order was not processed due to an internet connection problem with the content provider, who was not identified.

3 ) For short code 32400, it was due to Digi customers sending the STOP order in Chinese format - which could not be processed by the system then, but has now been rectified.

Significantly, Goh did not elaborate on the case of one Screenshots reader who was scammed a total of 210 spams, spanning 17 days from 18:17:58 hr April 24 through 17:55:19hr May 13, 2007 -- incurring RM275.00 of unsolicited content delivery -- via the faulted short code 32355.

Will this appear in MCMC's updated list of new frauds?

Refund. What refund?

Meanwhile, we are still asking the question on the the Celcos keep their revenue halal in an Islam Hadhari country.

How much has Maxis refunded to their mobile users spammed and scammed -- postpaid and prepaid?

We need to know if all the Celcos analyse the traffic and find out how much has been scammed, and charged, by the repeat offenders. We need to know, empirically, how much of data traffic coming from fake MO and SMS Spoofing from overseas SMS roaming gateways via SS7 connections.

We know for a fact, that, whenever there is a complaint from user claiming that they had never subscribed or requested for a premium SMS, often times that user gets his/her refund -- provided if he/she complains. The Celcos will tell the user that he/she did sent the MO, but the company is making refunds out of good faith.

The real thing is, the Celcos did this prevent user complaint to end up on MC

However, this does not cleanse the industry that SMS Spoofing and Big-Time Scam has abated.

Screenshots was told that some CPs make the refund (for allegedly charging for unsolicited content) through the Celcos. Did the Celcos ultimately refund the ill-gotten to the victimsed users? Think Hadhari, my friend.

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