Telstra is taking extra steps to combat unexpected additional charges on mobile phone plans by disallowing third-party content providers to include new subscription fees on customer phone bills.
The telco said it received an influx of grievances from users finding unexpected charges appearing on their phone bills from third parties. These charges typically relate to certain subscriptions for content like mobile games, apps and videos that recur weekly or monthly.
A service known as Premium SMS content is one such third-party provider that Telstra has already implemented a double opt-in process for, among several others, in order to improve customers’ visibility of the services they sign up for. Telstra also set up a call centre team trained to assist customers with questions about these services.
In a blog post on the telco’s website, Telstra said while those steps helped, customers continued to report receiving charges on their bills for content they did not sign up for.
In response, Telstra announced it would withdraw on-bill support for the third party service providers charging for new content subscriptions as of December 3.
“Customers will be free to purchase subscription mobile content using alternative payment methods, however, the current arrangement where a customer can elect to purchase a subscription for third-party content and charge it to their Telstra bill, will end,” Telstra wrote.
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