The former Telecommunication Offices was complained for unreasonably handling the suspicious events of making unauthorized international calls
Chinese Taipei
Case:
The former Telecommunication Offices was complained for unreasonably handling the suspicious events of making unauthorized international calls
Key Words:
Telecommunication Office, telephone, monopoly
Reference:
Fair Trade Commission Decision of May 29, 1996 (the 241st Commission Meeting)
Relevant Law:
Summary:
1. Many citizens filed complaints to the Fair Trade Commission alleging that Telecommunication Offices are unable to provide a set of clear, definite and just operation procedures in handling the suspicious events of making unauthorized international telephone calls. When a telephone subscriber has a doubt about his telephone bill, the Telecommunication Office usually asks the telephone subscriber to pay the telephone bill first before the doubt is cleared up, otherwise, the subscriber's line will be disconnected. Afterwards, even if the subscriber's inquiry is accepted, the Telecommunication Office will only check on the equipment in its equipment room and external devices and telephone lines. If no abnormal condition is found, it will make a judgment as to whether there is any unauthorized calls merely based on the telecommunication records being kept by its Office.
2. As the Directorate General of Telecommunication is one of the monopoly enterprises announced in public by this Commission, it should certainly be subject to the regulation of the Fair Trade Law in regard to monopoly, so are the Telecommunication Offices which are the subordinate agencies responsible for carrying out the actual business operations in various regions.
In the present case, there should be a contract relation between the Telecommunication Offices and telephone subscribers, therefore, both parties should be at the equal position so far as their contractual relationship is concerned. Nevertheless, as the Telecommunication Law specifically stipulates that the city telephone business shall be conducted exclusively by Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT), the telephone subscribers will have no freedom to choose their trading counterparts or to express their opinions about the contents of the subscription agreement. As such, a consumer will not have other choice but to fill up the application form and sign the pre-printed subscription agreement with the Telecommunication Office.
Aside from the unequal contracting procedure described in the preceding paragraph, the Telecommunication Offices does not provide a set of clear, definite and complete operation procedures to deal with the telephone bill disputes which may arise after execution of the subscription agreements. Once a subscriber has a doubt about the telephone fees indicated in a telephone bill, the local Telecommunication Office will usually check on the internal equipment in the equipment room and external devices and lines. If no abnormal findings, it will make a judgment as to whether there is any unauthorized call using another person's telephone number merely based on its own records of telecommunications. Currently, Telecommunication Offices do not provide the instant telephone fee inquiry service, therefore, subscribers can only object to the questionable telecommunication records after having received the telephone bills; and the long lapse of time prior to the equipment and line check by Telecommunication Offices will certainly affect the accuracy of the investigation results. It should be noted that the procrastination of timely investigation and the difficulty in finding out the true fact and evidence as a result of the incapability of Telecommunication Offices to provide instant telephone fee inquiry service has already blurred the basic principle for distinguishing the responsibility of service provider and that of service users. It is further noted that Telecommunication Offices are now using the connection point between internal telephone lines and external telephone lines as the reference point for distinguishing the responsibilities of a telephone office and its line subscribers, i, e, the telephone lines between the connection box installed in a building and the phone set in the subscriber's room are considered the internal lines to be in safeguarding by the subscribers; while the devices, lines and computer equipment installed outside the subscriber's building are considered to be maintained and monitored by Telecommunication Offices. However, if Telecommunication Offices can assure its responsibility of preventing possible unauthorized callings from happening within the district of its responsibility, the subscribers should certainly take up their responsibilities as required; nevertheless, in view of the fact that within the scope of the responsible district of a Telecommunication Office, unauthorized calls can still be made through the line connection boxes, circuit-breakers, line distribution boxes and telephone equipment rooms. Judging from present technical capability of Telecommunication Offices, they are unable to identify and tell in time and effectively where a telephone call is made from, either during or after such calling. Consequently, the current practice of Telecommunication Offices to judge whether there is any unauthorized telephone call or not merely based on the results of line and equipment check seems rather improper.
Furthermore, after making an equipment and line check and testing, a Telecommunication Office often negates the suspicion of an unauthorized call by reason that the interval between a normal telephone communication and the one in dispute in short. But, the Telecommunication Office neither clarifies the relation between the time interval and the unauthorized call and nor clearly defines its standard for telling the long and the short of a time interval at issue. Although Telecommunication Offices have admitted that the inference they made in such investigation results are not necessarily correct, they still consider such inference reasonable. This indicates that the underlying rationale of their decisions seems disputable. Moreover, the reasonableness of their conduct to demand subscribers to pay the telephone bills deserves further investigation.
3. DGT is a monopoly enterprise as announced in public by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC). The telecommunication business being conducted is directly related to and has a great impact on the rights and interests of the people as a whole. Now, as it relies completely on its subjective point of view, its operating method and its standard of judgment which are unknown to the public in handling the trade disputes, its conduct is thus quite disputable.
The case was brought forth for discussion at the 241st Commission Meeting of the FTC and a resolution was adopted to send the Ministry of Transportation and Communications a written request for supervising the DGT to take the following actions:
(1) To improve the responsibility identification procedures, and if the cause of an unauthorized telephone call is not attributable to the subscriber, the telephone fee for such questionable call shall not be charged to the said subscriber; and to develop and publish a set of just and objective operation procedures and review standards for handling subscribers’s complaints in connection with the business at issue.
(2) To take periodical measures for screening and clearing out telephone numbers being used internationally for obscene talks, and to study the feasibility of providing subscribers with encoded telephone numbers.
(3) To take prompt action in the research and development of the technology and equipment for preventing unauthorized telephone calls, and make them available to subscribers.
Summarized by Cheng, P. C.
Supervised by Chen, M. H.
＄: For information of translation, click here
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