Customer left in the lurch over unauthorised 'subscription'

I am a frequent traveller and pay my Singtel bills via Giro. Hence, I missed the fact that I had been charged $100 a month since January for a subscription for ringtones from third-party content service Allterco-ATLC.

I was shocked when I discovered this recently, as I had not authorised or subscribed to this.

When I called Singtel's helpline for assistance, I was told that Singtel could not assist me, as it was a service between the third-party firm and me. I was asked to call the third-party firm to terminate the service and seek its assistance.

When I did so, the third-party firm informed me that it had activated the service on Jan 22. It provided me with billing logs, but could not give any evidence that I had activated the service from my phone.

This experience has left me baffled and surprised.

There was no service contract between the third-party firm and me.

If it is an authorised third-party service that Singtel is reselling and billing on its behalf, shouldn't Singtel take responsibility to ensure that its subscribers' interests are protected, instead of leaving them in the lurch?

Tan Meng Meow

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 01, 2015, with the headline Customer left in the lurch over unauthorised 'subscription'. Subscribe