After reading Helen Ang's SMS payment on bread and circus , I would like to give your readers a summary of this SMS 'served' by Digi:

Within two hours of buying a new pre-paid SIM pack on Sept 9, two SMSes costing RM1.50 each were deducted from my credit balance. The SMSes also informed that I had to type "STOP MX" blah, blah, blah to cancel the subscription to Fun Mobile Sdn Bhd. (they sure know how to aggravate a reluctant and unsuspecting customer with the 'Fun' in their name).

I called Digi's customer service and I was told that as the SMS was sent by a third party, Digi was not able to do anything. I was given the option of either calling Fun Mobile to request that they stop sending further SMSes or to SMS 6000 to block all third party messages.

I learnt the next day when I called Digi's customer service again that there was no such number of 6000 to block all third party messages and that I had to type 'STOP MX' to Fun Mobile and there would be no charges for my 'STOP MX' SMS.

When I was informed very promptly that RM0.30 had been charged for the 'STOP MX' SMS, I wrote to Digi that it had breached my privacy and fraudulently misrepresented the terms and conditions of their pre-paid SIM pack.

Digi contacted me and said that they could reimburse me for all the unwarranted charges and replace my newly bought pre-paid SIM pack with another one as it was not their company policy to accept returned goods. If I wanted to return the pre-paid SIM pack, there would be no refund.

I refused a replacement pre-paid SIM pack when they could not expressly warrant that a similar nonsense would not recur with the replaced pack and told them that I would be seeking redress from the Consumer Claims Tribunal.

Meanwhile, another SMS at RM2.50 (!) was again sent and charged to me after verbal assurances from Digi and Fun Mobile that they had un-subscribed the pre-paid SIM pack which I'd recently bought (I only activated my newly bought pre-paid SIM pack and had not subscribed to Fun Mobile in the first place.)

Digi finally allowed me to return the pre-paid SIM pack and refunded me RM18.

It costs them very little to keep a customer service representative on the phone with me - but it costs me, a regular person with a life to live and a job to do or a business to run, a whole lot more.

There's a pernicious economy of scale at work here: the bigger the company, the less costly it is for them to take up hours of any individual's time.

At a very conservative estimate, I was forced to call Digi's customer service lines at least 35 times at 016-2211800, 03-57215718, 03-57211298 and 03-57211800 on Sept 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 and 20. These 35 times exclude a few more made after Sept 20.

I find it breathtaking that they could initially announce so calmly and cooly their company policy of not accepting the return of goods and that there would be no refund if I still insisted on returning a defective good despite such policy not being able to pass the scrutiny of the Consumers Protection Act 1999.

I feel for the uneducated and the elderly but then again, Malaysians have been conditioned from the womb not to complain and to tolerate and accept sub-standard service and below par goods.