My Letter to SMART Telecom’s President…

Here is my letter to Mr. Manuel V. Pangilinan president of SMART Telecommunications Inc.

I also sent a copy to their customer service address just in case the email address I was provided with was not real. I am hoping he reads it and responds to it.

subj: SMART TELECOM INT'L ROAMING DEPOSIT IS DISCRIMINATORY, UNFAIR, and WRONG

Mr. Manny Pangilinan

Dear Sir

I am SMART subscriber in good standing. I pay all my bills on time.

A month or so ago I decided to lower my plan from 1200 to 500. I did this because I had noticed that I was not hitting 1200. As I was getting this done I asked the service rep to make sure that international roaming and data services would still be active. She said it would.

Now early this month I went on a business trip to China. To my surprise my roaming had been turned off.

Upon my return to the PH I gave the SMART hotline a ring. I was surprised to find out that my roaming had been cut because my plan is bellow 1800PHP. I asked that my roaming be activated again and she said I had to give a deposit of 2500PHP to have it activated. This 2500 is not consumable and will not be used to pay my bill or roaming charges. I asked her how I would get the 2500 back and she informed me that I could get it back only when I turn off roaming. I asked her what if I wanted to keep roaming ON indefinitely and she was lost for an answer. I think this new policy is wrong, discriminatory and bad for your business.

1. ROAMING MEANS REVENUE. The more people that roam the more revenue you get. Why then are you making it difficult for people to roam?

2. WHY ASK FOR A DEPOSIT WHEN YOU HAVE A CREDIT LIMIT? When a subscriber exceeds the credit limit he is cut off what then is the deposit for?

3. WHY ARE YOU DISCRIMINATING AGAINST LOWER TIER PLANS? It would not be as bad if all plans had this deposit policy but requiring only the lower tier plans to deposit before roaming is discriminatory.

Frankly sir I find this policy both insulting and discriminatory. It shows a huge amount of distrust towards us the paying consumer. I hope you will take the time to review this policy and make it fair for us your loyal paying customers. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely

Vincent Benedict P. Castro

SMART Subscriber

What do you think about this deposit policy for international roaming on lower tier plans? Sound of in the comments section.

ANYONE FROM SMART READING THIS YOU MAY REACH ME BY DROPPING A COMMENT OR VIA EMAIL bnycastro(at)gmail(dot)com