[Reader-list] my mobile phone provider thinks i am an tsunami victim...

[Menso Heus]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 11:50:16PM +0100, paul keller wrote:
> ... and has a pretty poor sense of geography.
> 
> got my monthly bill from my mobile phone provider (orange Netherlands 
> which an almost completely different entity than the orange operating 
> in bombay. they just use the same brand identity and parts of the 
> companies are held by the same holding: hutchinson whampoa limited).now 
> getting a monthly phone bill is nothing special, but getting one which 
> informs you have been a tsunami victim an that they therefore credited 
> you with ?42.05 for 'possible extra phone expenses related to the 
> tsunami' is somewhat strange. especially if you have not been affected 
> by the tsunami as you where safe on a jet airways flight from bombay to 
> delhi when the whole thing hit the coasts of india and sri lanka. now 
> it is no secret that mobile phone providers record the location data a 
> mobile phone generates, but at least under dutch law this data cannot 
> be used by them for anything else except invoicing purposes (and they 
> have to retain it for law enforcement purposes for half an eternity or 
> so). 

<cut>

> 
> when i called their customer center today to complain about using my 
> location data for something which they are not entitled the call center 
> agent simply failed to understand my problem. he could not see how i 
> could complain as i benefited from this measure of theirs and told me 
> that i was ungrateful. and when asked about why i was getting the 
> credit when i was in delhi the whole time he told me 'well that is in 
> the region isn't it?'


Hi Paul,

First off, if Orange is allowed by law to use location data for invoicing,
I fail to see why they shouldn't be allowed to use it for this. Effectively,
they send you an invoice with the announcement that you won't have to pay
it.

Secondly, I think you're being a little harsh and that Orange made a good
choice giving anyone located in these countries their money back. I can 
imagine numerous scenarios in which your phone usage would be explainable
even if you had been in the disaster areas. 

Menso

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