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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Letter From a Reader: My Mobile Number is Being Used by Another Person

Image courtesy of www.bottaboom.com

Dear Fashion PULIS,

This certain Telecommunications company allowed my cell number (since 2004) to be used by an another person.

This all started 2 weeks ago when I was getting unknown texts addressed to a certain Jen - and upon my inquiry, they are saying this Jen person is using a number same as mine. I already had my SIM changed last week thinking the problem will go away. But still I continue to get this Jen's texts, but to a lesser degree. At the back of my mind I was thinking, if this Jen person was able to text these people using my number, surely she can make calls too. And true enough, this month's bill was proof of that. Good thing I saved some of the unknown texts' numbers and compared it to my bill. Shocking. These unknown numbers appeared on my bill. From my usual P5000 bill it became P8000++ . The bulk of my bill went to the long calls this Jen made to other networks (2-3 hour calls). There was one particular number my phone supposedly called - total calls to this one number alone was over P3000.

As I write this, I'm on the phone with a the customer representative and they agreed to adjust/lower my bill by P2000, then plus the rewards points that I converted into rebates should lower my bill significantly. Also, I was able to get a hold of this Jen's sister just now (from one of the text numbers I investigated) and she assured me that Jen finally changed her number 2 weeks ago. The sister apologized profusely and offered to pay my bill but since I'm a nice guy - I decided to let it pass. What concerns me is that this telecommunications company has done a really sloppy job on phone security. I will still have to wait for next month's bill to see if it would go back to a normal amount. In fairness, the customer and technical service were polite and tried their best to appease me.

I pray this doesn't happen to you.

Yours truly,
Brian Cua

37 comments:

  1. wew katakot naman yan buti na lang prepaid lang ako ahaha

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  2. For the hassle they caused, i think they should not let you pay the entire month's bill! Your privacy was violated! Since you too had the same number then im pretty sure she got some texts supposedly for you. Tsk tsk

    But now that you're featured in FP, you might not be paying for anything in the next 12months! :D

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  3. NO clue about this certain Telecommunications company? I think we should also be wary of this. This can happen to anyone..

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  4. are you a G or S subscriber? Please share so that all may be forewarned. We all have privacy issues.

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  5. Grabe ha. This scares me somehow because I also avail of the post-paid plans. Yes, Kath is correct. They have invaded your right to privacy and who knows what personal information they've gotten from the messages that you're supposedly getting. I know, you're a nice guy. But hey, nice guys aren't supposed to act... well, sorry for this, stupid. Doesn't follow. The fact that they offered to pay the bill, you should have accepted it, not because you need the money, but because you shouldn't be paying purchases which you didn't make and well, just so you could use that opportunity of transacting with that Jen to find out about her identity. For all we know, this is a scam. Well, technically, under the law, you have the right to ask for non-payment of your entire month's bill. It's short they should pay for the damages. Should you be bringing this to court, imagine how scared the judges, who have their own post-paid lines, will be. Your damages case will be easily granted :) I am giving this legal advice out of the goodness of my heart. Again. Ask FP.:)

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  6. I've heard of these instances. When you give up your subscription or change numbers, they will recycle your number to another subscriber. They wait a few years before assigning it to another person. It's nothing new, but a horrible practice nonetheless.

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  7. Its G, It also happen in prepaid. Like for me, I have a same number in davao i think, sometimes when my friends and my family called me, they say that a girl answered my phone, i was shock because that time they trying to call me, i was in my room watching movie alone (not a horror one, kaya di ako minumulto). Then my buddy who is trying to call me that time talk to her and he said that the girl is from davao 19 yrs old a lil bombshell (we add it on fb) and she is also using the cellphone number i also used. I wonder how G seperate our txt msg to each other. But it not happen all the time, Pag may tumatawag lang.

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  8. This is very similar to the landline with Internet connection I used to use. I had my NDD activated so I could call mobile numbers in case of emergency. When I checked my bill, there were some NDD calls on my bill which I didn't make. Those were unfamiliar mobile numbers. I swear I didn't make those calls because I live alone, and those calls made during the time that I was working in the office.

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  9. I dont have any experience like that but I know a friend who has this "unlimited" SIM na nakakatawag din abroad. He's not paying anything, nagwowork sya dun sa telecom company. To know kung anong telecom company yun, compare nyo yung shops ng 2 big companies- you'll be surprised to find out na mas maraming tao dun sa isa not because mas mabenta sila but because maraming complaints ang mga tao sa "mundo". Yun na!

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  10. This has something to do with the routing of your number, technically speaking "they" should've configured wrongly on the switching devices. But hey, these bunch of people are human and besides those switches have millions of numbers defined. The best solution is to go to wireless centers or business centers for commercial issues  cheers!

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  11. this is the 3rd time i have read of the same story from the same network-G. yaiks! mukang may system error. in short, madami kayo.

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  12. G is becoming unreliable na. from their internet to their employees... even the contract for internet hindi nila ineexplain...

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  13. this thing really happens. my mom has a lawyer friend. her friend's number is a customized number. Tapos ung isang relative ng relative namin same ung number nya sa number nung friend ni mom. napansin lang sya sa conversations sa phone.

    tapos same incident happened din sakin when i was in college. an unknown number insisted that i am from olfu when in fact im not. halos buong 6months ganun ung scenario.

    my mom's friend's number e from S (the green now blue one). while ung sakin naman e G.

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  14. i don't think it's G because he said, "the customer and technical service were polite and tried their best to appease me."

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  15. No surprise if this is G! I've been a subscriber even before the first nokia phones came out and I know very well how bad their service has become! It's a pain to call their customer service since the agents don't even seem to understand and its like talking to a kid. There were several months that I had back charges and the agent couldn't even explain why. I no longer allow them to automatically charge my card since I can't trust their computations anymore. I also maintained a prepaid number with them and I can't count the number of times that they 'stole' my load. They return it though after I complain but what a hassle! And I've also experienced what seems to ba a 'partyline' when i make calls. Obviously they can't take care of their customers

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  16. thank you again, FP, for the public assistance. i'm thankful that i've never had to complain to you, but your assistance to others in need is a public service that i appreciate.

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  17. Haha this is the paluging soloista network.. dapat hindi na nya binayaran.. ang saving grace na lang ng G ay nakabond sila sa yummy mansanas kaya may mga nagpapaloko pa din.. kalokohan nga ang plans nila eh para sa mga consumers na hindi nagbabasa ng husto sa mga plans

    bad bad bad.. nakakasira ng mundo ang kumpanya nila!

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  18. i have the same problem with my mobile number.. and my landline too..

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  19. ako naman, may nagtetext saken kase daw un daw ang nag appear na number sa nagtext sa kanya. also, nagtext yung husband ko sa akin, ibang number ang nagreflect pero i checked sa number naman nya yung message nasend. this is S.

    {Nung naka G naman ako umabot sa 8k ang bill ko. nagulat ako. di naman ako makapag argue cos that time, student lang ako, so pinagalitan lang ako ng mum ko PERO hindi ko gnamit ng ganon ung phone ko kase di naman ako pala-tawag and pala text type of person.

    Marie

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  20. glad now we have a place wherein we can voice out our frustrations .. our sentiments .. thanks FP

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  21. sabi ng iba G ito. pero may duda ako dahil sabi dun sa letter ay their technical and customer service personnel were polite and tried to appease the letter sender. G's customer service sucks big time.

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  22. Shucks, nakakapraning naman ito. Kaya nga ba no way akong magpopostpaid eh. Parang ang daming problema pag postpaid sa G.

    Hindi lang yung bill ang nakakaworry, kundi yung mismong privacy. Tsk tsk. Prepaid ako. I reject phone calls so hindi ko alam kung may nakukuha akong tawag ng iba. Minsan may nakukuha akong wrong texts, minsan several times pa from the same number. Hindi ko lang pinapansin. I get lots of texts from strangers kasi, because of business. Pero ngayon napapaisip ako. Pambihira, pati ba naman sa cellphone may partyline pa!

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  23. Btw agree ako sa sabi ng iba rito, ampangit talaga ng customer service ng G. Mapa-telepono, internet chat o email/Facebook, walang kwenta. nakakahigh blood kontakin. lagi pang napuputol matapos ang mahabang usapan, so uulitin mo na naman lahat. nasa advertising ata lahat ng pera. pati tao sa branch minsan may tinanong ako, sinagot lang ako ng "hindi ko alam e", ni hindi man lang nag-effort na alamin ang sagot. hay.

    kung hindi lang dahil very convenient ang G-Cash, hindi ako magstay sa G.

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  24. Saw this story sa facebook. The network is G. Now I'm beginning to remember my experience with their Duo - the one with a landline number on top of your regular mobile number. I get calls for water delivery, for jollibee orders, etc. At first I thougt it was funny pero nakakairita na eventually. Had to cut the subscription because of that. Lousy sila! Bigtime!

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  25. sa pagkaalam ko yung S na affiliated sa telepono ng bayan lang ang merong reward points na pwedeng i-convert into rebates pero kelangan malakas kang gumamit ng voice calls para magamit mo ang full potential ng promo na ito..

    baka working sa telecom na ito ung Jen kaya nagamit ang numero ng letter sender...at mukhang malaki ang galit sa kanya kasi nagpalit na sya ng numero pero nagamit pa rin

    umamin ka na B-CUA! ex mo yang jen na yan noh?

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  26. Nyak! May doppelganger ang cel # mo? G is so messed up na talaga. Hubby and I left G na. Smarter na kami ngayon e!

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  27. TO THE ONE WHO SEND THIS LETTER: Pls dont put all the blame on the telco company, in the first place you had CLONE SIM, a sim which invented by a hacker. meaning you are using two numbers at the same time. which is strictly not allowed and prohibited by a telco company. only a hacking thing can do it. And u yourself knew it! very UNFAIR for a telco company, yes you did change your sim card. still if the number has been hacked it will continously goes on and on. i suggested you change your number.

    And this is just to remind evryone that also subscribers right now knew the technique how to get rid of their high charges on their bill, even if they actually used it.

    Thank you and Godbless evryone :)

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  28. TAMA! my clone sim ka thats why naapektuhan number mo kung kani kaninung txt messages ang pumapasok sayo! tsk tsk kayo gumagawa ng kalokohan tapos sisi nyo sa telco company. tsk tsk.

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  29. Definitely G!!

    To Anonymous 0909PM: G is the only with rebate the one offered by S is a retention plan with free phone..

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  30. Ano ba yan wala na ngang signl si G kahapon nandudugas pa. Haaayy. Buti pa maging smarter nalang tayong lahat sa pagpili.

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  31. Let's not judge the network fellow FP readers if we don't understand how it happens. To be fair with the networks available here, all of them have their own problems. My family uses post paid services (even business plans) of different providers and all of us have bad experiences. The root cause of not getting your issue fixed is usually an agent with no desire to help/no clue on how to fix the reported problem.

    I was employed as a technician for a big telecommunications company in the states and they have the same issue. They call it "crossed line" for both landlines and wireless service. For landlines it may be in the central office/junction box where all the switches are, or in the aerial drops and lines. For wireless it may be routing or satellite/broadcasting errors. These issues should be reported immediately. Most of the common scenarios are easy to fix but there are also rare cases which take actual technicians to dispatch and do tests.

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  32. I think this is S.... Hindi lang sila "matalino", wais pa.

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  33. something like this happened to me earlier this year. i bought a new G sim and tried to register on chikka, a free sms-sending site, using the new #. to my shock, the number got accepted as an existing chikka subscriber and i was even auto-prompted the user's email address. i wrote chikka to complain. it replied promptly and said that telecoms sometimes recycle inactive celfone numbers. i copy-pasted the response and sent it to G, telling them that they should regard it as an urgent privacy concern. i finally got a reply from G after a month, and basically their response was that i should complain to the other company, chikka. this went on for a while, no one wanted to assume responsibility (so what else is new?), but at least chikka answered promptly. every query took G a month to email back their answer so the issue dragged on. and their consistent response? a (sub)standard reply to the effect that i should just contact the other company. they never acknowledged the doppelganger (very apt, 12:31am!) # issue. G has non-existent customer service, tsk tsk tsk! :(

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  34. If you are using S then all I can say is goodluck. Yap, their customer care specialists are really good in pacifying their customers. However, it will take you until time immemorial to have your problem solved. A lot of times, it won't get resolved & you end up paying for the bill just so it won't add up & incur charges to your current bill. This happened to me, although the problem differs. But just the same, their customer care specialist will promise you that they will elevate the problem to the office concerned & rest assured that this will no longer happen. Ofcourse, this are all BULL.... hehehe.. Oh well, you might be one of those lucky customers.... GOODLUCK!!!

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  35. hmmm...parang naeexperience ko ito now, though on and off...

    i'm an araw subscriber and from time to time someone's calling and keeps looking for "marissa". i just tell them that they have the wrong number and cut off the line.

    so far wala namang pagbabago sa bills ko...

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  36. i received a call din sa landline ng G. I said wrong number sila pero when i asked what number what they are trying to call... and it's our landline's # talaga... D: only a few people knows a number so it's really weird

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  37. G yan kasi one time magkatabi kami sa car ng husband ko tinatawagan ng G number ko yung G number nya kahit na kalock ang cellphone ko at di ko ginagalaw.

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