Consumer Organization
Appeals Prepaid Cellular
Service Costs
The organización
Consumidores de Costa
Rica (Concori) -
Consumer organization -
has appealed to the
Autoridad Reguladora de
los Servicios Públicos (Aresep)
- regulator of public
prices and services - to
rethink the approval of
the prepaid cellular
telephone service that
the Instituto
Costarricense de
Electricidad (ICE) will
begin offering next
year.
The Aresp approved an
ICE request to offered
prepaid cellular
service, like that
offered in most other
countries, and set the
rates for cards of
¢2.500, ¢5.000 and
¢10.000 colones.
The Concori is appealing
the approval based on
errors it says that
violate the principle of
the service and cost
established in law.
In other words, the
consumer organization
wants is not happy with
the number of minutes
includes in each prepaid
card.
The ¢2.500 colones card
allows for 62 minutes of
talk time and expired
within 30 days. The
Concori calculates that
customers, based on
approved cellular
telephone rates, should
have 67 minutes of talk
time.
Gilberto Campos,
Vice-president of
Concori, says that the
current plan will be
cheating consumers.
In addition Concori is
not happy with the fact
that if the consumer
does not use all the
minutes within the time
and does not add
additional time within
five days of expiry, ICE
benefits, at the expense
of the consumer, and
that is in violation of
the Ley de la Aresep.
According to Erick Ulate,
president of Concori,
the cannot sit idly by
and allow that consumers
get ripped off, paying
more than they should
for a service that is
regulated and is asking
the Aresep to recalcuate
the cost of the service
before ICE put it into
practice.
Although the Arespe has
approved the rates for
the prepaid service, ICE
does not count with
sufficient cellular
lines to put the service
into place and has to
wait until the first
half of next year when
the 1.5 million lines of
the third generation of
cellular technology is
working.
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