Dialog GSM is the dominant mobile phone operator in Srilanka with over 60% of market share. The company offers many different postpaid/prepaid packages, value added services, infotainment services and more. This post aims to discuss problems faced with their billing system and how Dialog responded to miscalculations.
Dialog billing system is designed and managed by Millennium IT (MIT), which is a highly reputed IT firm in Srilanka. It's needless to say that Dialog billing system is a highly complex application as it has to bill calls of 3 million+ customers. As with any software system, it's not perfect. The following experience was sent to us by one of our readers.
"I purchased a Dialog Super 503 package along with a Super 101 package back in 2004. It was a really cool package coz outgoing between the two connection was Rs 0.50 any time of the day! That was a damn cheap price at that time (and it still is today) so I went for it without hesitation. I normally don’t check my bill through phone. But suddenly I got a message from 8896 saying that my credit limit has exceeded and that my connection was liable for automatic disconnection #@#&@*. Guess what, all my calls to Super 101, which were supposed to be Rs 0.50 were billed as 'Dialog to Non Dialog' outgoing and were charged at Rs 10 per min peak and Rs 5 per min off peak . I contacted Dialog customer care and was told to lodge a complaint. I lodged a complaint and I was told that they would get back to me once they figure out what the problem was. I had to pay a colossal amount for the first month but I was assured by Dialog that any excess amount would be waived off in next bill. After around a month customer care contacted me and guess what, my call records were fixed! All the excess payments were waived off and they apologized for the inconvenience caused. A rare bug in the billing system detected my super 101 as a non Dialog number it seems. Overall I think Dialog handled the issue in a professional manner and there was no lasting harm done. I've been using dialog since then and have never run into that problem again."
Have you had similar experiences? Discuss them here.
