I'll Huff & I'll Puff

Heard someone from the European GSM Association, which represents the mobile phone operators, defending the awful roaming charges that his members levy on their customers. He argued that the relatively inexpensive entry charges to mobile accounts, typically achieved through subsidised handsets, somehow justified higher charges elsewhere.

He added an extended ‘buyer beware’ (“we always publish details of our roaming charges”) that strikes me as the type of “read the small print, sucker!” retort that you would expect from a shyster rather than from a group of companies that cosy up to the prospective customer at every opportunity with the suggestion that they have your interests at heart (‘How are you? See what you can do. Your world, your way...etc).  As a customer, I don’t want to read the small print. I want to buy from companies I can trust to deliver a good service and charge a fair price. Companies that lure me with sweet deals and then catch me unawares when my guard is down are hucksters and leave the market wide open to a new entrant who truly has my interests at heart.

Technorati Tag: Mobile Phone Operators, European GSM Association, Roaming Charges