Users end up paying a hefty price for ‘free’ sim card

PETALING JAYA: Amira (not her real name) never thought her decision to accept a “free” sim card from a promoter would give her a hard time for the next few years.

A month after she accepted the offer, Amira received two phone bills, one from the number she had taken and the other from a foreign number.

“The foreign number was registered under my name. It was postpaid and someone had been using it for about a month, making calls to Sabah mostly, and the bill was in the hundreds,” said Amira.

She then lodged a police report and brought the matter to her telco.

“I was told that the telco had received many reports from customers who received free sim cards from the same group of promoters who came all the way from Johor, but they said my case would be investigated.

“It took years. It happened when I was 19 and still doing my diploma course in Kuantan and the matter was only resolved recently when I went back to the telco,” said Amira, who is 32 now.

She had a miserable time throughout the years when she was blacklisted.

Ajay Rahman, 38, shared a similar experience, only that he had it even worse.

“There were two foreign numbers registered under my name and it had an outstanding sum of around RM2,000,” he said.

The incident happened in 2007. However, Ajay only realised that he was blacklisted in 2017.

Ajay, who once worked at a mobile phone store, also told how sellers could misuse their customers’ identification cards (ICs).

“When people sell or lease their mobile phones, they are required to submit their ICs.

“Shop owners will either throw away the IC copy after a while, or some might even sell it to a third party.

“Apart from that, dealers will also make use of these identification cards to register a new number, especially for foreigners with no documentation,” he said.

He said the misuse happened because most telcos were not required to take fingerprints or to scan the chip on the customer’s identity card.

Ajay managed to clear his name following a police report and the telco itself had advised the public to be mindful of their identification cards.