Ever wondered what are those servicenumbers taxations on your phone bill? Ones that are taged as ”Leisuretime” or ”Entertainment”. Got my phone bill for january just the other week and noticed considerable rise to what we (family with 5 different extensions) have consumed usually. Of course the youngest one had had her spur of text messages that month, but I also noticed that she had two lines which said servicenumbers – Leisuretime 1,90 €, servicenumbers – Entertainment 0,95 €. While calling or messaging to these numbers is stricly ”no – no” in our family I started to look more deeply into the matter. I found out that we all have billed for using servicenumbers, also from december. Only thing that I did not found was any sign that I would have received any text messages from any service providers.
While I have little experience on those servicenumbers (if you use those constantly) could you comment to me how can you separate from you phone bill what are the actual services that you have consumed?
In my essay I will be writing on such matters as billing between service provicer – operator – consumer, broken trust on services, how to restore that trust, adoption of services.
Transparency in billing routines will become more important in the future. Creating and maintaining consumer trust even more important. A good theme for an essay.
To answer your question, I don't know if there are possibilities to actually find out what kinds of services those servicenumbers are for. Have you tried contacting your telephone operator?
I think that way of working in service fees are changing when telecom operators coming under regulation toward EU Payment Services Directive. That means situation when the operator is procesessing 3rd party payment transaction like 3rd ring tones, services etc. In that case they are working as a role of Payment Service Provider (PSP) under regulation.
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/framework/ index_en.htm
