House seeks ban on expiry of pre-paid phone loads

 

The House committee on information and communications technology is readying a consolidated bill that would prohibit expiration period for pre-paid load.

 

For this purpose, the committee chaired by Rep. Victor Yap  has created a technical working group to put together in one measure the salient points of nine bills all seeking to stop the practice of telecom firms of imposing expiration period in pre-paid loads.

 

Subjects of the TWG discussion include House Bills 2333, 2447, 2604, 2872, 3268, 4654, and 5109 authored by Reps. Carlos Cojuangco, Arthur Yap, Vilma Santos-Recto, Victor Yap, Carmelo Lazatin, Winston Castelo, and Bernadette Herrera-Dy, respectively.

 

The bills seek to prohibit, with corresponding penalties, the act of setting expiration periods on the validity of pre-paid phone load cards.

 

Likewise, the various measures disallow forfeiture of unused load credits on an active pre-paid phone account via pre-paid call and text card or electronic transfer.

 

In addition, the bills prohibit telecom firms from refusing to give a refund to any pre-paid subscriber whose load credits were forfeited without any valid cause.