Many people have been surprised after finding that most mobile service providers charge a fee for calling the 165 anti-fraud hotline, with some saying they consider the fee fraudulent in itself.
People can call the 165 anti-fraud hotline from their cellphone or land line to report suspected fraudulent phone calls to the police. The central government launched a massive campaign to advertise the hotline.
However, what most people don’t know is that they may be charged a fee of around NT$3 per minute when they dial the 165 hotline if they make the call from their cellphones.
“I thought it would be free because it’s a service provided by the government to the people, and we already pay taxes to the government,” said Chien Ling-yuan (簡玲媛), a company manager. “It’s the government’s job to protect us from crimes. Why should we pay extra money when we report a case to the police?”
“Charging the fee is like a government-endorsed fraud,” she added.
Another woman living in Taipei County, Chu Ya-yu (朱雅玉) expressed a similar view.
Chu said that though she wasn’t sure if the 165 hotline is toll-free, she would naturally think that all government service hotlines are toll-free unless otherwise stated.
“The government repeatedly advertises the hotline, but never told us there’s a charge — isn’t this a fraud and an attempt to benefit mobile service providers?” she said.
Meanwhile, a 28-year-old man living in Taipei City, Yeh Yun-yin (葉雲印), also thought that the 165 hotline should be completely free of charge, because “when we report a case to the police, we’re doing our part to prevent others from becoming victims.”
Although Chunghwa Telecom is the only mobile service provider that does not charge for calls to the 165 hotline, its spokesman Shih Mu-piao (石木標) told the Taipei Times that most mobile service providers charge callers because 165 calls also take up network resources.
“From a business point of view, you can’t really say it’s wrong for businesses to charge the users,” Shih said.
He said some numbers such as the 110 police hotline and the 119 fire department hotline are toll-free because all mobile service providers agreed that they should not charge for life-saving hotlines.
Shih said Chunghwa Telecom makes 165 toll-free because the company considers it a way to fulfill its corporate social responsibility.
“Some other numbers, like Taipei and Kaohsiung City Governments’ 1999 service number, are toll-free because the city governments pay for them,” he said. “It looks like the only way to make the 165 hotline completely free of charge is to have the government pay for it.”
Asked about the charge, Criminal Investigation Bureau director-general Frank Chiu (邱豐光) said the National Police Agency had no plan to extend its budgets to cover the 165 hotline phone calls, but it is trying to negotiate with other mobile service providers to make the hotline toll-free for everyone.
“I’d say the negotiation is not easy, but we’re trying,” he said.
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