The National Reform Steering Assembly's anti-corruption panel has urged telecom authorities to quickly order three big mobile phone operators to repay overcharged phone fees of up to 10,000 baht to customers.
Charnchai Issarasenarak, deputy head of the panel, said on Wednesday that representatives of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission had admitted that Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS), Total Access Communication Plc (dtac) and True Corporation had charged clients more than the regulated rates.
The fees are capped at 69 satang per minute for voice calls, 1.15 baht per short message, 3.11 baht per multimedia message, and 0.26 baht per megabyte of internet services, he said.
For services outside of promotional packages, voice calls were actually charged at 1.5 baht per minute and internet services at 99 baht per gigabyte instead of the regulated rate of 26 baht per GB, Mr Charnchai said.
"The offences affected tens of millions of people as nearly 90 million mobile phone numbers are subscribed," he said.
The sub-committee would urge the NRSA's main telecommunications committee to take action on the issue as the NBTC had failed to protect consumer interests for the past two years, he said.
Representatives of the NBTC promised the NRSA panel it would quickly order the refunding of the fees to all concerned users, Mr Charnchai said. He said some users deserved refunds of 1,000 to 10,000 baht.