THE Consumer Council of Fiji is urging Vodafone Fiji to re-examine its marketing strategy and avoid using its own customers to market its products by bordering on invasion of privacy.
The call comes in light of several complaints and queries received by the council from consumers concerning Vodafone’s Hello Tunes feature.
Hello Tunes provides subscribers the option to replace the common, “ring ring” sound on their mobile phone when someone calls them with music selections of their choice.
Subscription to Hello Tunes costs $1.98 per download with a monthly subscription fee of $0.99 per month after 30 days from the initial setup.
The council is concerned particularly with the invasive manner to which Vodafone is currently marketing this Hello Tunes feature.
Council CEO Premila Kumar said consumers should get exactly what they paid for which was the Hello Tunes alone and no unnecessary extras such as Vodafone’s Hello Tune advertisement.
The council is calling on Vodafone to remove this mini advertisement from the Hello Tunes.
It is also calling for Vodafone to stop making these random calls to consumers for Hello Tunes as they have not consented to them.
Vodafone Fiji did not wish to make any comments at this stage on the press release issued by the Council on the Hello Tune service.
“We have a meeting with the chairman of the Commerce Commission tomorrow (today) to discuss the issues raised after which we will be in better position to make a comment,” said Vodafone head of corporate affairs Shailendra Prasad.
