Have you ever wondered why you’re always out of cellphone load credits when you’re not even a heavy texter, doesn’t make calls and not the type to download ringtones and other stuff? I’ve been wondering about that for 2 weeks now. When I was still using a postpaid line, I used to be a heavy texter but that’s no longer the case when I shifted to a prepaid account early this year… tipid tipid to the max na. Hence, I was really perplexed when I realized I almost used up my 300 Globe load in less than 15 days last month. What is going on???

That made me so O.C. about my actual usage. Last week, checking my balance at the beginning and at the end of each day became a regular habit. When I was so sure that Globe deducted 5 credits from my load when I know I only sent 3 SMS the entire day, I immediately complained this to their hotline. The customer rep couldn’t give me a valid explanation so I requested for a load reversal. After 2 days, they gave me back my P2 credits. I was pleased of course, but got dismayed too soon after I found out later that I was again overcharged by 4 load credits!

I started thinking for some logical explanation for this. One theory I came up with was the possibility of Globe charging me more than P1.00/text, depending on the length of my text message. Surprisingly, when I raised this to a customer rep, he told me that I was right on the mark: Globe charges P1.00 for every 160-character SMS, even if the sender and recipient’s respective mobile device can support messages 4x longer than that! Any excess of 160, even just a single character, is automatically charged another peso. All along I thought I was being wise in maximizing my phone’s capacity to transmit long messages in one click. Mas magastos pa pala yun… kainis! I asked the customer rep if they have made this fact crystal clear to each and every Globe subscriber on this planet. He can’t tell for sure. But this I can tell: magnanakaw sila, they’re no better than their rival network.

It’s okay if their system isn’t advanced enough to support a “P1 per concatenated message sent” charging as opposed to the current “P1 per 160-character message sent” policy. What’s not okay is misleading subscribers into believing that they get charged only P1.00 for every text message sent, regardless of the length. That is cheating, and they’re stealing Globe subscribers’ precious money! I don’t know if they have issued a disclaimer for this because I haven’t seen one yet; if not, I think they ought to make one soon and make that clear in all their ads and user’s guides. There’s nothing wrong if this is the only way to charge us for our text usage, but please, let the subscribers know and understand the rule!

The term short message service (SMS) has already evolved given the advancements in mobile phone technology over the past five years. Almost all phone units now can support messages way beyond the 160-character limit that used to hound older models. It’s high time that Globe exert more effort in improving their system to keep up with the changes… and forget the seemingly useless 3G enhancements for a while (not everyone is using 3G-enabled handsets, so focus more on the basics, please!). Masyado na nating pinapayaman ang Globe, don’t we deserve better services and transparency from this company?

Nowadays, I always glance at my message window counter to check if I’m still within the 160-character limit being imposed by Globe. Thank God, I haven’t had any discrepancies with my load credits ever since I started making the counter useful. Talagang short messages na lang ako ngayon.

I now appreciate my Sun Cellular prepaid account more than ever. Even if the signal is not that great around our house, at least I don’t feel cheated, having known and accepted this signal issue long before I subscribed to Sun. My best friend and I would text-till-we-drop and I only shell out P150 a month for this one, no hidden charges… now that’s value for money. Sun’s unlimited text still rocks!