The Ministry of Information and Communications  imposed fines of around VNĐ1 billion (US$45,000) on Viettel, VinaPhone, MobiFone, Vietnamobile and GTel for violating regulations on discounts and promotions.— Photo ictnews.vn

HCM CITY – The Ministry of Information and Communications  imposed fines of around VNĐ1 billion (US$45,000) on Viettel, VinaPhone, MobiFone, Vietnamobile and GTel for violating regulations on discounts and promotions.

Under Government Decree 25 issued in 2011, the total time for service providers to carry out discount and promotion campaigns must not be more than 90 days a year. A special promotion campaign cannot exceed 45 days and the promotional value cannot exceed 50 per cent of the goods or service.

“All these service providers had promotions that went over the allowed days, so we fined them and asked them to stop from now to the end of this year,” a representative of the ministry said.

He said that authorities had warned the companies but that they continued to violate regulations about price and promotion campaigns.

To tighten management, the ministry asked all telecommunications enterprises to review their business activities related to such regulations and report to the ministry.

All service providers have stopped their promotion campaigns and sent notices to their customers.

The ministry also tightened management over pre-paid sim cards.

About one million spam massages are sent every day in Việt Nam, mostly coming from pre-paid sim cards, with incorrect information about users.

At the end of last month, five mobile phone service providers, Viettel, VinaPhone, MobiFone, Vietnamobile and Gtel, signed a commitment to take back all pre-paid sim cards active in all distribution channels.

All accounts of pre-paid users who had not registered their information were locked beginning on November 21.

“This is one of the most important solutions to crack down on spam messages,” the official said. – VNS