Hong Kong’s Consumer Council has reported receiving thousands of complaints against local telecom service providers in the wake of the iPhone 6 mania.
Around 2,400 boo-hoos relating to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus purchases have rolled in since the middle of September, compared to 3,832 for the year as a whole (including the iPhone complaints).
Half were quibbles about sales practices, while around 1,000 took issue with delays in delivery.
But guess what? Many of the people complaining were so keen to play with Apple’s latest toy that they didn’t bother to read their contracts properly. Who does though, right?
For example, some paid extra for a “preferential pre-order” which didn’t specify a delivery date, while others felt miffed when they didn’t receive a discount for non-delivery, even though there was no such promise in the agreement they signed up to.
The council advised consumers to always read the small print (which you won’t), and said they will follow up some cases with Customs and Excise to see if the Trade Descriptions Ordinance has been broken.
Meanwhile in Googleville, a privacy watchdog has revealed that some older Android operating systems are allowing apps to access the personal data of users without their permission.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data has released a study that found Android 4.3 or older systems are letting app developers get their sticky virtual paws on photos and downloaded files in the “shared memory” of users’ phones.
And although Google promises that the Android 4.4 is much better at not doing this, many of the older systems are too naff to download it. Time to get a new phone maybe.
The watchdog also looked locally and found that of 60 apps developed in Hong Kong, 72 percent had unclear statements about data collection or no statement at all, as opposed to the international average of 59 percent… which is still pretty bad, to be fair.
Is it time we all went back to Nokia?
Just kidding.
Image: Cambodia4kids.org via Flickr
