Following the Mighty Mobilink, Telenor Pakistan has decided to increase balance inquiry charges by 50 percent from all its prepaid customers.

A message that is being displayed on Telenor’s website reads that charges for all Balance inquiries over USSD are being revised to Rs. 0.15 + Tax, i.e. Rs. 0.18 including tax.

Telenor was earlier charging Rs. 0.10 without tax of Rs. 0.12 with tax for all kind of balance inquiries.

It maybe recalled that Telenor was the first in industry to charge balance inquiries back in July 2009, followed by Ufone, Mobilink and Zong.

Also to mention here that balance inquiry charges were approved by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, but it had asked operators to give 30 days prior notice to customers before increasing any charges.

It appears that authority has gone soft and lenient in three years that they aren’t restricting operators for 30 days’ notice before making any change in tariffs.

Like we reported before authority isn’t confining operators at all – which is giving them full freedom to impose new charges (every other months now).

After Telenor and Mobilink, it is feared that other operators will increase balance inquiry charges too, but in phases, just to make sure they don’t come under CCP’s hammer.

Tip: Just in case if you don’t know, at least Telenor has provided a way for its customers to check balance inquiry for free. You can probably Google around to know the trick.