An estimated 9.8 million spam text messages are sent to Vietnamese mobile phone users every day. — Photo dantri

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) on Wednesday sought permission for its clients' customer care and support centres to make outgoing calls and send text messages to improve customer service.

The request was sent to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) for telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900, which are only allowed to take inbound calls from customers.

Most of VNPT's clients, which subscribe to telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900, complained about the need for outgoing calls and text messages to enable them to better serve their customers. They include banks, financial companies and other service enterprises.

Phan Hong Hai, head of MIC's telecommunications department, said outgoing calls and text messages were not allowed on telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900 to prevent spam calls and messages.

"VNPT must check the current operations of its 1800 and 1900 clients and report these to the MIC before seeking approval," he added.

Fraudulent calls and text messages have become a headache for both mobile phone users and network operators over the past few years.

An estimated 9.8 million spam text messages are sent to Vietnamese mobile phone users every day, and this helps the network operators rake in an enormous VND3 billion (US$143,000) a day and $4.3 million a month, a recent report of Internet security company Bkav Corporation revealed.

While the unwanted messages annoy recipients, network operators refuse to tighten management to discourage spammers and even launched services that make it easy for spammers to bombard mobile phone users with spam messages. — VNS