Chunghwa Telecom Co will return long-withheld security deposits to mobile-phone users, senior officials at the company said.
"By the end of this year and early next year at the latest, we will contact users about the return of the security deposits they paid in order to start an account," said Chang Feng-hsiung (張豐雄), senior vice president of Chunghwa Telecom.
According to Chunghwa officials, 1.7 million users will each receive NT$2,900 in security deposits.
Eligible users will be contacted by the company.
"We do not require a security deposit anymore, so these policies will affect customers who created accounts before 2000," Chang said.
Chunghwa Telecom's decision comes after the Consumers' Foundation accused mobile-phone service providers of deliberately making it difficult for users to recover the deposits.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Liao Ben-yen (
Chang denied the allegations, stating that, as a state-run enterprise, Chunghwa Telecom's finances were under close governmental scrutiny. Nevertheless, Chang has promised that all security deposits will be returned as soon as possible after they had been claimed.
"We are currently working on a method to return the deposits," Chang said.
Chunghwa Telecom also met with the Directorate General of Telecommunications at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to discuss the issue yesterday, government officials said.
The ministry said it is planning policy changes regarding security deposits and their total administration.
"We've met with almost all of the telecom companies outside of Taiwan Cellular and Chunghwa Telecom, and initial plans have tentatively been set.
The companies we met with have agreed to notify users that their contracts will expire one month in advance. If the user decides to extend the phone service, then the security deposit will be returned within 30 days," a ministry official said.
Previously, the amount of time needed to get a deposit returned ranged from Taiwan Cellular's 15 days to TransAsia Telecommunications' six months.
For users who choose to terminate their mobile phone service, the return period on the deposit is 45 days.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods