Illegal charges in monopoly sectors like telecommunications, power supply and fuel top the list of growing consumer complaints, the nation's top economic planner said yesterday.

In the first half of this year, officials across the country handled 3,148 cases related to illegal pricing in the three sectors, up 75.3 per cent from the corresponding period of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission said.

Some telecom companies were found to have forced customers to subscribe to ring tone and multimedia messaging services, the commission said in a news release.

Ring tones are melodies alerting users to incoming calls while multimedia messaging is transmitting text, sound, images or video from one mobile to another.

Prices of petrol and diesel which are set by the State were stealthily raised by vendors this year on the pretext of rising international oil prices, the commission said.

The number of the cases involving illegal oil price increases amounted to more than 1,000, three times more than in the same period last year.

Consumer ire was also directed at other sectors such as transport which attracted the highest number of complaints education, medicine and real estate.

The number of cases of overcharging for transport in the first six months increased by around 55 per cent from last year, to 6,169.

Arbitrary charges are common among some schools and universities despite warnings from education authorities. Higher medicine prices are also a major consumer complaint with 2,937 cases.

Pricing departments have penalized business operators by seizing illegal profits and fining them 35.5 million yuan (US$4.4 million).

(China Daily August 24, 2006)