Telkom collects on overdue bills

JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta office of state-owned telephone company PT Telkom recovered Rp 801 million (US$106,800) in outstanding telephone bills last year, an official of the firm said on Monday.

The amount was collected from 423 customers encountering problems paying their bills, Rizal Saat, head of the office, was quoted by Antara as saying.

The number of delinquent telephone customers reached 2,300 last year, he said, which affected the company's income.

"We should have had bigger income than that. Our inability to recover all this was caused mainly by our failure to find the addresses of the delinquent customers."

He said his office tried to collect on 1,372 of the bills, including 267 via telephone and 661 by visiting customers' houses. (hhr)