ALTHOUGH I have been juggling the four mobile phone contracts in my family for so many years, I haven't quite wrapped my head around how the various service packages stack up. So when renewal of contract rolls around every two years, I just take the path of least resistance and roll it over.

But I feel cheated. Why am I paying as much for my company line as for the personal lines in my family, when the former has a company subsidy and my usage is no greater than that of the others at home?

While the telcos may claim total transparency in their service package offerings, there are so many non-commensurate parameters to consider that comparing different packages is like comparing apples and oranges. Each plan has its own allowances and restrictions - how many SMSes and MMSes are allowed, time of day constraints, do you pay to receive calls, and so on.

But they all seem to trade on a critical fact - that I don't really know how much airtime I'm going to use ex ante for the next two years. Clearly, telcos profit from customer under-usage and over-usage.

Surely the fairest deal would be a pay-as-you-use contract, but not at exorbitant phone card rates. This could look like a good business opportunity, but why would telcos give you a fair deal?

Or banks, for that matter. Have you noticed how 'financial advisers'- many of whom are temporary staff - hover around in bank foyers and accost you as you wait to be served by a teller? They then proceed to hard-sell you some complicated financial product.

Many of us can be taken in by what seems to be a good deal, but neither the downside nor the fine print is ever explained. Most of us might even be embarrassed to admit that we don't understand what warrants and notes or structured products are. So we buy.

Once, at my previous bank, I was taken in by an 'adviser' and even signed on the dotted line. Fortunately, I had forgotten to bring along my identity card, so he could not photocopy it to seal the deal. At home, I read the fine print and saw how the structured product that would lock my funds in for five years had an icicle's chance in hell of making money for me.

I did manage to cancel that deal, but usually, you get to read the fine print only after the deal is sealed. If you don't sign on the dotted line, all you get are glossy brochures with boilerplate disclaimers. (Today, there is often the cooling-off period within which these contracts can be terminated, so put that to good use.)

With my current bank, I have noticed the effective use of mood lighting. In the dimly lit, plush environment, one is lulled into a sense of complacency, especially when facing an articulate and personable sweet young thing who acts as your personal banker - until she is replaced in very short order, so that you can't even find the individual who sold you an investment product that is clearly unlikely to make money when examined in the bright sunlight outside.

Say they advertise 8 per cent interest on a kiwi-denominated fixed deposit savings product. Quite likely, when banks start advertising such rates, the kiwi is probably near a historic high, so the only way for it to go is down. You put money into this - the bank makes money selling you expensive kiwis - and when the fixed deposit matures, you may have made 8 per cent in kiwi dollars, but it is likely that the kiwi would have dropped in value too.

They may make some noises about 'currency risk' when 'advising' you on your purchase, but my bankers have never shown me a graph depicting how the kiwi has fared against the Singapore dollar over the past 20 years.

After being caught buying the kiwi at historic highs, I searched the Internet and found such a graph, which would have cautioned anyone against buying the kiwi right now. So I ranted at the banker and threatened to pull out my funds. They quickly got into the act, offered special exchange rates, transferred the money into seven- year kiwi-denominated bonds, all without showing me any bond price trends - again.

Again I was taken in.

These advisers sell you bonds which they reason are priced low now that equity is priced high - true - but they won't show you what trends bond prices have been following. In other words, the bonds you are buying now may be priced low, but they could go much lower too. These advisers are not, however, paid to hint at that possibility at all.

A day after purchasing the bonds, I found that I had immediately 'lost' 1.4 per cent in purchase fees, and would lose another 1.4 per cent if I sold them before the seven years were up, at which point the kiwi might well be lower than its historic lows, what with an anaemic New Zealand economy that has little going for it.

Customer fees have become an important part of a bank's earnings. Banks also roll over your fixed deposits at lower interest rates than fresh funds. They also clear your biggest cheques first so that the likelihood of your other cheques bouncing from lack of funds is higher. After all, they make money from returned cheques too.

What is the point of this rant? Telcos, banks and, I suspect, many other industries seem to profit off unhappy customers. My question is whether this is their new business model.

They do know that changing service providers does take some effort. I have changed telcos and banks before, but they all seem to practise the same philosophy, making money off perplexed and unhappy customers.

Meanwhile I'm locked in for another two years with my telco - and seven years with my bank. Angry, but locked in.

andyho@sph.com.sg