My family has been a loyal Astro customer since 2002. We have never missed paying our Astro bill, even after Astro kept increasing its subscription rates.

Imagine my shock last month when my mother called me up at work, in a worried state, telling me that Astro had just called our house threatening her that we would be fined RM20 for late payment of the Astro bill.

She thought that I had forgotten to pay the bill. You see, it's like this. Astro has a funny billing system. They always bill you in advance for the month ahead, not for the month that has just passed.

Also, they bill in the middle of the month. My normal practice is to collect all the bills for the month and pay them together at the end of the month. This saves me making two or three trips to the post office.

So what's the big deal, right? A few days late but the Astro bill still gets paid, right?

I guess it must be a really big deal to Astro, because they are now behaving like loan-sharks, calling customers up at their homes and threatening to take action against them if their subscription fee is not paid on time.

Even worse, Astro called my house using a phone recorded message to threaten and scare my 60 year-old mother into paying the Astro bill on time.

Astro didn't even have the courtesy to use a real customer service representative to make the call. Is this how Astro treats its loyal customers?

Astro, what exactly are you trying to accomplish with these loan-shark strong-arm tactics? In my case, all you did was frighten a 60 year-old lady just to make sure your subscription fee is paid.

This is unforgivable. Astro, you should be ashamed of yourself. Please fire the moron of a manager who is in charge of your billing practices.

Because of this experience, I have cancelled my Astro subscription and I will never again buy or subscribe to an Astro product. I urge all other Astro subscribers who have experienced this humiliating and outrageous behaviour from Astro to do the same.

I'm not missing anything by cancelling my Astro subscription and I also save RM100 a month. Why doesn't Astro inform their customers about raising rates before billing them, either?

Carry on like this Astro, and soon you will have no customers to make recorded phone calls to.