Thread: Problems, promises and frustration

Hello,

I stand before you guys in a hope to solve the persistent problems I've been facing in the past few months.

1) I clear my bills through ECS. But they have charged me 50 bucks for late fee. It turns out that it was because of a bank strike. But isn't it the responsibility of Airtel to refund the amount or to intimate the customer at the least?

2) There was a duplication in billing in the May months bill and I had to pay 2x of my bill and they say everything is correct and there is no discrepancies in the billing. I have the transaction id, Message from Airtel to my mobile, E-mail from airtel and my credit card statement contradicting their statement.

3) They disconnected my phone line for a day long last week under the grounds that I didn't pay my bills properly.

4) They sent a person to my place demanding Feb months bill last week which was promptly paid through ECS. When I called 121 one guy told that there might be a problem with Jan/Feb months bill (bearing the fact that this is June) and it was the case for most of the people who opted for ECS while the floor manager denied this and promised to resolve this by today 1 P.M[ June 16].

5) Frequent disconnection problem persists for more than 2 years and no avail after repeated complaints. Today a guy from Airtel came and attributed it to a copper cable wiring problem[Finally, kudos to Airtle].

6)Their nodal officer, care.tamilnadu support center mailboxes are unresponsive as usual though a auto generated message stated that they will get back in 24 hours. I sent an email to care.tamilnadu on 9th June and to their nodal officer on 12th June(I'm sure the reply after a week will start with a Due to technical problems...). I've sent an email to their appellete officer now, though I'm not getting my hopes high.

7) Today I called 121 and that floor manager whom I spoke with yesterday was busy for more than an hour and the agent took up a complaint again. I demanded to ask him or anybody who has the authority to contact me at 8:00 P.M today (this is 7 hours more that what they had promised me).

8) And last but always not the least Fair Usage Policy. They claimed it is a TRAI rule but i can't find anything there and worst I didn't even get an alert message. And the funny part was that the floor manager of the Billing department said that only because of the Fair Usage Policy they have doubled our speeds (in my case 512Kbps to 1 Mbps) and after that Fair Usage Policy limit it will be halved(ie 512 Kbps). Which means that this is value addition services while Airtel's home page says that it will be downgraded to 256Kbps. This also means that these people even the one who is in charge are woefully ignorant and don't even understand the problem.

I have decided to take these unethical ******** down with all my might. If I don't get any reply from their appellete officer by tomorrow would it be appropriate for me to send a lawyers notice to them. Considering a whooping 11140 complaint (a conservative figure from consumercomplaints.in) would this be even an effecient move or I'm thinking of creating a network which partially I've at Life with Airtel .

I need your help guys. Please assist me so that we can teach these money mongers a lesson.

Regards,
Airtel User

I am sorry that you are having a tough time with Airtel BB.

However, please check out my experience with the same company - Airtel Noida vs Kolkata

I have decided to take these unethical ******** down with all my might. If I don't get any reply from their appellete officer by tomorrow would it be appropriate for me to send a lawyers notice to them. Considering a whooping 11140 complaint (a conservative figure from consumercomplaints.in) would this be even an effecient move or I'm thinking of creating a network which partially I've at Life with Airtel .

I need your help guys. Please assist me so that we can teach these money mongers a lesson.

See with the kind of problems you have faced I wouldnt even say you to try with airtel once again. Though my experience have been very good but its clear that you have had fair share of troubles. Maybe their service is bad in your city.

Anyways since you have decided to file a case on them I would like to help you on that and share the knowledge I have because of my personal experience with Reliance big tv.


1st.) About more than 10,000 complaints you mentioned on the consumercomplaints websites. They dont hold any value in court unless you can ask those people to submit an affidavit confirming their issues with Airtel and file the affidavit along with your complaint. If you cant do that you may still mention about the no. in court (though it legally doesnt hold any value but it may help in presenting a bad picture about airtel in the judge's mind.)


2.) MOST IMPORTANT- I am guessing you would file a case in Consumer court. If they decide on out of court compromise then its good. If they decide on fighting they would most likely bring the supreme court ruling last year which bars the power to consumer courts to handle telecom cases!!

3.) So you may not achieve much in consumer court. Though I have the points you can use to counter their point of supreme court ruling (Thanks to 1 court case) but it depends upon the individual judge how he will take it. And there are more chances that he may stick to the supreme court ruling though thats completely wrong.


Anyways your lawyer can guide you better on this. But if you need any info on the court process just let me know!

Always send your complaints by email to 121@airtel.in
Hope you are registered in Self care site.

When CC calls you on phone ask them to send reply by email. ( rarely done !)
At least you have a record of your complaints and the response from Airtel.Without some written records difficult to prove our point/s.

Unless Airtel is the only ISP in your location, high time you select another ISP say reliance/BSNL etc and disconnect Airtel once for all after satisfying yourself about the new ISP's service.
When you send email asking for disconnection, the customer retention cell is activated, and they try to waive charges etc ( earlier usually upto Rs 500/=) to retain you.

Make one specific. complaint in one email. do not mix up BB speed / wrong billing/ ECS problem etc in one mail.

I would say Airtel CC is the best compared to other ISP's as per forum reports. and my own experience. ( I had both Airtel/BSNL till May 31st ).

Originally Posted by eyesonyouu

Anyways your lawyer can guide you better on this. But if you need any info on the court process just let me know!

Yeah I'm need more info on the court process. Today I got a written record from the nodal officer stating that

Further with reference to your mail, in month of February the payment which
was reversed due to various issue was not being
subsequently reversed in customer account or Bill due to technical issue.
Hence once the rectification of the technical issue was
done same is being reversed in month of June 2010. Hence there was an
outstanding shown in your account, which was actually
for the month of February 2010.

But my credit card statement can nail them down. I've sent for them to show some documentary evidence to prove their point. So if they don't show any positive sign by Monday I'm dragging it to the court.

Yeah I'm need more info on the court process. Today I got a written record from the nodal officer stating that

Read this article here-

Code:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Consumer-court-wont-take-your-call/articleshow/4960565.cms

In a significant but POOR and ILLOGICAL judgement SC has ended the jurisdiction of consumer courts to handle telecom cases. Now if you file a case in consumer court there are 2 chances-

1.) They ask for compromise (which is good)

2.) They hire a lawyer.

If they take the 2nd method the lawyer would most probably bring that judgement in the court and the judge is likely to dismiss the case. Though There was a case where the judge didnt take the SC ruling and there are points to counter the SC judgement but at the end of day it would be the individual take of the judge.


So you may not achieve much by going to consumer court.....Maybe district court would be a better option??

But then you have to decide are you willing to spend 1-2 years in a court case coz that is the minimum time it would take?

Today I got a reply from Airtel nodal officer guys.

With reference to your mail and telephonic discussion with Ms Sowmya.K, we wish to reiterate that against Invoice Number 8******** for the period 26/01/2010 to 25/02/2010 there was an outstanding payable of Rs 1212 which was due for payment on 16-FEB-2010 . Same was processed to bank as Standing Instructions was opted by you. Same was reversed from the bank with the reason "Credit Card validity expired".

Look closely, the billing cycle itself ends on 25/02/2010 but the payment due is on 16-FEB-2010 or 16/02/2010. Has Airtel really lost it's sanity?

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We all know that they were an inconsistent company in general. But lying? I thought they were pretty darn good. In my telephonic conversation they told that it was a reversal from all the banks to almost all the customers. Now they are blaming it on me. And for the record my credit card expired on the month of April. This clearly nails down their lies.


And Mr. Mittal should consider investing money in corrective lenses for his people. Most of them suffer from myopia and selective amnesia.


They have started to fumble guys. There is something going on which they are not eady to give in writing. It's just about time to nail these sons of bi***** down. I'm waiting for a reply here. Chances are that they will back off now. So I'll wait for some time.