Thread: Y.A.T.O.B.W [Yet Another Tale Of Billing Woes :( ]

Friends - Please do chip in with your valuable inputs - would appreciate them tremendously

The usual problem :
->I received BSNL's Home250 connection on 20th of April '08
->BSNL sends me a bill for Rs 60,000 for month of April
->Which means that I've downloaded 60GB in 10 days {Normally I would be thrilled that such speeds are possible,but since my bill resembles my telephone number,I'm not}

Now after reading the rather disheartening posts about users' woes w.r.t. BSNL's followup to complaints,I have zilch hope that BSNL will rectify my bill.I feel wronged like hell but frankly looking at the approach of BSNL I am beginning to care less day by day.

So can some kind soul help me by answering any of these questions ? Would really appreciate it a lot !

a)What is BSNL's normal course of action if I refuse to pay the bill and do nothing ? I guess they will disconnect the line first,but after that what ? Will they file a court case ? "Telephone Adalat" ? Police ? Goondas ? What is their normal pattern in handling such cases ?

b)How long do these cases last ? Has anybody had to go through them ? What is BSNL's success rate in such a scenario ? Are there any instances where court cases have dragged on for years in their usual style ?

c)Is there some quickfix way I can get out of this ? Example : a few thousand bucks in the right place ?

d)What is the best course of action I can take to ensure I don't have to pay nor do I have to go to Tihar Jail ?

It is very tempting to fight this out since I'm innocent,but given prior experience with babudom - I just don't want to waste my time with people who are simply unreasonable.

So anybody with any pragmatic/realistic solutions to offer ?

Even if you haven't been the victim of such a case,would appreciate your point-of-view.However if you have been through this then I would be simply be delighted to hear from you.

Thanks for reading this.

First of all i would like to mention that i have not gone through these type of
unbelievable cases !!!! but i would like to help you

If you will not pay the bill they will simply cut your line that is normal then if the amount is hefty like in your case they will file a case against you and then police will come to your house to pay some respect!!!........but if you are innocent just prepare yourself with as many documents as available showing that you didn't downloaded this much and my account was hacked by some bas***d + ******
fill the stars with your imagination!!

Hire a good lawyer!!

Your amount may get reduced but not much after having some talk with right person and giving regards to him (you know what i am talking about)!!!

I think admin knows better as i think he has gone through some situation similar to this

I am not BSNL user but like to give my words for this

Is there any document that BSNL get signed from users mentioning that "You are liable or responsible for any activity on the account provided by BSNL" or any similar liability?

BSNL will pursue legal action in case of unpaid bills & ofcourse you are not liable for any account activity if you can prove that your account was hacked.bsnl has the means to know if your accout was hacked so raise this point by meeting with senior BSNL officials.they will check it & also ask them to give some written report/document/printout of the proof that your account was checked for hacking & found to be true/false.bsnl can find out the exact amount of data which flowed through your telephone line in a month so if this amount does not match with the amount in bill & much less then it shows that your account is hacked.

As with everyone else, I agree with them ...

- you cannot simply refuse to pay the bill. That will be construed as guilt on your part and you will have a civil case slapped on you.
- the proper way of redressal is to approach the regional GM and explain you case and ask them for usage details
- as whitestar said, it is quite possible that your account was hacked; so ask for the details such as usage from your own telephone line
- finally there could be a billing error also.

And also please file a FIR for your problem if you are sure that your account has been hacked

Thats the record bill i have ever seen.....

better check it at CTO of your respective area...There might be some billing errors

Hi,
Well anything can happen at BSNL.
As all others have said u need to get in touch with the higher officials of BSNL cos the one sitting at the help desk is not going to help as he is not equipped with knowledge to furnish ur query.

Anything u do and anything u get to hear from the BSNL employees please make it a point to take it down on a piece of paper and get it signed by that official cos u cant trust an human being.Dont let any conversation go in air.
Well if ur convinced that ur account had been hacked then as said u need to get an FIR in place.That may help u in proving ur point.But i have a feeing that in the BSNL rules there is some point on this that it is whole and sole responsibility of the customer to keep the authentication information secure.If thats the case then probably ur in trouble.But please read their all documentations first cos that will give u the idea what all u have signed to get the connection.
And in ur defence u can claim that the leak of ur authentication information was from the BSNL side.Cos no one knows who hacked it until it is found out.

Well some Dos for all BSNL users:
1.Always keep a check on ur usage.No matter what plan u have.
2.Always keep verifying the usage by having a data usage monitor at ur terminal.Tally it with the usage details provided by BSNL.
3.Make sure that u change the password of ur BSNL account as soon as u get the authentication information from BSNL.

Well lets hope for the best.May The Force Be With U.

Thanks for all the responses Shrini/Nilay/Player/Just4kix/whitestar/skap - gives me a good idea as to how I should progress.

Thanks a ton!

your welcome bro

OK ... Here is the real deal

Lodge a complaint with your regional BSNL office saying this bill does not reflect your real usage as the internet connection was down most of the time... You made a couple of phone calls and then gave up thinking that the problem will be sorted sooner or later... The you recieved this inflated bill.. You went to the local office and spoke to some one mr xyz.. name some one in the letter ... and say in the letter that you want an enquiry done for this matter (which they wont) .

Sit at home with the photo copy with recieved written on it with a signature of on of the babu at Bsnl

You will start getting notifications for paying up the bill and then one day they will take away your phone and internet connection due to non payment of bills.

In the mean time you can apply for a new phone in the name of some one in your family but they will not give youa connection if the address is the same.. so now what do you do? well if you have two floors in your house just put the address as House no123 first floor name so and so and that will do it.... You might have to give the line man a couple of hundred bucks

The Bsnl will file a recovery suit against you in your local court and you will have to attend the hearing .. You wont need a lawyer there if you can talk like one.. Just tell the Judge that you expect foul play and have asked Bsnl to conduct an enquirt.. Take it for granted that Bsnl wont have done any enquiry by then.. The Judge will ask Bsnl to produce the results of the enquiry.. One date gone? You get another date after 5-6 months... You go back again and say your connection wasent even working for the days you have recieved the bill for.. and if you can support your claim by producing a written complaint with any bsnl employees revieved signature then the case is out of the court there and then if not.. read on..

The Judge will appoint an arbitrator (excuse my spellings) who will be a Bsnl employee.. The Judge will ask you to pay a token amount may be Rs5000 in your case as the amount is low. And then you start meeting the Arbitrator every 2-3 months or so as he will fix meetings to look into the matter for you.. He will not ask you to pay a %tage of the amount and settle it out of court but will keep insisting to pay up in full.. keep refusing and offer him to pay say 40% or 50% of the total bill.. if that bsnl babu is stupid enough to take the offer ask him to give that to you in writing..

Dont pay anything to them .. go back to the court and lodge a complaint in writing say Bsnl knows there is foul play and thats why they are ready to hush up the matter with just a part payment.. hence please order a Judicial enquiry into this matter (Always be polite infront of the Judge and act like Honest if your policy even if its not )

Judge will pull up Bsnl on this and hopefully write you off on this or might ask Bsnl again to produce the enquiry results which they wont (I know this for sure) Then start making up stories that your phone used to go dead for days and you had to bribe the line man to get it fixed and then dead again after some time... Phone used to ring but the callers called some different number and it rang on our phone and stuff like that and it used to happen very often.. Tell them you used to dial your own number to check whats wrong and it would just ring for ages and ages but your home phone wont even ring once although the dial tone was still there....

By this time 5-6 years would be gone.. Please tell me where the matter had reached after 5 years and I will be happy to guide you furthur.

By the way the above isint a made up story... Just in case some Bsnl bitch is reading this... Its based on the info the thread starter sent me in a PM

Can you alos find out if port binding is enabled in your local exchange?

Originally Posted by Admin

OK ... Here is the real deal

Lodge a complaint with your regional BSNL office saying this bill does not reflect your real ....By this time 5-6 years would be gone.. Please tell me where the matter had reached after 5 years and I will be happy to guide you furthur.

Thanks a ton for the post admin ! This is exactly what I was looking for. You Rock big time!!

Any time

Did you find out if port binding is enabled in your local exchange and if it is when was it enabled and hopefully if port binding was not there during the billing period in question then your case will be thrown out of court on the first date without a doubt.

Dont just stop there take BSNL to the consumer court (It will cost you Rs100 to file a case and no lawyers involved) and ask for Rs500000 compensation from BSNL for giving you so many sleepless nights and also attact a doctors note which reflects your depression which you got due to this problem with was purely BSNL's fault.

hi,I`m here for give u some information to fight aginst B.S.N.L.

Here some solution for u but u have to run this as soon as possible,so that before take any legal action from bsnl you can take legal action against them
for safty.

First of all u have to go with a complaint letter to lodge near any high bsnl officer like
billing officer or commercial officer.Letter will be written such a way that ur total problem is metioned and if u have previous bill it will be better.Before submition of ur letter u have to x-rox copy of ur letter and signed it by help desk officer where u have to submit it and keep the copy.

then bsnl might be response within 7 days or 15 days or 30 days.They can call u to go bsnl office to talk with them or can do it by phone.When u will chat with them they confidently inform u that this is ur falut and u have to pay for it.But u have to totally denie for it.Then come out from bsnl office and u have go forward to CONSUMER FORUM with this x-rox copy of complaint.There you have to lodge a complaint that u have get a exhorbited or abnormal bill from bsnl and u r helpless now.I think consumer forum will be support u.because this is established for consumer problem.Just u have to spend 100/- for registration.
Then consumer forum will send a tough letter to bsnl.Then bsnl will be in some trouble.Forum will call both u & bsnl for mutual and bsnl will be get some rebate but u have to denie it.next hiring will be after next or 2-3 moths.
and there too bsnl will cutdown ur amount like 50% or 30% like that and as usual u have to denei for pay,u will just say that I`m not access net such rate & I`ve no money for paying it.that`s why,this hiring will also be value less.But after some month letter forum will call hiring and there bsnl can cut 1/3 of total money.And u have to negotiate for it.U can bergaining more for cut down the amount.


If u r not satisfied in 1/3.then u have to go court.best will be high court.There judge will definetly favour of u and pull down bsnl.judge will not listen more comment about datarate,frequency or any technical point from bsnl.There u can get good response.judge will simply say that a man can`t use such this rate.

BUT ONE THING SHOULD KEEP IN MIND THAT COURT IS FOR MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING OR NIGOTIATION WHERE YOU HAVE LESS DOCUMENT.
CONSUMER FORUM ALSO A COURT.

One thing i dont understand. In many cases BSNL verifies thoroughly when a complaint or issue is raised. I mean if they find that its their fault, then they rectify the bill immediately. And in most cases it would be the fault of BSNL. If the end user does something like misusing/not reporting high speeds (subscriber opts for 256kbps plan, he gets 2mbps, starts downloading like hell, BSNL bill for misuse of resources) then only BSNL will be unwilling to yield.

please note if you decided to file a case against bsnl in consumer court than you have to act within two years from the date of the bill otherwise it will be barred by limitation act