Mar 31, 2011 06:28 PM
25373 Views
I used to have a local internet connection which was ok. Nothing great. Once a month it would drop dead and wud take a couple of days for the customer care to fix the issue.
I moved on to airtel broadband a couple of years back. The service was fantastic. Within half hour of registering for it, the executive was at my door and inside of 3 hrs they had installed everything and my connection was up. It was a modest 384kbps line for 999 p.m.
For a year it ran well. No loss of connection, no complaints.
Then airtel gave me an upgrade. 4 mpbs speed for 100 bucks more. I took it. And to be honest, it was a fantastic experience. Loved it.
Then about a year back the nightmares started. I got myself a wireless router for which I promptly paid. But the amount reflected in my next month bill as pending amount. After repeated complaints to rectify it, it never happened. Each and every month it would reflect in my bill as over due. It was not a great amount.. 1500 rupees. But as a matter of principle..
I never paid it. For a whole year I kept registering complaints with each bill.. and it kept coming back.
Then finally this year they cut the connection for non-payment. I took it up with the customer care
Customer care- Seriosly.. these are guys who if they had one more brain.. would be vegetables. Trained monkeys.. who will recite what has been told to them. They are not really helping you at all. They have no clue how to help you or solve your problem. Each and every time I ended up having to raise my voice (but would promptly apologise to the guy/girl saying am not yelling at them.. but at their employer). On insisting to speak to the highest authority I was given the number and email of the nodal officer.
NODAL officer-- Several times I tried to take it higher to a nodal officer. A Mr. Lalit. Needless to say, I have never heard from him inspite of all the complaints and some side kick of his would call and complicate matters even more. Finally after almost 17 days of no internet and constant back and forth calls and providing with proof of payments (bank statement etc) .. they released the connection. Only to cut it at the beginning of the next billing cycle.
My work was suffering massively due to the loss in internet connection and coming under pressure from that I finally paid the amount which I had already paid.
I also moved residence at that very same time. And with it came a new problem.
Airtel assured me it will take 3 days for the new connection (but my landline number might change). I never heard from them. On asking.. they said I had to pay for the bill (it was the 3rd of the month and the bill was due on 26th) otherwise they wont give a connection.
So I made that payment too. After which they disappeared again. On calling repeatedly.. waiting as much as 15 minutes before someone actually spoke to me (i am paying for these calls remember) .... they said they cannot provide the connection as the router or some box in my area is damaged and they cant fix it. CANT FIX IT??? what is this? 1974?
I feel so cheated. After being an airtel customer for over 6 yrs now.. this is how they treat a customer.
They are just out to take your money. You can bleep off after that for all they care.
Credit has to be given where its due. The internet connection in itself was beyond good. Absolutely trouble free and if u ever had a internet related problem it was solved inside of 30 min. So in that respect airtel is great. But its the people side that sucks. And sucks big time. This experience has left such a bitter taste in my mouth, I dont think I will EVER go back to airtel. I even have thots of changing my mobile connection to vodafone or something else.
I am now trying to get another connection. And this time I am doing my research completely. I dont want any more of this kind of rubbish. If anyone knows or wants to recommend a service provider, I am more than open for suggestions. :-)
