Apr 21, 2008 01:21 PM
2293 Views
I have used Airtel for about 7-8 months now. I have been a longterm Orange-Hutch-Vodafone prepaid customer. I was offered a good plan with a good number( actually I got suckered by the number) by the Airtel Sales person so I went for it.
The technology & network is sound in terms of signal strength, features, GPRS etc. But GPRS is about average.
The call centre is below average and they are outright rude people there and most of your issues get stone walled. Like I get itemised bill from them in which they had not sent me an appropriate breakup of the roaming charges. Instead of resolving this the call centre person repeatedly stonewalled me with the staement "Sir shall I issue you another itemised statement it will be chargeable at Rs.75/-"! They don't give a damn even if they are wrong. Once earlier they had wrongly billed me Rs.75 as some charges and when I pointed out their mistake they said they will "waive" the charges. Thats how much arrogant Bharti-Airtel Teleservices has become.
So after the innitial formally required politeness they deal with you with a prejudice that the customer is usually a liar but we have to bear him.
As far as billing goes, Since our TRAI has taken it upon itself to ensure that all operators make a lot of money, so in the farce of "most competitive/lowest rates in the world" the bills come with a bomb. with a billing rate of 0.5 paise per minute for all local calls, all sms local & national, national std at Rs. 1/- per minute.>> A usage of about 300 minutes local(should cost by tariff 150/-190/-), 25 minutes STD(should cost by tariff 25-30/-), 40SMS inall(should cost 20/-25/-), 11MB GPRS(should cost Rs.110/-) total which should have cost cost me 299/-+75/-(itemised billing)+355/- usage+ Service tax at about Rs.820/- was billed to me at around Rs.975/-. Rs. 155/- stolen but who listens? Oh their intrcacies of billing will also show how good they are giving you some 15/- discounts etc.etc.
So how long can you harp on technology which most competitors have anyway.
I am stuck with my number given to all my business friends. But slowly & steadily I will try and get out of this mess.
