Are there fraudsters among Airtel employees ?. Review on Airtel Mobile Operator

I have had the most horrendous experience with airtel and am sharing it with you - to warn you of something that could possibly happen to you .

I received a call from an airtel executive, promising me an add on card at no extra charge , only 100 Rs per month min and 30 Rs for unlimited messages and all that - and since my brother needed an extra connection I said ok - It promptly arrived !!!

My brother used it for 2 months and then stopped as all his friends were on hutch and I was stuck with a useless SIM. I called airtel to disconnect the number and the customer executives, who are ‘ever so happy’ to add on new features and charge you extra money when you want something new, flatly refused to take the request – saying “Maam, you will have to visit the airtel shop & submit a request” ( whatever happened to effective use of online technology ??). Anyway , I missed going to the airtel shop a couple of months and continued paying for the 130 Rs  extra per month ( which was conveniently added to my main bill)

By the way – I am also a long distance user of my mobile for conference calls and all that & therefore my bills normally ran very high ( in the range of 3000 – 8000 per month). So I was also assigned a Airtel relationship manager by the name of Ronald ( must say, he was quite helpful when I was running those high bills – giving me extra credit limit, extended deadlines for payment & all that ) , hence the 130 Rs never made too much of a difference to me. Hence I kept forgetting about cancelling the connection.

Then one day (Aug 3rd), while I was paying my bill at the Airtel shop ( Anjaneya Bricks @ HAL Airport road) I asked them to disconnect my additional number and also took an acknowledgement slip from them. I paid 6000 Rs as the outstanding bill and left the place. 2 weeks later I receive a call from an airtel executive asking me about the cancellation and telling me that she cannot cancel the number because I have to pay this months bill (which I clarified. had already cleared and had no dues) and the phone shoppe ( airtel shop @ anjeneya bricks) had confirmed to me that it will be done in 4 working days . She said “ok –I will check and get back to you” but dint call me back

2 months later .. after a few mobile alerts from Airtel on my Outstanding. I went online and paid about 3500 Rs. To clear the bill.. only to my bad luck , it dawned on me after I had made the payment that I had not used the international calling numbers that month and went to recheck the bill. I was shocked when I saw my bill. The 4000 Rs that was charged to me was because calls were made from the additional number .. the same number that I had asked them to disconnect some 2 months ago !!! International and Local calls were made at all times of the night and went on for hours together !!

This is what had happened :

Aug 3rd I asked for deactivation

Min Aug – received the first call from airtel exec

Mid Oct – additional connection was disconnected

End Oct – I cleared the complete bill

The person has misused my number between ( Mid Aug and Mid Oct ) and has conveniently disconnected after use..  I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS….

1.       Who had the authority to disconnect the number after using it for 4000 Rs ( when they refused to disconnect it for 200 Rs)

2.  Why was my number not disconnected for 2 months ( it was lying in the Airtel office)

3.  Why do they hire crooks at airtel ? The one who used my number has to be an employee of airtel  - if he had the authority to cancel the number and still not leave his name on the job card

I turned to the airtel relationship manager for help – He promised he would do everything under the sun to get me justice, he even promised to escalate it to his manager and the director and what not. He was so helpful that he actually provided me the consumer court number and asked me to lodge a complaint against airtel… a few days later he promptly disappeared out of the scene. I have not received any mails from  airtel / no calls from their fraud department and definitely a crook still exists among the “ hello I am xyz from airtel, thanks for calling, how may I help you“ façade…

I don’t blame my luck so much as I do the inefficiency of the airtel consumer help division. Probably they are making so much money that they don’t care if a customer or two leave their service and customers like me are helpless cause I cant leave them ( as most of my clients have my number and I am using it for the last 6 years) neither can I expect to get help from their department cause I know how pathetic an expectation it is !!!!