May 14, 2006 12:18 PM
2537 Views
(Updated May 14, 2006 12:18 PM)
I had an Airtel prepaid connection for 2 years, it was not great, but having a lot of friends, who had my number, I didn't want to switch networks.
I had put my home number on speed dial, and when I would call home using the speed dial, I would sometimes get a wrong number. When I called to report this to Aritel, they said there was no mistake, when clearly something was wrong. I told them I had the number on speed dial, so it could not have been a mistake made while dialing. They refused to even check to see what the problem was.
Last November I noticed a strange thing, when I made calls. I would call a landline number and get charged Rs6 per minute instead of 2.99 per minute. I called up customer care but they denyed it. After a while I noticed my balance would decrease even if I had not made a call. So from 425, my balance became 400 one morning. When I called customer care, they said I had some plan active, when I said I didn't they said it was the caller tune that was active.
Now, I never asked for a caller tune to be activated, but it was activated. I called them up and asked for the tune to be removed, this I had to do thrice, and yet the tune was not removed and they would charge me for it twice every month.
I decided to see if my balance would decrease if for two days I would not make a call, and it actually decreased. I called up to report this to Airtel, but they said you were on roaming that day so it was deducted. I told the customer care (cc) guy I was in Andheri that day, he replied which part of Andheri, as if Andheri is on roaming in Mumbai. When I yelled back saying how can you consider Andheri roaming, he just continued telling me that I was on roaming. I mean phulease what kind of customer service is this. He was telling me that I was lying now.
The next day my balance had fallen from Rs 70 to Rs 14. I decided I would switch to another network the next day. That same day however I was stuck at a friend's place till 11pm and needed to urgently call home. What do you know, I tried calling only to be told I had zero balance. Calling cc was again useless. I don't recommend Airtel to anyone. It has the most useless network as it is, and it only knows how to rob its cutomers, and had the worst customer care ever.
My dad and sis also have Airtel and have noticed a decline in their balance without any reason. They were also told by customer care that they were on roaming, when they never went outside Mumbai. Don't they realize that people take a network to stay connected to friends and family. If we as customers have to change networks all the time, how many numbers are we going to change, and make sure our friends have these numbers?
