Jan 27, 2008 09:09 PM
3061 Views
The day is Sunday, time 3 PM. I've had a sooooper Sunday chicken-curry-ragi-mudde(ragi balls) and washed it all down with a cold beer. Finished watching all of the CSI on tele. Our 1 yr 5 mo old hyperactive son is asleep. I am stretched out on our sofa, for my hard earned weekly siesta, just about to fade away into LA LA land. THEN my phone rings! Parents? No spoke to them in the morning. Friends, not at this time? "hallo saar! I am calling from blah blah blah we are offering a free credit card ." That is it I lose it, I scream and shout at the person who called, lose my cool and my sleep! MY SUNDAY AFTERNOON RUINED BY A SALES CALL! This nuisance got to such a point that in a matter of few minutes I was being called from the SAME bank offering the same service. Worse, I stopped answering numbers I did not recognise antagonizing family, friends and business contacts! This had to STOP!
I endured this for a while, till I read in the newspaper about the National Do No call Registry!(https://ndncregistry.com/) and I was like there is justice in ths world! I was like THANK YOU TRAI!
I called Airtel customer care and registered my wife's and my number. The process was super SIMPLE. I needed to send them an SMS in the format specified, and it would take 45 days for my request to be active. They gave me a reference number for my request. They even registered our landline number. FORTY FIVE days, I was like what the hell and registered anyway. Was EXTREMELY SCKEPTICAL about this actually working.
(I just checked the AIRTEL web site, they seem to have simplified the process. Here's the URL https://airtel.in/DND_mobile.aspx?path=0/30)
For the next 45 days I counted and waited, and endured more of the "hallo saar". After the 45 days, the first UNSOLICITED TELEMARKETING call I got, I listened, wrote down the bank name, the person who called and number I got called from. Called Airtel, and logded a complaint. They took my complaint after verifying that it was indeed 45 days since I had registered for NDNC.
Airtel customer service actually called me back a few days later, to tell me that a legal notice had been sent to the company that had called me. They also asked me if I had got any calls since. I had received none!
For the past month or so, my Sunday siesta has been absolutely undisturbed. This actually works with AIRTEL. Since then I have told all my family and friends to register.
