Reliance - Never keep their word. Review on Reliance Mobile Operator

Review : Reliance entered Mobile phone business in the month of March 2003 with a big bang of STD at 10 paisa (40 paisa per minute Reliance to Reliance with 15 sec pulse metering) . I was at the time using GSM mobile phone and was attracted by the futuristic technology offered by Reliance.

More over, I was fed up with the poor service put up by MTNL landline, through which I could get nothing above 33.6 connectivity and 2.3 kbps download speed. Hence despite warning by my friends and colleagues, I applied for Dhriubhai Ambani Pioneer Offer, submitted 12 post dated cheques and Rs 4000/- for loan scheme.

Things were wonderful as long as Reliance kept their promises. The promises lasted only till the shine of those hoardings. Those hoardings should be lying in the backyard of Reliance. The first thing they did was change the billing to 1 minute from 15 seconds pulse, stating it is as per TRAI. But TATA indicom had 15 seconds pulse and now they have come out with 1 second pulse.

I used to use the R Connect through my mobile, if you have a close look at the graph, you will understand the intention of Reliance to mislead customers. The graph shows download speed at Kilobits / second.

Normally everyone think of , speak of Kilo bytes / second (kbps) and Mega bytes per second (mbps). So by using such a unit, it could give a feeling of false satisfaction to the customers. And the service became so poor that the speed as per their own graph was not more than 10 Kilo bits cond. This mentality prevails in all aspects of Reliance Infocom.

Any way I contented myself justifying that all these features have to be paid one way or the other. An year and a half later precisely in July 2004, Reliance came out with an article in their website saying that the post paid customers who had subscribed till April 2004 can opt for conversion to Pre-paid paying absolutely nothing.

One have to only clear all his outstanding dues and present him self with the hand set at any Reliance Web World. Of the initial deposits made, the club membership fees of Rs 3000 would not be returned. But the deposit of Rs 1000, Rs 2000 and Rs 3000 for Local, STD and ISD respectively would be paid back reducing the unbilled amount at the time of conversion.

All post dated cheques would be returned back and the owner ship of the phone gets converted to the subscriber. I opted for the scheme immediately and till now they have neither sent back my PDCs nor refunded my deposit.

After many number of letters they responded saying everytime that the PDCs will be retuned back soon, but there was no scheme of deposit refund. This is my story. I have seen one person presenting a bill at Reliance Authorised outlet complaining about the bill. Two calls to same number on same time at to different dates charged differently. One at Rs 23 and other at Rs 110.

Though this is a very rare occurence, I just wanted to bring it to the notice of customers. I would suggest that it is better to stay away from Reliance. The technology is good. But the mentality towards its customer, that customers are like beggars, with out any choice , must change before one subscribe to their services. Other service providers might be small and not making tall claims like Reliance, but it is better to stick with small players.

As somebody said in a review, dont go by the rush at Reliance Web World. People have come with complaint or to return the phone.