MY EXPERIENCE WITH RELIANCE INDIA MOBILE. Review on Reliance Mobile Operator

I have signed up with Reliance India Mobile phone on the basis of the offers made by Reliance through the advertisements, brochures and through their DAE’s of the various aspects of the scheme. But Reliance backed out from the promises and framed the policies which are anti-customer as well as customer abusive.

I had signed up with Reliance for 800 free minutes’ scheme on the promise that I will be able to make 3200 calls of 15 second duration for the amount and after 800 minutes I will be charged for one minute pulse rate. Only after seeing this and working out the economy of the offer I have decided to go with Reliance and paid a demand draft for Rs. 5000 (Rupees Five thousand only. I also gave 12 post dated Cheque each of Rs. 3300 (three thousand three hundred only).

But when they started their commercial operation on May 1st 2003 they have changed all their plans and started charging on 60 second pulse rate. Reliance never even bothered to inform the customers about their tariff till many days after the start of commercial operation. My email regarding this was answered by sending their policy for exit.

Reliance announced free local calls and offered a 40% discount on the calls making till March 31st 2003. But when they send the first bill in the month of may 2003. But again failed to keep-up with the offers and differed the discount till July 20003 spread over next 6 months. This is completely unacceptable since Reliance encouraged making STD and ISD calls by offering a discount and then sending bill for full amount is indirect way of cheating the customers.

Due to the internal problems (Technical as well as functional) Reliance was able to start its commercial operation in the month of May only. As per the initial plan (of starting its commercial operation on April 1st) Reliance presented the Cheque on the original dates and credited the money to their account. Since they have collected the money in advance for the 3 months (May-June-July) the customer’s should be serviced for three months before they present the next Cheque which is originally dated for the month of July. Reliance’s explanation that the money will be used for the 37th month service is not acceptable. Reliance was not furnished any explanation about the undue interest they would be earning. {At 21% interest for 36 months for Rs. 1100 interest will be Rs. 700 (approximately)}

The first bill given by Reliance is erroneous. Reliance has charged for the calls which never got connected. Even the bill is incomplete with the address of the sender or the details of the person whom the customer can escalate the issues. The customer support numbers given (*333) was either inaccessible or not responsive.

During the time I had the reliance mobile with me I had made numerous complaints to the customer support center by phone and email. None of the problems were resolved or responded properly. The visits to customer care center at Khaddar Nawas Khan Road Chennai or the Web world was equally unproductive and was left to be handled by the arrogant employees of Reliance.

Most of the services offered by Reliance (like free SMS) still remain as promise only.

On May 1st news paper Reliance has announced new plans for Dhirubai Ambani Pioneer Offer without post dated Cheque and with out STD deposit. And in the same advertisement it has mentioned that all the existing customers can migrate to new schemes. Even the repeated enquiries and visits to Reliance offices till June 26th 2003 was answered by the cold responses of the Customer care Executives and their managers. I was always sent away with out any clear directions or replies.

As per the Reliance offer a coupon booklet worth of Rs. 1 Lakh was offered for their pioneer customers. Till today, such item was not reached me. Repeated enquiries to the customer care department never able to fetch results.

When I lost the handset on 26th of June 2003 I had informed the customer service to deactivate the mobile. The CSR has asked me to contact the city office to get the new handset. Even my repeated enquiries regarding the need of filing police complaints were answered negatively. (He told “No need of filing police complaint”). But when I visited Reliance city office I was told that I had to file a police complaint and get the missing certificate and to pay another Rs. 3500 to get the new mobile phone. This was news to me. When I took the connection I was informed that the handset is fully insured. I failed to understand why Reliance has insured handset only for Rs. 7000/ when the actual cost of the handset is Rs. 10500/- (as claimed by reliance). When I took the connection this was never mentioned even in the fine prints.

I have obtained the Instrument missing certificate from the police and submitted along with filling the necessary forms to the Reliance city office on 1st of July 2003. I have not heard from Reliance after that.

My Questions are: