Jun 02, 2010 03:54 PM
2509 Views
(Updated Jun 02, 2010 04:00 PM)
This is a review by a friend who lives in Bangalore.
"On May 5 2010, I arrived in Mumbai to look after my seriously ill father. Knowing that I would need to spend at least a couple of weeks in Mumbai and since I could not access the Internet in my father’s apartment, I bought a Tata Photon+ Data Card for my laptop in order to attend to urgent tasks and stay in touch with my office in Bangalore and my other professional networks.
I bought my Tata Photon+ Data Card(Number: 9220189760) from Surya Telecommunication in Girgaum, Mumbai on May 7. Staff at the shop apparently got the device working on my MacBook Pro, but when I got home I found that I could not connect to the Internet. I returned to the shop on the following afternoon, but found that no one there could fix the problem. I was sent off to another Tata Indicom shop in Flora Fountain, where staff also failed to get the Tata Photon+ to work on my laptop. The shop arranged for an engineer to visit my home on Monday, May 10, who in fact arrived on May 11, and that too unannounced. I had to rush back home to meet him. He fiddled with my laptop for over an hour without getting anywhere. He made a few phone calls and finally informed me that some global switch located in Hyderabad had not been switched on to activate my Tata Photon+ account. He assured me that the device would start working in a couple of hours. No such thing happened.
On May 13, I called the Girgaum shop and complained that I was still unable to use my Tata Photon+. They said that I should take my laptop to the Dadar outlet of Tata Indicom where an engineer by the name of Neville would definitely sort out the problem. I explained that I did not have a morning to spare going to Dadar and back(I live in Churchgate). The response to this was priceless: “In that case nothing can be done since we have not been trained to connect the Tata Photon+ to Apple computers.”Since my father was feeling better on May 17, I rushed to Tata Indicom’s Dadar shop, where staff succeeded in connecting my laptop to the Internet via my Tata Photon+. This was 11 days after I had bought the product. The device worked for eight days––until May 25(my last day in Mumbai).
On May 26 I was back in Bangalore, and my Assistant called Tata Photon+ Customer Services and was told that they would be sending an engineer the following day at 3.30 pm(Reference complaint No. 0721799107). The engineer did not turn up. My Assistant called Customer Services again and was told that this problem could only be solved if my laptop along with the Tata Photon+ Data Card was brought to a Tata Indicom outlet. I was given two addresses of Tata Indicom shops––one near my office and one near my home. On May 27, I searched for the shop near my home for 30 minutes, only to discover that the shop in question has been closed for four years! The next morning I found out that the shop to which I was directed near my office, Swagath Infocomm, shut down two years back!
Finally, my Assistant called the helpline of Tata Indicom Broadband(we use this for our office), which directed us to the Tata Indicom Hub in Koramangala. On Friday, May 28, I turned up at this Hub at 5.00 pm in the evening. The customer service staff there could not solve the problem. They guaranteed that a senior engineer(who was presently unavailable) would have my Tata Photon+ working on the following day. I was told to wait for a phone call on Saturday, May 29, before visiting the outlet. I received no telephone call either on Saturday or the following Monday. I turned up at the outlet at 4.30 pm on Monday, May 31, and got some attention from extremely lackadaisical customer service staff only after I loudly gave them a piece of my mind. Fifteen minutes later, I was herded into a back office, where Mr Vittal Kumar, Manager – Complaints, fixed the problem in five minutes.
On May 28 I also couriered a letter to Mr Anil Kumar Sardana, Managing Director, Tata Teleservices Limited in Mumbai(with copies to Mr Ishaat Hussain, Finance Director, Tata Sons Limited & Mr Saravanan, Manager, Tata Indicom in Koramangala, Bangalore) detailing my experience with this product and asking how they proposed to compensate me for what I had suffered at the hands of their incompetent customer service staff. In response to this letter, I received calls on June 2 from Tata Indicom representatives(who seemed to be located in different cities – Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore) offering to send an engineer immediately to fix a problem that had already been fixed. The engineer turned up at my office nevertheless although there was nothing for him to do.
My experience with Tata Indicom is not an isolated instance; I have met many frustrated customers at the different stores I have visited over the last month, who had similar stories to tell.
Question: is it worth approaching the consumer court to seek compensation from Tata Indicom for the enormous inconvenience and aggravation I have suffered, the time I have lost(I estimate having spent the equivalent of two and a half working days on this problem), the expenditure I have incurred and the professional obligations I have not been able to keep as a result of the utter incompetence of Tata Indicom’s sales and services personnel?"
