Unauthorized deduction of talk time balance. Review on Vodafone 3G Data Card

Text of my complaint letter to the Nodal Officer, Vodafone India Ltd. which is self-explAnasultantory. Since writing the above complaint letter my talk time balance has been reinstated. Communication from the Nodal Officer is still awaited.

To: Nodal.kar@vodafone.com

Cc: vodafonecare.kar@vodafone.com

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I am appending herewith a copy of my complaint addressed to M/s

Vodafone in connection with their unauthorized deduction of an amount

of Rs.115/- from my talk time currency.

"My account has been debited twice for Rs.90 and Rs.25 for

'cele_45BDIVAS' and'GLAMOUR' packs resply. which I

could not possibly have subscribed to - I am neither a cele_45brity nor

glamorous. Would you please deactivate both services IMMEDIATELY and

Cred824it the sums deducted back into my account. Because of the low

balance left in the account, I am not able to make any calls(inspite

of my having over Rs.100 in my account). Please treat this as urgent.

Your'198' service, which I tried to call, is a sad joke."

I would ordinarily have waited for 15 days for their response before

escalating this matter to you. However, I am so disgusted by their

callous and predatory attitude that I felt I must write to you

immediately and demand exemplary action against Vodafone for what I

consider flagrant theft of the balance talk time left in my account.

This is not the first time this has happened. This is a periodic and

endemic problem which strikes a number of customers who are left

powerless and impotent in the fact of such devious and unscrupulous

tactics by carriers such as Vodafone. When approached for an

explAnasultantion they have a standard response. ‘You need to be careful

with those pop-ups when you are surfing the internet. You must have

touched a button inadvertently leading to your accepting the charges

without your knowledge.’ This is told to you with an unctuous and

condescending tone as if you were an idiot who didn’t understand the

mind-boggling intricacies of the internet. And invariably the blame is

laid at the customer’s doorstep for being a mindless idiot who doesn’t

know where his fingers have strayed.

Really!? The problem is that I, like practically every other

customer, have a different take on this. It is Vodafone that needs to

exercise greater care and diligence before helping themselves

liberally to the customers funds without so much as a by-your-leave.

It cannot be anybody but the carrier’s responsibility to confirm with

the customer that he does indeed intend to subscribe to the

third-party services, to warn him that his act of acceptance will lead

to charges being debited to his account and to require him to confirm

with a specific and deliberate click that he is indeed willing to

accept these charges. Anything else is deliberate chicanery and that

is exactly what Vodafone is guilty of.

It is over 24 hours since 2 such third-party services have been

activated on my account and an amount of Rs.115 has been deducted from

my account without my knowledge and acceptance. The money is still to

be Cred824ited back into my account.

I demand that Vodafone be forced to compensate me with a sum of

Rs.1000/- for this deliberate act of chicanery which has caused me

acute mental distress and warned against summarily deducting any

monies from customers accounts in future without their explicit

consent.

Shyamsunder