Sep 22, 2011 01:54 AM
2732 Views
(My complaint to vodafone)
Dear Vodafone
Myself Nimesh Sharma, a Vodafone subscriber since long, and a good contributor to ARPU, a management graduate from a very prominent B-School in India, worked as a journalist for 1.5 years, handled a startup company, and now working with a education & training firm as Corporate Liaison Officer, and Trainer Mobilizer. My parents are both lawyers. My Vodafone no. is 9899144024, and Customer relationship no. is 1.20711636.
I am writing with a very heavy mind but high hopes, after being disappointed by lot of Vodafone Stores and customer care executives. Hope you will get the point that I am trying to send across.
The story starts mid of last year- 2010. I had got Vodafone Live(GPRS) activated on my Sony Ericsson K530i, primarily for emailing through gmail application, and for minor googling. It was serving my purpose, as for other bigger uses of internet, I have unlimited internet at home and office.
Suddenly, I get this bill from Vodafone which mentions some humgama download pack which I ‘allegedly’ downloaded(I don’t even know what is that pack for), with a charge of Rs 150. And this was separate from VFL charges of Rs 200 pm. I made a complaint at Vodafone, but it was ignored, as they insisted that I downloaded it(amid my very hectic schedule, comprising home, office, social work, family time, discussion of new business plans etc).
(Amidst my hectic workload, do you think I have time or bandwidth for such crappy things, which Vodafone launches for college students? And ya, there is no kid at my home, who would do this, just my parents. And my phone remains with me 24 hours- switched on and on non-vibration / non-silent mode. I reply to emails even at 2 am in the night.)
This continued for months after that. After 3-4 months I made a strong complaint, and Vodafone executives accepted their mistake and had to give me waiver of Rs 500 for that. They requested me to deactivate it(even though I hadn’t activated it). I complied with their request- Twice. Both times, I get a message – “this service is already Deactivated on your phone”.
This problem continued with charges varying between 150 to 250, till I bought a Blackberry Curve 8520 for me, as I had heavy email activity in my new job. Till date, I don’t have an idea, what that pack means.
I got subscribed to Blackberry Prosumer Lite(BBPL), because full internet service at Rs600 was very expensive for me. The customer care Exec(CCE) told me that he has deactivated the VFL on my number, and activated BBPL. Fine.
I have configured 7 email accounts on that, including personal and official, and I have heavy emailing use on that, with 100s of emails, messages and chats of all kinds in inbox every single day. I constantly miss the full internet as I cant view so many links, from emails. Vodafone Live(VFL) was atleast allowing to me use internet fully.
Now I get a bill, which mentions charges of Rs 200, for using VFL, while I had got deactivated by your CCE and technically I can’t use it on a Blackberry. I again asked CCE to deactivate it, and asked why hadn’t they deactivated it earlier when I had asked them. He had no answer.
The problem exists till date. In between when I again tried to get it deactivate, there was an error on Vodafone’s part, and my BB service got deactivated(no, billing wasn’t the issue). I thought it was because I had got VFL deactivated, so I sent an SMS for activation of VFL. But it didn’t give me BB service back. My work got stuck. I missed so many business emails, and messages, from my office team, all of whom have blackberry, with full BIS.
For three days, there was no BB service only on my phone(all other team members phones had BIS working), and all CCEs suggested me to do various things on BB, one of which worked in between for 2 hours.
After that, one bad day, I see in my bill, a charge of Rs 800 for using GPRS. I called up CCE, and ask them hows this possible, when I just have a basic BIS plan. They insisted that I have used it, though they couldn’t prove it as their “system was getting updated and not accessible”(as always). They don’t agree to any of what I say.
FYI, I still depend on wi-fi in my office to get full internet on my Blackberry, in which case I find it better to use laptop thru wi-fi, for higher uses of internet.
Now, without using any uncivilized language here, I would like to tell you that – had I known that there was a way to use the internet through GPRS, which I craved for, I would not have missed all those links, and websites that I wanted to access on my Blackberry, during my journeys.
(FYI, I had used such GPRS in my earlier phone, when I did not have VFL pack of Rs200. I had got a bill of Rs 500, and I had paid for it, without any complaints. I have even paid for some sundry packs, which I was made to subscribe to, and amount was small)
For another month, I got such unwarranted charges of Rs 900, for which all the same arguments apply.
Now, adding up the all amounts of hungama downloads(150-250 each), Vodafone live(after I bought blackberry), blackberry GPRS charges(1700), the final figure comes to approx Rs.2800.
Since last two months, I was trying to get some solution, and had paid my bills upto the valid amount. As of today, I have paid all my bills, excluding this amount.
For your convenience, I have attached all my previous 10-12 bills since November last year, for your reference. Please go through them, and let me know if you need some help with understanding the errors. I have also attached last two payment receipts, which reduces the billing amount to Rs.2804 /- net.
I don't have a complaint number, as my complaint wasn't registered, VF CCEs said the complaint is not valid, and blamed me for not paying and not understanding.
Now, my request to you is to either
Take back my number -9899144024 & cancel it, OR
Give me a good reason to keep my number and keep paying these huge unwarranted charges, OR
Deduct this amount of Rs 2800, and ask me to port my number to some other provider
Deduct this amount of Rs 2800 from my final bill, and keep me as subscriber.
If you are following last option, please also make sure, that the other sundry charges, like VFL and GPRS(which is very silly and idiotic, When one cant technically use it) are deactivated and not charged to me, unless you teach me how to use them. In any case, I am not paying these charges, when I haven’t used or subscribed to the services even remotely.
Lastly, as the last resort, as I am fed up of talking to whole team of CCEs, and visiting VF stores, I am game for any means to prove and win my case, including a consumer court case, if Vodafone wants one.
In Essence, I am only asking for my right. If I am given that, I’ll be happy to continue without creating more problems, as I have been.
Yours Truly
-
Nimesh Sharma
