Airtel Fiber: Got cheated by Airtel employee

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Airtel customer care is not refusing the payment.

ok , so they acknowledge then the payment is made. Maybe it's a billing issue that will get rectified after some time.

I talked to 4 to 5 people till now. The conversation they do is usually like this.
"Okay sir no problem even if u paid in UPI", "Okay sir, no issues, we will make the guy refund the amount to you", "okay sir, no need to worry just share the UPI receipt", "Okay sir we have escalated the issue to higher-ups".
After emailing and further explaining, I will get SMS saying issue is resolved and complaint is closed
Happened thrice.

You don't owe them anything for the next two months

 

[Ssreek]

ok , so they acknowledge then the payment is made. Maybe it's a billing issue that will get rectified after some time.
You don't owe them anything for the next two months

They confirmed they only received 1500 and not 3500. And they billed me this (2nd) month.
And I just have 4 more days to pay bill before they levy late charges. I'm confused whether to pay or not.

I'm just waiting for Airtel to either resolve or close the request like they did earlier. They emailed that they'll resolve on 11 feb by 11AM.

Monday it's either police complaint or consumer forum site.

Telangana State Police

www.tspolice.gov.in

Make an account and lodge a petition online with Telangana Police website.
Share screenshots, his name and mobile number. After you submit it, a constable or someone from Police will call you asking what happened.
Since it's lodged on police website, they can't close the complaint just like that.
Most probably they'll call both parties to Police Stn. You can ask for refund from the guy on the spot.

Thanks for providing the info.
Does this involve going to court or something?

 

[blr_p]

They confirmed they only received 1500 and not 3500. And they billed me this (2nd) month.
And I just have 4 more days to pay bill before they levy late charges. I'm confused whether to pay or not.

Don't pay it.

I'm just waiting for Airtel to either resolve or close the request like they did earlier. They emailed that they'll resolve on 11 feb by 11AM.

Monday it's either police complaint or consumer forum site.

There is a disconnect with their billing department. If the CS people say everything is fine then the billing people need to get the message. Tell Billing to talk to their customer service. lol.

This is why I think the higher-ups have more or less ignored you. They think this is a self-resolving problem.

I talked to 4 to 5 people till now. The conversation they do is usually like this.
"Okay sir no problem even if u paid in UPI", "Okay sir, no issues, we will make the guy refund the amount to you", "okay sir, no need to worry just share the UPI receipt", "Okay sir we have escalated the issue to higher-ups".
After emailing and further explaining, I will get SMS saying issue is resolved and complaint is closed
Happened thrice.

There is no need for a refund. You already paid for 3 months of service. Let them chase after the guy you gave the money to

 

[dazzwilliams]

Does this involve going to court or something?

No it doesn't involve court yet.
This is just a complaint with Police. Only when both parties cannot resolve the issue, police ask if you want to lodge an FIR.
Based on FIR, a case lodged will involve going to local magistrate/court.
Mostly with a phone call from police, the guy will get scared and pay back the amount.

 

[captivating]

Paying employees directly is a red flag. Park the evidence.

For now, produce the receipt and push for a refund or billing adjustment.

Best reply and grab that guy with a banger. Airtel is going down just like Vodafone and idea . I am facing speed issues with airtel . Every 5 mins my airtel connection from fiber changes to 1mbps connection . I have posted on twitter , emails , appellate but they are not able to solve it

 

[Ssreek]

Airtel keeps calling every 2 days assuring me that issue will be resolved. Instead they keep closing the complaints without any resolution.
I called their customer care and asked what comments they have written for closure of the complaints, guess what, they said they need not write any comments as closure and can close the tickets easily.
Meanwhile no response from appellate authority or nodal or grievance officers.

Lodged a grievance on https://consumerhelpline.gov.in/
Is this the only website we need to complain about for consumer affairs, or are there any other websites I need to submit?

 

[frozenscotch]

Try https://pgportal.gov.in/Home/LodgeGrievance

 

[Sanjay_Shinde]

Try https://pgportal.gov.in/Home/LodgeGrievance

This is what I was thinking to suggest, so far it worked like charm for me against Jio, Flipkart, Local Government officers etc

 

[Ssreek]

Try https://pgportal.gov.in/Home/LodgeGrievance

This is what I was thinking to suggest, so far it worked like charm for me against Jio, Flipkart, Local Government officers etc

Ok. Will do there as well.
Somehow I feel airtel won’t care about consumer grievance as well and simply escape.

 

[Sanjay_Shinde]

Ok. Will do there as well.
Somehow I feel airtel won’t care about consumer grievance as well and simply escape.

I don't think so, When I complained about Jio, I got call from their HQ that too from higher ups.

 

[Ssreek]

I don't think so, When I complained about Jio, I got call from their HQ that too from higher ups.

I see. I got call today from the same 121 customer care about the grievance and said the same "we are forwarding it to the concerned team". Listening to this catchphrase from 1 week .
I thought atleast some higher-up will call.

 

[Sanjay_Shinde]

I see. I got call today from the same 121 customer care about the grievance and said the same "we are forwarding it to the concerned team". Listening to this catchphrase from 1 week .
I thought atleast some higher-up will call.

Bad luck so far, Register complaint on PGportal and wait for a week. They will run behind you to close ticket with resolution.

 

[nRiTeCh]

Airtel people asking in cash is too outdated and unethical.
All major isps like hathway, jio, tata etc. dont entertain anything in cash but only online payments or cheques!
What a major loophole airtel has which it doesn't even care about...

 

[smnrock]

Airtel people asking in cash is too outdated and unethical.
All major isps like hathway, jio, tata etc. dont entertain anything in cash but only online payments or cheques!
What a major loophole airtel has which it doesn't even care about...

actually even airtel does not accept cash afaik, not sure where it went wrong with OP.

 

[Ssreek]

Airtel people asking in cash is too outdated and unethical.
All major isps like hathway, jio, tata etc. dont entertain anything in cash but only online payments or cheques!
What a major loophole airtel has which it doesn't even care about...

actually even airtel does not accept cash afaik, not sure where it went wrong with OP.

The airtel “representative” who called me, said you can pay to upi also and he didn’t inform that they can even send link for payment. This could be my mistake but I didn’t expect to be scammed so easily by an employee working in such a company.
I have used act, excitel and bsnl in the past and everyone collected money through agents/employees and never faced issue.

I asked Airtel’s customer care about this and whether I did wrong in giving money to their representative, they only said it is fine and take receipt if you paid in cash.

The loophole is, these fellows working in their company. Employees brave enough to scam, customer care lousy enough to say we are working on the issue, forwarding to team, and then closing without comments or resolution, nodal/appellate fellows not even caring to respond. Some of you might hate this, but I had better experience from bsnl employees than airtel.

 

[smnrock]

Some of you might hate this, but I had better experience from bsnl employees than airtel.

Nothing to hate, thats actually true. I always had better experience with govt entities than private ones. And airtel has one of the worst customer service.

 

[Abhishek Shukla]

This is what I was thinking to suggest, so far it worked like charm for me against Jio, Flipkart, Local Government officers etc

Isn't this for Govt. entities only?

 

[frozenscotch]

Isn't this for Govt. entities only?

nope. it covers maximum establishments, just have a look at the site.

@Ssreek just file the complaint and leave it. Also, suggest to continue with Airtel services, you dont have problem with the service , its problem with the billing, right . Why to loose the service just coz of some scambag employee. Just keep ur followup mails till you get refund and in the end, try asking for extra benefit like in internet speed or free access to some OTTs on xstream. I know this is hasstle to followup but, thats easy the route without much deviation from your normal life.

I dont know how consumer court case works, if anybody can put their experience here, can be useful for OP

 

[Ssreek]

Here is an update..Something interesting has happened today.

Got calls from several of airtel's higher-ups today and all of them assured me of a resolution. They found his managers and they eventually got hold of that guy. Even then he didn't answer their phone calls at the first time and they had to call him several times.
When that guy came to know that I have complained to higher-ups, he immediately called me and screamed about why I have complained to them, little did he know that the higher-ups were already on conference call with me. Guy got spooked and his voice went from one end of the spectrum to other end.

Atleast now they are saying they will resolve the issue soon. Guess what, the guy already scammed 2 more customers recently and they too have complained it seems.
Let's see what they will "resolve".

 

[blr_p]

How many Airtel employees does it take to resolve a simple issue like this?

reminds me of joke about number of students required to change a light bulb