Harassment by Tata Docomo Broadband

[! 0 t A]

There is this teething issue that i have been battling with Tata Docomo , and now with their "so called" legal department.

This issue dates back to Nov, 2015 in Pune, when i had a Tata Docomo broadband connection. I was on a 6 months advanced rental plan which was active on my number for atleast 3 cycles (1.5 years). In the month on June, 2015; there was a better scheme which was launched by Tata for new customers (standard market practice) and the local installer / sales guy suggested me to take a new connection to avail the benefit (again standard market practice). So i gave into his demand, and a new connection with 6 months advanced rental was activated on the same physical line which was coming into my house.

As a normal user, i assumed that the older connection was automatically disconnected as i was not specifically informed that i needed to do that manually (else i would have done). It was only when i got another advance rental bill for some INR 7.5k that i got to know that the older connection was still active. I called up the CC immediately to discontinue the previous connection. This was however just the start of my journey with them.

They obviously started harassing me for the payment i was giving them all my replies in writing (emails) regarding my issue. The local guy also admitted his mistake but actually emotionally blackmailed me as TD was trying to recover this amount from his salary.

My take for this has always been around the following points :

1. I applied for a new tata connection on the same line which was given to me. I paid in full the advanced rental for that new line.
2. I was never told about the disconnection process for the old number hence i did not know that it had to be done.
3. I lodged a complaint as soon as the bill got generated.
4. The bill generated is for the future 6 months, and not a single KB of data was used as the connection was physically disconnected from my home a month ago (overlap period).

TATA obviously outsourced the whole process to their stupid vasooli firms which used to call me for settlement by paying 50% and what not. Threatening with false legal terms to which i used to give them the standard reply in Point 1 to Point 4. Which obviously went way over their heads and tiny IQ.

This harassment has continued for a good 2 years now. And today, i got a call again from some advocate, that they will send a legal notice and that i will have to go to the Lok Adalat in Delhi within 2 days. I know this might again be some pressure tactic, but just wanted to ask the community, is there a better way to handle this ?

 

[rdst_1]

A summon from Lok Adalat is not an issue. A 'Lok Adalat' can't issue a judgement if you don't go.
I have received a similar summon from BSNL and I didn't go. Later, the BSNL recovery team visited my premises and I gave them an earful about what the issue was. In my case too, they had not disconnected my line. I was being asked to go to the next town to submit the disconnection form at the exchange which I didn't do on principle and I let them know about the same via their greivance portal. They haven't pursued the case any further as that would mean paying a lawyer for documentation and court visits which would cost them more than what I allegedly owe them.

In my case, I would have actually gone to the Lok Adalat hearing if I didn't already have plans of travelling on the same date and they couldn't be changed as I had a flight to catch from another city.
Until you receive a proper notice from a court that a case has been filed against you, you can sit back and relax.

 

[! 0 t A]

I did complaint on the govt. consumer complaint forum and got a follow-up call from a sensible lady (first time in 2 years) saying that they have received a complaint from the consumer forum.

Lets see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

 

[mach9]

I did complaint on the govt. consumer complaint forum and got a follow-up call from a sensible lady (first time in 2 years) saying that they have received a complaint from the consumer forum.

Lets see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Keep at it and update this thread. This is nothing new. Hathway have done the same. Their billing department is the worst I think. I too had a prepaid plan which when it expired I called and told them to disconnect because I'd be out of the country they said to handover the modem to the cable guy.. Which I refused unless they gave me in writing as I didn't want the local guy reusing my connection with someone else.

They conveniently didn't bother to follow up by kept calling me to pay bills.. Which I said there's no question of paying any bills because my connection and plan was a prepaid plan.. This automatically meant.. no payment no service.. But obviously their crappy backend billing support have no sense. I was continuously spammed with emails for bills every few months which despite me writing on email and getting them to acknowledge that I should ignore the bills.. It went on and on. I finally just ignored them

 

[puns]

this lok adalat & threat from some lawyer on phone... ignore. they are third party and just threaten.