Planning To Take Airtel To Consumer Court.. Anybody Else in ?

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Spacescreamer

Spacescreamer

Innovator
Hi..

As they say .. Enough is Enough.

Airtel has done this to me earlier as well but this time i am in no mood to foot their bills due to their mismanagement and ambitious designs.

I was peacefully sleeping and i was sent a msg at 1:51 AM that i have been subscribed to Alarms and Alerts and would be charged Rs 30 on 6-9-10.

That i shd call on xxxxxxx number to deactivate.

First of All, i was fast asleep from 9PM - 5AM so no question of sending any sms to Airtel at that hr.

Cell was with me only and nobody else operated it either.

Secondly, this is not abt Rs 30. Of the billion+ customer base, even if they keep charging 10 customer like this in a round robin fashion, they ll be making some 'dirty money' with ease.

I am not one bit interested in letting them take money from my pocket this time round. If they dont recover due bills from fraudulent internet subscribers, if they dont take back the free modems then that is not my problem one bit.

What i can and plan to do:

1) Will speak to a customer care executive and plan to slowly start running him down on the phone.

will ask for his name and tell him that i ll mention his name in the report in the consumer court that this fellow attended my call regarding this and that i am recording this phone call at my end as well for reference sake.

Will set the wheel and his bowels in motion i believe.

2) If i dont get a response in 5 days time, i ll file a complaint in the Consumer court.

Sounds fine ?

Anybody else planning to to get some 'harassment compensation' ??
 
I don't have their mobile service, but I have heard this thing being very rampant in the NCR. All my friends who have taken an Airtel connection recently have had the same experience, and have left it for good after repeated complaints didn't help things. I would suggest talking to the Nodal officer directly if you can and letting him know the state of things. Consumer court case is going to be long drawn and you will need to be mentally prepared to keep continuining. At the end of the day, it isn't about the compensation that you might receive - which I believe will be paltry - but about the general spirit of service that is not being upheld today by most providers.
 
@Spacescreamer: Try sending them mail within stating of legal actions going to be taken against them. I am quiet sure that it will helpp you out with your problem as it has helped me with my service provider. One more thing ask them for the proof of your conversation or dealing with them for activation of service & whether they gona provide that or not or you have to take legal action against them.
 
just call them up and say you are changing to vodafone since you are tired of them adding unwanted subscriptions.
 
The sms came from 5433402

It said Thank You for subscribing to Alarm n Alerts. You ll be charged Rs 30/- on 6-9-10.

Enjoy ( Enjoy my frickin #$@!) the service.

To deactivate call xxxxx
Click to expand...

Update:

Time: 10:xx AM

I called up 198 (toll free) for complaint.

Customer Care Rep picked up and started off blabbering abt how he can help.

Me: First of all tell me ur name

CCR: I am abc

Me: Your full name Mr abc

CRR: abc xyz

Me: Mr ABC XYZ at abt 2 AM i am getting an sms from Airtel that i have subscribed to some service and i ll be charged for it. This is the fourth time that has happened to me.

CCR: Sir pls tell me the no from which the sms arrived.

Me: 5433402

This is not something new that has been happened and this time i ll take action. For no reason at all i am given these stupid services and its not just me but my other family members as well. If Airtel has decided to earn money for its stupidities this way, why should i be an idiot to pay up.

I have asked your name specifically because i am planning to take Airtel to court and will file a complaint with details of the CCR as well. I ll dump Airtel altogether as well.

CCR: Sir how mch money has been deducted?

Me: I dont know i made some calls and then i noticed the sms.

CCR: Sir your complaint has been registered and you can call after 4 hrs to see what can be done abt restoration of money.

Me: Give me the complaint number

CCR: Sir u ll receive the sms abt it.

Me (Even More Sternly): You give it to me Now.

CCR: xxxxxx

Call disconnected.

I was very stern with the person throughout. As per the money part, the sms says it wd have been deducted on the aforementioned date but if they still 'restore' the money i am not complaining.

Funny thing is my call was at abt 10:xx and i noticed a new sms with time stamp of 10:xx itself saying service been deactivated.

even if i take my call being made at 10:xx:01 and sms being delivered at 10:xx:59 .. i think Airtel is well aware of what they are trying to do here.

I ll make the call after the 4 hrs anyhow and again be my virulent best with whosoever is the unlucky fellow. Enough of Airtel bull$hit.

I am glad i never used its BBand.

Cheeky #@$t@%*$.
 
6pack said:
just call them up and say you are changing to vodafone since you are tired of them adding unwanted subscriptions.
Click to expand...

Best solution :P

I do it with Vodafone whenever they charge me for no reason.
 
Happens to me too, they just put some random caller tune without notice, then my friends tell me "lol dude what a funny caller tune"...n all that, I got that deactivated by sms, then it got activated again in 2 days, this time i called customer care and told them and got it fixed. So my point is, why do they force services and then later charge us? really irritating.

It would be great if we could take some steps, there is a forum for this, its making a lot of noise these days:

Consumer Forum

Post this there, a lot of the company officials are there and they do take notice.
 
Airtel sucks and im waiting for the number portablity thing to come in place and ill be the first one to switch i dont want to change my number as someone i was close to gave it me.. But Airtel sucks Donkey D@#k....
 
Really pathetic, but not shocking. Service and respect of customer privacy is of no importance in one of the worlds largest emerging telecommunications markets. I dread and feel worried each time I have to call a customer center for any of these service providers. Cause I know nothing is going to happen, and it will be pointless IVRs and idiotic security questions, but not resolution of the issue. There is no civic sense and respect for the fellow citizen. It is the culture of NCR at least. To rough-trod over anyone and everyone in your path. People do not give 2 sh$$$$, same is prevalent in the standard and protocols of customer service.
 
There's a TRAI ruling which says that if any Value Added Service has been activated by mistake and the customer wants to cancel it, he can do so if he calls up within 24 hrs. The telecom provider has to refund the full amount.

Link TRAI:::::::

Happened to me with idea once, by mistake i pressed * during a call and a caller tune got activated for me. I called and asked them to cancel. Their first response was that it cant be done and they gave me a lot of bullshit that since i have activated it myself they wont give a refund, and their system dosent allow it etc etc. When i quoted the TRAI order they shut up and said ok sir this time we'll do it but not next time. They're all out to make a quick buck, and its bloody annoying. It took 4 calls in total for them to refund the amount
 
rajan1311 said:
Happens to me too, they just put some random caller tune without notice, then my friends tell me "lol dude what a funny caller tune"...n all that, I got that deactivated by sms, then it got activated again in 2 days, this time i called customer care and told them and got it fixed. So my point is, why do they force services and then later charge us? really irritating.
Click to expand...
Same here. They suddenly enabled Hello Tunes on my land line with their own bloody theme song and charged me for it in their bill. I called CC and complained, It was deactivated. Then after a month it was again enabled and I was charged. I called up CC and told the girl to get it deactivated and told her about the previous instance as well asking for an explanation. She tells me that its automatically enabled every month and I have to get it deactivated every month. I told her that its illegal to activate services without users permission and charging for it and I also told her I would be sue Airtel if it ever happened again and that I would implicate her as well as I am recording the call and have the airtel complaint ref no as well . After that the service was never activated on my phone again.
 
Well beat this I am carrying a Vodafone Indian number in NZ .I never gave them a request to activate caller tune and a$$0les are charging me 30 bucks per month ,why do i need an caller in international roaming .I am calling the appleate authority now to screw his happyness.Indian providers are turning dodgy these days.

When i called customer service they were like we got a sms request to activate.One sms costs me 30 bucks why would i even send and a call costs me 45rs/- .
 
Got thru with the Appelate authority blasted him for 30 mins everything is fixed now they returned 300 bucks and free international roaming for the next 6 months .
 
Alright, let me share with you guys what happened with my mom's reliance GSM. I bought the reliance GSM for her seeing the STD calls rates to be the lowest and mom uses a lot of STD calls. She generally doesn't keep track of the balance and stuff, and me too never bothered to check regularly.

Once I called mom and I got some weird callertune, I checked the inbox and found out they've activated caller tunes, and sent an sms stating if you want to deactivate, sms xyz to abc number before xx date, else it will be charged. On sending the same SMS, I get a reply stating 'invalid keyword'. WTF?

Then again after few days another stupid pack called 'style' they activated, in which we receive sms for tips on how to be stylish. How lame can they be? All these cost Rs 30/month. Again with the same message stating if you want to deactivate, sms xyz to abc number before xx date, else you'll be charged. I SMS again, and I get the same reply, 'invalid keyword'. I got pissed and called CC, and I wait and wait for 20 mins, no one answers the call.

They continued to charge for both these Rs 60/month for over 3 months after which I finally got through to the CC and blasted them and they deactivated the packs. A quick google search reveals a lot of cases where 'style' gets activated in Reliance GSM and customers can't cancel it easily.
 
I'm with you. Lets drag them to court.

Why? See here.

I filed for cancellation of my then existing Airtel Broadband/Landline connection. The details of which are as follows. Telephone No.: 0114217****, A/C No: *******. The connection is in my name *******
I filed for cancellation with your customer service on telephone in the month of March and was given a complaint no. (330757) , and was told that a rapid action would be taken in 48 hours and will be getting a call from your side for confirmation. Some days later confirmation call came and i confirmed that i do not want to keep my connection anymore. But to my surprise nothing was done, connection was still there in your records. After that also i got many calls saying to choose another connection, plan or transfer the connection to somebody else's name. I strictly told that i do not want to keep my conection anymore. Meanwhile I paid all the bills and cleared everything at my end and paid the last bill on 11 April for the duration 23/Feb/2010 to 22/mar/2010 of Rs.1353 vide cheque no. ****** .
But again to my surprise connection was not disconnected and again i received a bill from your side for the duration 23 Mar,2010 to 23 April,2010 of Rs.1321, irrespective of that i wasnt using any of your services. But by mistake the billl was paid unknowingly by my wife as i was out of station vide cheque no. *****. And again i got calls from your customer service that i want to keep the connection or not to which i said that i've already disconnected my connection. But again after so many requests with the CC and complaints,i still recieved the bill for duration from 23 april to 7May,201 of Rs.352 and of 8th May 2010 to 7th June 2010 of Rs 1200.89, combined total Rs.1553. Now it was more than enough and i again raised an issue with the CC on 13th June 2010 and i was given an assurance along with a complaint no (33810818), that a proper action would be taken in 3 working days and i wont have to pay a single penny from my side when i'm not using any thing, and a refund process would be intitiated. Everything went smooth after that, but suddenly today i got a call from your side that i have pending bills to pay failing which i would be penalised.
Now i want to bring to your notice that please look into the matter and sort out the following things:
1. There hasnt been any usage from my side since I filed for cancellation, so why are the bills coming?
2. Refund for the mistakenly paid bill of duration 23 March to 23 april,2010 of amount rs.1321.
3. Why should i pay bills when i'm not using a thing and when it is disconnected from my side. Its the problem from your side that they are taking months to work on my cancellation call.
4. Please do sort the things as soon as possible.
Expecting prompt action from your side unlike your CC.
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The above mail was sent from my dad to their nodal and appelate officers. But nothing has been done since than. My dad has sent reminder mails for like 4-5 times since then. But all we get is automated replies assuring action from there side and call daily from their CC, sometimes through a person and sometimes from a recorded means for the fulfilment of payment of bills. What i've started doing now is redirecting of all bills back to them. Numerous no. of calls from our side as been made to them for cancellation of connection. But nothing positive has been done yet.
 
you are not alone, same happens with lot of people. mechanism of VAS activation with every provider is plain wrong. In mycase it did not happen automatically but I was tricked.

Unethical Pratices by Service provider(Vodafone)

In end, I managed to get an refund & that's where i stopped. didn't go far with idea of consumer court.

Nowever days, when I get such problem. I mostly write an email to customer care/nodal officier and charges gets refunded. the ones in call center are bloody monkeys with no brains of their own. not worth wasting time talking with them
 
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