Airtel — billed for data usage under international roaming when no usage was made

Address:	560005
Website:	airtel.in

I have the following complaint against airtel :

I travelled to the uk between the 28th oct and the 10 nov 2017. I had enabled ir services for 150 rs and was aware that if i make or receive calls or use data, the charges will be extra. Hence i had switched off the data and made sure i never make any calls or receive any calls during my trip.

This month i received a bill of 6473.42 inr when normally my bill is around 1100 inr. Since i was sure i did not make any calls nor use any data on my trip (I had switched off data before boarding the flight, and used skype to make all my calls in uk) i checked my bill and found out that :

1. I was billed 4543 inr for international roaming @ 649 unlimited incoming - 1 day pack nrc on 28th, 29th, 31st oct and 1st, 2nd, 4th, 09th nov and the associated gst rates.
2. In the itemized statement under international roaming i had some charges for mobile internet. This is not possible because my data was not on during the whole trip.
3. No other charges were visible to justify the activation of the 1 day pack.

I made a call to the customer care and informed them that i did not make any calls to justify this activation. They said they will look into the matter and get back to me.

Today i received a call from airtel to tell me :

1. These charges are justified and they are because i “supposedly sent sms during my trip. When i asked darren (The escalation manager) for the details, he sent me a new invoice to my email.
2. The new invoice now had some sms details under international roaming – 2. B sms which was not there in the initial invoice
3. A new line item was added : outgoing call – voice on 29th oct, the number was no_cli for 00:55 and 0 pulse.
4. I checked all the numbers under this list and all of them are spam numbers according to trucaller.

These are the discrepancy i noticed :
1. The bill sent by the escalation manager and the bill i received initially are different
2. The numbers mentioned as sms are to spam numbers that nobody would message.
3. I see sms sent on 6th 7th 8th nov in the new invoice, but i don’t see any 1-day pack activation for those days. Which shows clearly that there is something wrong in the billing and that airtel has made some changes with do not seem logic.
4. I am 100 % sure i did not send or receive any calls, that i did not use any data (It was switched off) and that i did not send any sms, still these charges appear suddenly like magic after i probe the customer care.

In order to move forward, i asked them :
1. The raw logs which show what sms was sent to these numbers if at all they were sent.
2. The raw logs which show what sites where accessed using the mobile data.
3. A mail from airtel explaining why there was a discrepancy in the original invoice and the new invoice.

Now i got another call from them stating the issue is with data usage not sms.

I have escalated the issue to their nodal officer for the following reasons :

1. The daily pack was activated on different days, they did not even send me a mail or sms to inform me of this activation.
2. They are billing me for internet usage. And saying there is no data to prove it but that it is valid. I am saying i did not use it. I asked that they share with me the logs so that we are clear on if any website or application was accessed during this time.
3. I spoke to 3 different people in their company who gave 3 different reasons for the charges (1. They said it was calls i made, 2. They said i sent sms. 3. They said it was data i used.) and i have received 2 contradictory invoices for the same period.

Without any explanations they want me to pay nearly 7k worth invoice.