Airtel — International Billing Issue

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

My Airtel Number is :[protected] User Category: Platinum Years with Airtel: Atleast 6 years. Issue: International Billing Issue Issues Since: December 5th 2013 Credit Limit before I left for US: 13000 INR Background: I was to travel to USA for three weeks from November 22nd till December 13th 2013 and hence I contacted airtel to activate basic international package of 3500 INR. I started my travel and within a couple of days, I was told that package does not contain data option and hence for cost saving you can activate a 999 INR basic data plan. I activated that. After few days o[censored]sage, Airtel notified me through a SMS that my usage has reached 8000 INR and asked me if I wish to continue. I said replied YES. I got an SMS again after a couple of days that my Usage is touching 10000 INR and do I wish to continue and I said yes. I got an SMS again after a couple of days that my Usage is touching 13000 INR and do I wish to continue and I said yes. Post this, I stopped getting any notification or confirmation. After 3-4 days, I asked my wife to check with airtel only to know that a bill of 36, 000 INR. I was shocked. The amount was 3 times my credit limit and I was told that data usage was high. I immediately asked airtel to block data package. And this does not end here, the amount was only tll 4th December and hence another huge bill was awaiting me going by what Airtel did with my this bill. No one proactively informed us about high usage of data given the fact that I had only a basic package of 999 INR was activated. There was no message or call to ask me for confirmation on usage. The SMS that I received til 13000 was to inform me about my unbilled usage and I replied yes till 13000 knowing that once bill is generated discounts will be applied. My wife opened a ticket with airtel in first week of december, our questions to airtel were the following: 1) How come the usage reached 3 times and Airtel did not barred my services? 2) Why in the world was I not informed that my data usage is going higher and that my basic package limit has been hit? 3) Why did Airtel made a decision to continue with my services when I did not respond to their confirmation message when my usage went beyond 13000 INR? 4) I actually never received messages beyond 13000 INR and hence could not reply. Why was a no response from me was interpreted as a YES response. 5) Why was there no attempt by Airtel to call me and inform me that my usage is too high and we need your confirmation? 6) When the usage reached 3 times for the bill period of 4th Novemeber to 4 December 2013, why did Airtel continued my services without seeking my approval? I was told on 2nd February 2014 that though system sees that a lot of calls have been made on issue to Aritel but no ticket has been generated. The CSR that time told that all the previous CSRs have for some reason not created a ticket for your issue. This guy also told me that in December he sees that system increased my credit to 50000 INR which according to him has caused all problems. I have been using airtel for years and whenever credit limit has increased, it has taken 3-6 months to gain additional credit based on last few months usage. How in this case the system updated limit by approx 5 times when never in the past my usage has been this much. I smell foul play here and I think airtel CSR must have increased my limit and now they say its regular system action. Its been more than 60 days and I get daily reminder calls for bill but no one has called me to discuss my issue. Every call they tell someone will call for first 45 days and now they tell me to send email, call this guy call that guy. Tickets have been closed saying everything is right without even talking to me. Now my outgoing has been debarred. I have told them multiple times that you cannot force me to pay and cannot threaten me. Airtel is trying all it can to ignore my issue and force me to pay. They are harassing me by calling every day and when I tell them that you first fix my issue, the person who call every day fo not even know that I have an issue. I am not saying that I will pay a meagre amount. I know my usage could be 15 to 20 thousand but not what Airtel says. They forced me into this position by not acting responsibly and now they are shedding their accountability. I need help. Airtel has all records of my calls and history. Please let me know if you need additional information. Thanks in advance.