[Resolved]  Airtel — Airtel Prepaid and balance deduction

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

I was planning to change my number for a while now and was not sure of the MNP procedure, and when I finally found out what I had to do, I sent a porting request. The next day I get a call from Airtel saying that I have an offer for 180 days with 1p/2sec Airtel to Airtel 2p/3sec A-others and 100 sms daily free. All I had to do was to send an SMS sayin CNCL to 222 within 24 hrs. My sim validity was until jan 27th and the Airtel representative told me to do a sim validity recharge and then send this sms. When I called up customer care they asked me to recharge for rs. 94 and I would get 1 year validity. I tried doing that and it wasn't going through. I give a call again and they respond by saying that there are no validity recharges anymore!! I give a call the next day. And someone asks me to recharge for 54 and send the sms. And i do so(all this within a span of 24 hrs). And i do not get the benefit even after 72 hrs(which is how long they said would take). So i give them a call( and meanwhile I had recharged for rs. 18 for 300 local sms), and tell them the issue which they said would be resolved within 4 days. And my call rates became 1p/2sec for 2 days. They give me a call to check if everything was fine and not knowing the sms benefit(since i recharged for rs. 18 and still had sms ' left) told them, "yes".- the biggest mistake apart from believing that Airtel was professional and gave good service. I start getting charged re 1 for each message and when I tried calling Airtel again, they put me on hold for a long time and heard out my problem and said they would transfer me to a supervisor. The line got cut after holding for over 5 min and if i try calling again, It does not go through. it says that I have to dial *121*2# fro balance and validity, etc. And the call gets cut instantly. This has been happening over 25 times at least. So to avoid losing any more money, I recharge for 18 again and check my special balance it says 0 left. and I am still being charged for smses and I have lost rs. 18 in the process. This AWFUL experience with Airtel has made my mind so lucid about the fact that I should never trust airtel and will keep away from them here on. I am facing terrible problems with my broadband connection as well, and am going to change that as well. I have advised many people to go for Airtel for their excellent support, service and professionalism; I will STRONGLY recommend anyone to stay away from airtel and their patheic services and day light robbery from now on. I don't even think there is any point in writing to Airtel as the replies they give a clear indication that they do not really need to keep their customers happy and give no regard to their grievances.