[Resolved]  Airtel / Data Card — Duped by Airtel coordinator

airtel/data card — 0 speeds on card, inability to resolve issue, non-closure of account despite repeated oral and written instruction, continued billing

I purchased an airtel data card last year and right from the very onset I have had very low connection speeds despite all the promises to the contrary made by the salesperson (Abacus Communications, South Extn, New Delhi) and in the literature that accompanies the card. Within a few months the speeds dropped still further, only reaching a maximum of 8-10 kpbs. Despite repeated complaints to 7070, the technical complaint desk the issue was not resolved.

Furthermore, by January 2008, I stopped getting any connectivity whatsoever with the Data Card at my workplace and the customer care executive and the technical help desk alike assured me it was only a temporary problem caused due to over load on the server. At home every time I attempted to use the card it would work until I opened a url and then hang, still connected at 0 speed. If I attempted to disconnect and reconnect, I would have to reload the driver all over again. It is obviously impossible to keep rebooting every time I wanted to move from one webpage to another and so I began complaining. During the course of that month I have lodged complaints at 121, 7070 and the Airtel Relationship Centre from where I purchased the card. No action was taken. After an extremely frustrating month of speaking to ever-changing customer care agents, in February I demanded that my card be discontinued as they were unable or unwilling to fix the problem.

Yet again, no action was taken and I continue to receive monthly bills and daily calls from various airtel officers regarding "pending payments". As there was no usage possible on my datacard and I had requested that the card be discontinued, these so-called pending payments are to my mind highly unethical. Finally, extremely harrassed with the constant calls, I discussed the issue with a Mr Pawan and agreed to pay Rs 1000 Rs as final payment (for whatever little usage I had in terms of trying to get the card to work, finding speed dropping to 0 and then having to reboot the driver) with the agreement that the card would now be conclusively discontinued. A Mr Rawat came to my residence and collected the money assuring me that once this amount was logged into the system that day, Airtel would immediately send me a letter confirming the discontinuation of the datacard.

It has now been 18 days since that day and I have not only not received the letter but also received a new bill for this month. It is obviously not against the scheme (599 rs a month) as the bill for this month is Rs 347.37. I had called Mr Rawat regarding the pending letter on the 7th and he assured me it was being sent to me, there had been a delay in processing the paperwork. I called him this morning and he tells me he is on his way to drop the letter off and the delay was because he was out of town.

I am now exceedingly frustrated and annoyed with Airtel's cavalier attitude towards their customer and with the constant and outright lies told by their agents. I expected a company with the sort of legacy Airtel has to be more scrupulous in their dealings and am highly disappointed.