[Resolved]  Vodafone Postpaid — Horrible Customer Care Support from Vodafone

Dear Sir:

I, Arunava Bhattacharya, being a Vodafone (earlier as Hutch) post-paid customer (# [protected]) for the last 7 years and never been a defaulter in making monthly bill payments.

Due to my professional obligations, I will be out of town for around one and half years and for that reason I wanted to change my connection as lifetime/normal pre-paid connection. In this regard, I visited your Dalhousie Square Customer Care Office on July 22, 2008. Please read below how they have misguided me and still doing that irrespective of my repeated requests, follow-ups as well as reminders to resolve the issue. I would request you to please look into this immediately and arrange to resolve it at the earliest.

1. Mr. Prasenjit: I met him at around 6:30 PM at your Dalhousie Square Centre on July 22 and after hearing my request, he suggested me to opt for your life time post-paid connection which is just Rs. 49 for CLI and Rs. 148 (promo offer) for Vodafone to Vodafone 1500 minutes free talk time. Another Rs. 75 (promo offer) will allow me to call other mobiles/landlines at Rs. 0.50. He confirmed me that it will get activated within 48-72 hours and I will get a confirmation call from your customer care department to verify my request in this regard. Accordingly I SMSed (ACT LIFETIME to 111) on July 23, 2008 to activate this plan.

2. Mr. Ayan: On Aug 02, 2008, at around 8:24 PM, I called up (at your customer care number) and spoke to him. He confirmed me the same offer and when I asked him when the plan will get activated (as I didn’t hear back anyone from your side within this period), he checked my account and confirmed that everything is fine and the new plan will get activated from my next billing cycle.

3. Mr. Sumit: On Aug 05, 2008, at around 8:41 PM, when I called up and asked what’s the status of the plan (as my next billing cycle was starting from Aug 6) since I didn’t receive any call towards confirmation of the plan, surprisingly he told me that there is no such promo offer of Rs. 148 (Vodafone to Vodafone 1500 minutes free) in your lifetime post-paid connection. Immediately I lodged a complaint and Mr. Sumit confirmed me that he is forwarding my complaint to the concerned department and I will hear back within 48-72 hours. The line got disconnected in between and when I called back again around 8:48 PM, I spoke to Ms. Chayanika and she confirmed me the same what I heard from Mr. Sumit.

4. Ms. Poonam: On Aug 07, 2008, at around 7:35 PM, I spoke to her and she gave me the same story.

5. Mr. Biswajit Chatterjee: He called me up on Aug 12, 2008 at around 1:36 PM and gave the same story. His personal mobile number is [protected] and desk number is [protected].

6. Ms. Paromita: On Aug 19, 2008, at around 6:46 PM, I spoke to her and she gave me the same story.

7. Mr. Raju: I got frustrated and visited to your Dalhousie Square Centre again on Aug 22, 2008 at around 5:15 PM and spoke to Mr. Raju. When I told him to get my account back to my old plan of Rs. 299, since there is no Rs 148 promo offer in lifetime post-paid connection and under Rs.49 plan, the call charges are much higher which I cant afford. He checked my account and confirmed me that it will get transferred to my original plan of Rs. 299 effective Aug 6 billing cycle and I will get a confirmation within 48-72 hours.

8. Mr. Amit Srivastava: I again visited to your Dalhousie Square Centre on Aug 26, 2008 and spoke to Mr. Amit. When I asked him about the status of transferring my account back to the original plan of Rs. 299, he checked and confirmed me due to some technical fault, it didn’t happen yet, however it will be done within next 48-72 hours and I will get a confirmation. He also confirmed that it will surely reflect in my billing cycle dated Aug 6, 2008 – Sept 5, 2008.

9. Mr. Bikas Saha: On Sept 01, 2008, at around 4:30 PM, I spoke to him and on enquiring about the status, he checked and confirmed that it hasn’t done yet; however, it will be done within 48-72 hours. The line got disconnected in between and when called back again, I spoke to Mr. Dipayan and he gave me the same story.

10. A trainee: I visited to your Minto Park Vodafone Customer Care Centre on Sept 03, 2008 at around 2:45 PM and spoke to a trainee person (I didn’t get the name). Surprisingly I got to know that the plan hasn’t got changed to my original plan of Rs. 299 and it will no get changed also. It will only get changed from next billing cycle only, i.e. Sept 6, 2008.

11. Mr. Biswajit: He called me up on Sept 5, 2008 at around 6:31 PM from [protected] and informed that it got changed from Aug 6, 2008 in my old original plan of Rs. 299.

12. Ms. Chayanika: On Sept 6, 2008 at around 7:22 PM I called up again at your customer care and spoke to her. She informed me that the plan didn’t get changed to the original plan of Rs. 299 on Aug 6, 2008; however, it got changed effective Sept 4, 2008.

13. I got an SMS on Sept 07, 2008 at 3:44 PM saying that my total bill amount for the last month (billing cycle Aug 6, 2008) is Rs. 938.25. Now this amount is highly unacceptable to me as it’s clearly around Rs. 200 higher than my normal billing amount and I am sure that this has happened due to your misguidance to customers, putting customers under wrong billing plans and of course due to horrible customer care support process.

I am sorry for this long note; however, I hope that you can understand how I am being harassed by your Customer Care Executives till now through continuous misguidance, providing false hopes and wrong information. Every time when contacted, it seems that they just wanted to get rid of the issue or me by saying the problem will be resolved within next 48-72 hours. If you consider this as the ideal customer care process that you provide to your valued customers, I do not have anything to say.

I would expect a proper action from your side to fix this unacceptable process of customer handling and would look forward towards your immediate attention to resolve my issues.

Thank you.

With Best Regards,

Arunava Bhattacharya
[protected]