My complaint to Nodal Officer is self explainatory- Basically first airtel gives me an international roaming pack on 29th Nov 2022, the same did not work in bangladesh, I complain on email, no reply, i come back and raise a complaint on 13th dec 2022, for which they agree to refund, I again followup on 28th Dec 2022, Airtel tells me that refund is processed, when I see the statement receivded today there is no refund, and when I ask them today, Some silly supervisors give me a gyan that refund cannot be given because validity of pack is over on Dec 30th 2022. LOOKS LIKE AIRTEL IS EARNING FEW 100 CRORES by doing such malpractices. They should be taken to task.
See my complaint to the NODAL offr-
Please refer to my emails below, wherein a roaming pack for Bangladesh for Rs 1199(Transaction ID[protected] was bought by me on 29th Nov 2022 and the same did not work. I have contacted airtel through email, but no response came (see below), phone obviously was not working since the airtel service did not work at all at Bangladesh. I came back on 11the dec and informed your call centre on 13th Dec 2022 and spoke to one Runzum, she told me that that Rs 1199 pack not for Bangladesh and the same was there in your airtel Website by mistake and as it did not work, she assured me that a refund will be given within 5-7 working days. As the refund did not come, I called again on 28th December and I was told by your representative that the refund is already issued. Today, when I received the bank statement, I noticed that the refund had not come.
Today, I have again called the call centre, the representative was unable to comment on the case and my call was transferred to one supervisor, Ms. Saima, who instead of giving logical replies to my questions, was only saying that the refund cannot be processed . She also went to the extent that I have done a wrong recharge and Rs 1199 recharge is not for Bangladesh while every one in aitel should know that you have changed the policy on 30th November 2022 . while this was confirmed in the first call itself that 1199 recharge for Bangladesh was appearing in your website by airtel's mistake, she kept on arguing that I have done wrong recharge. It looks like she is not aware about the policies of airtel and the affected changes. Airtel only seems to be training her to say REFUND CANNOT BE PROCESSED and customer(especially Prepaid one) is always wrong and you can treat them shabbily and fool around with them. She did confirm that services were not used at all in Bangladesh. when asked why was i told in previous calls, that refund will be processed, she claimed that she doesnt know and she will investigate but refund will not be given. Further Saima nonchalantly said that so what if the service did not work, airtel is not going to give refund even if it was agreed in the previous calls. She further told that I should have called 3 days after taking the pack and how would i call if the roaming pack itself does not work and why was this not discussed in the first call itself on 13 Dec 2022 ( then again on 28th dec 22, wherein your guy has confirmed that the refund has been sent to my account). This clearly shows the malafide intention of Airtel and manipulating information by bringing in new rules after such a long time.
I later called again just to make airtel's stand very clear and call was picked by miss Runzun, who also could not give any details about the issue. but she informed me that i have used the international roaming for some calls. when I probed further, she could not produce any concrete information on what she claimed. This just shows that each one of your representatives speaks differently during different times, probably because the defrauding techniques airtel is teaching them. She further transferred the call to on shasic, who also refused to understand the matter and kept on repeating that refund will not be given and started quoting the funny 3 days rule which is neither mentioned in your website not is it been given in any terms also (see attachment) and extract below:
:"Prepaid subscribers can book their IR pack up to 30 days prior to the actual date of travel. The pack validity will start only when the customer latches on to international network of any country covered by the pack and makes any chargeable usage like Outgoing/Incoming SMS or outgoing/Incoming voice call/data consumption. In case the customer doesn’t travel till the end of 30 days, then the pack automatically expires. The customer will not be entitled to any reimbursement of amounts used to purchase IR pack(s) upon expiry. 10. For Prepaid customers, pack validity starts only when the customer latches on to international network of any country covered by the pack (within 30 days of purchase as stated above) and makes any chargeable usage like Outgoing SMS/incoming or outgoing call/data consumption. The calculation of validity for prepaid IR packs shall be based on Indian Standard Time (IST) and shall expire at 11:59 PM midnight IST."
To me this act of AIRTEL is only a plot to steal, usurp money from gullible prepaid customers who are generally illiterate and less educated people but that does not give Airtel a licence to loot people by cheating them. Let me remind you that airtel has been given a licence to operate telecom services and not loot and cheat people. Whether you refund the money or not this plot has to be brought to the attention of the authorities, which will of course be done as it needs to be checked as to what volume of money is airtel making by using these cheap tricks. I for sure will not use any of your services and would also advise my company to discontinue the existing services.
I do have the recording of all my conversations, which could be produced to relevant authorities.
SHARAD SOOD
[protected]
Airtel customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
