Airtel — Balance deduction for no apparent reason

Address:	New Delhi, Delhi, 110025
Website:	www.airtel.in

Today, on 17th Jan, 2016 at 1:20 AM, I used the myAirtel App to recharge my phone with Rs.250 full talktime and Rs.500 in my Airtel wallet. The transaction went smoothly and without any problems whatsoever, I was happy with the service at that point. I used the data I had leftover from a Monthly offer to validate this recharge, After the transaction I had ~45 MB of data left, So I switched Mobile Data off and turned to WiFi. After that I was up until about 4 AM using WiFi to watch some shows online, I did not check the balance afterwards, however I did not feel the need to as I did not use any data services at all. After that, I put my phone on airplane mode, I do that a lot to prevent any unnecessary calls and data transactions, and I went to sleep. I woke up at around ~10:30 AM today and switched the airplane mode off, and still my mobile data was off so I turned on the WiFi and opened the myAirtel App once again to do another recharge via the Airtel wallet this time, however I was shocked to see that it stated that my balance was Rs. 0.02, I thought it might be an error because my balance before the recharge was close to Rs. 0.06, So I dialled *123* on my phone to check the balance and yet again the balance read Rs. 0.02. I pulled down my notification drawer and went into my data usage to see if by mistake the data had somehow been left on even though I had my phone on airplane mode when I woke up. But the data usage on my phone was 0.35GB for this month which is the same as it was last night after the recharge. I decided to call Airtel customer care to know why this much balance had been deducted from my account even though I am not subscribed to any services which would periodically deduct my balance, however I was unable to talk to a customer care executive because "I did not have enough balance to complete the call", Pissed at this point, I went to the nearest store and recharged my account with Rs. 30 to be able to make the call even though It makes no sense that I have to have balance to be able to call customer care but whatever, I finally got through to an executive and told him about my problem, he then told me that he is checking into my matter and asked me to hold, I did. After about 3 whole minutes, he told me that the reason my balance had been deducted was because from 1:33AM to ~10AM my data was turned on. Now, I'm not a fool, I always switch my phone to airplane mode and I know, It is not possible for me to even make a call let alone use the mobile data with the Airplane mode turned on, So I told the executive that it is impossible that my data was switched on from 1:33AM to ~10AM since I only had it on till I recharged my account after which I turned the data off and switched to a 2G band for better network coverage, He persisted on saying that it was turned on for that duration. Okay, Let's assume for a moment, that there was a way that it was possible that my phone can actually magically access internet on its own even if it is on airplane mode/flight mode, I still have 45MB worth of Night data from Airtel, which just confirms that my Internet was for sure not turned on till 6AM, I was completely alone, so unless a thief came inside my house, picked up my phone, turned on data, use 250Rs. worth of data after 6AM and then left without stealing anything. There is no way possible that my balance would have been deducted. With that being said, I call you out on your explanation Airtel, I want full refunds for this issue and I want you to fix your stuff, This did not happen to me while my number was a Vodafone one, I switched operators thinking this would be better but what do I know, I get charged for going to sleep. Amazing. I am attaching an image of my balance according to Airtel at 11:53AM on 17th of January, 2016 after I had done a 30Rs, talktime recharge which netted me a total of Rs.23.20 talktime, If necessary I will provide any more details on this issue. I hope you take this issue seriously because I like Airtel and I switched mainly because It has the best Internet in my opinion. I do not want to switch carriers. Thank you. Contact me further on [protected]@gmail.com