Airtel — i am complaining about the huge and invalid international data roaming charges levied on my airtel mobile bill

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

I would like to highlight that i am facing a big time harassment from airtel regarding the wild & erratic bill generated for the month ending 22nd december 2017. The invoice raised was rs. 48, 244.78, which includes the international data roaming of more than rs.40, 000 for 1.5 days for my trip to maldives. Following are the points which would validate my position:

1) firstly, i never asked any airtel executives to activate any international roaming facility on my phone number, so how was it activated? On discussions with the airtel executives, they have different and lame answers. Firstly, they say that your number had a provision for that and you initiated the same while you were on international roaming in july 2017. I would like to highlight here, i never requested for anything as such and i have never been on any international trip since last 3 years.

2) secondly, they say that as soon as you dialed a number from maldives to india, we activated the international roaming facility. Here, i would like to highlight that couple of times before going to maldives, i tried calling from india to maldives but those calls never went through, as they say that international facility is not available on your phone. So, how could my call go through when i was in maldives, isn't it fishy? To this, i also have to say that my wife also uses airtel and when she tried making a call from maldives to india, she could not and her data was also not working. So how come, there are different treatments for the same network users.

3) thirdly, when my credit limit is 3600, then why my services were not stopped? Airtel executives brought it in a caveat here saying that while you are on international trip, this credit limit is not in force, i mean how would a customer know about these hidden exceptions.

4) fourthly, even if the ir facility got activated somehow, which i still consider it as a highly unlikely event, isn't it a duty of the vendor company to inform or warn its customers about it? The airtel executives are clearly lying here, saying that we have sent you warning messages. I have several messages in my inbox, but i would like to honestly point out here that i did not receive any message from airtel as soon as my ir data started working.

5) fifthly, if somehow my mobile data was working, it would have got used for a couple of hours en route airport to hotel. Once i was in hotel premises, i was completely on hotel's wi-fi and not on mobile data. Then how can this be possible? On this, the airtel customer care says that your wi-fi must be weak so automatically, the mobile data would have got used. Is this a way to explain the bill, seriously.

6) i only came to know that airtel is charging me for mobile internet, when i got the first message from airtel on 2nd dec regarding internet usage of rs 787. At that time, i believed that that it may have been an error as it is not possible since i was using the wi-fi, anyway to avoid any further problems, i turned off my mobile data. Then the next day, at 6.20 am, i received another message from airtel, that you have used data worth rs 5, 129 and as a precaution we will disable your service. I was shocked to see a bill of 5, 129 since i could not believe how airtel is charging me when i am on wi-fi and my mobile data being switched off. At 10:48 am, i again received a message from airtel that your international data roaming services charge is 5, 129 and your internet service will be blocked temporarily. At 11:50 am, i received another message from airtel that your services have been barred. I was somewhat relaxed that there be a end to it to this undue and invalid charges. All the screenshots of those messages have been attached. But to wildest surprise, when my bill was generated i was asked to pay close to rs. 50, 000. My question is once my data services were barred, how the bill can shot up to close to 50, 000? Airtel executives say that the data may not have been real-time. On the contrary, they say that there is no human intervention involved and everything is software based. Then my question is, if the process is so dynamic then how can the information you send to customers be lagged.

I have read several posts on facebook and twitter related to the same problems witnessed by other customers and they have been harassed in a similar manner. Here, i would like to say, that i cannot accept the wrong charges indicted on me by airtel which is by all means wrong. Also all the above communication suggest that big harassment is being done on me for last 30 days or more.