Aircel — Misselling by Thakur Village Branch personnel

Hi,

I currently am using an Aircel post paid connection which i got activated on 17th January 2010. Everything was more than fine till the sale was made and the connection active.
I have started facing problems only from 19th January.

1)misselling by staff and non disclosure of Aircel's terms for ISD
2)very impolite staff
3)no gallery contact details

A traceback of events
1) A friend of mine took the connection on 18th January and was advised that the card will be active in 4 hours. We checked on 19th at around 1pm and it wasn't active. We called the helpline number but they said they couldn't help. Tried finding the Thakur Village Gallery number but it is not available anywhere. I got the number of a regional supervisor from this website itself and spoke to a lady called Pooja. Immediately within a few minutes i got a call from Alka (one of the personnels at the gallery) inquiring why i had called the supervisor. Post that she told me different things, the phone is already active, when i said no, i was told that the documents have been sent, when i asked her to check again in the background i heard another executive saying that they hadn't sent the documents. To cut a long story short, she promised the card will get active in 2 hrs. We checked again at 7pm and it wasn't done. So i called the supervisor again (phone switched off), apallette officer (phone switched off) and out of no choice Alka again thrice (she did not answer). Then she called me back, almost screaming why i had called her on her personal number. That was the first time i got to know it was her personal number! when i inquired for the gallery number, Alka told me that there is no gallery number as there is no gurantee of it being answered incase of customers being there in the gallery! Maybe aircel should train their staff better and atleast install some phone in the gallery. How is a customer supposed to get in touch with anyone at aircel (pls don't answer customer service, as they themselves have said that they can't help!)

2) I had primarily taken the aircel card for ISD. On the day i went to the gallery to inquire about the card, i was not told of any deposit for ISD. I was only told of a verification.
I had been following up on that for a week, constantly calling Alka, and on one ocassion was told 'i don't know the timeline in which the verification will happen'. Its pretty funny that Aircel would accept my request for the ISD pack and not know anything about timelines for activation! Frustrated, i walked into the gallery again on 23rd Jan, 2010, Saturday around 7.30 pm. I spoke to a lady called Neha Thakur. She explained to me that a refundable deposit of Rs.5000 as per my profile is to be made for the ISD to be activated. If so was the case, how come Alka didn't tell me about it? She just sold me the Rs.50 add on ISD pack happily without even bothering to tell me about the deposit. This kind of misselling is absolutely unacceptable. Infact the gallery does not have a single document with the aircel logo about the ISD deposit rates (i have copies of all the documents available with the branch) All they have is a flimsy A4 sheet with rates printed (which again i saw fro the first time that day) Anyways Neha promised to check and call me the next day. On 24th Jan, 2010, Alka called me and accused me of not remembering that she had told me of the deposit (which she never had, she had not shown me the deposit rate sheet either) and only when i threatened a complain at consumer complaints she agreed to check with her supervisors and let me know today.
I just received a call from Alka (20 mins ago) and she for the first time explained the categories of deposits for ISD! Wow...so you sell a product to a customer without all details and then after a week remember the strings attached! I am unwilling to pay a deposit when i was not informed about it at the time of opting for that service!

I think what Aircel is doing is just conning people into getting new connections and then following it up with a 'heaven may care attitude'. I can't comment on the coverage (as its only been a week and seems ok so far), but what i surely will say is that the sales guys at the gallery are misselling to customers and are not trained well and are rude.

What Alka and Aircel doesn't realise is that within 300 mts of their gallery are those of tata and vodafone...i'll switch service (no big deal) but i won't drop this and will take all the efforts to let other unsuspecting customers know that Aircle at Thakur Village mis-sells. So pls check eveything on your own, don't depend on the staff. Try at your own risk...I am regretting it already. Have spent atleast 4 hrs cumulatively on this Aircel hassle.

I'll wait and see who from Aircel gets back to me and when!

Regards,
Sonal Shah
[protected]@gmail.com