[Resolved]  Airtel Broadband — Awful Customer Service

Address:

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Airtel's sales practices and customer services are awful, rude, and just plain unhelpful. This is our last terrible experience because in future, we will neither consider Airtel at all for ourselves nor recommend to any commercial establishment for any of it's services.

We are writing this in the event of harassment and foul play done by Airtel Sales and Technical representatives. All we wanted to have a Leased Line for our official purposes and for this reason we had approached Airtel being heard as a reputed company for which customer satisfaction is the top most priority but what we had faced in dealing with Airtel was just opposite to what we had heard and we are going through the stage of turmoil.

After approaching Airtel for Leased Line we were contacted by Mr. Anurag Lamba [Data Manager, GSM: [protected], Email: anurag.[protected]@airtel.in] and then later on Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai [Sr. Officer | Data Sales, Lucknow (UP) GSM: +91-[protected], Desk:[protected], E-Mail: shailendra.[protected]@airtel.in]. After the initial discussion with Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai we decided to go for Leased Line connection and applied via our Purchase Order (PO) dated Feb 12, 2010. We had also given them the initial payment via cheque of Rs.25,000/- dated March 20, 2010 towards installation and three months' rent.

Since the time of initial discussion, we kept asking for the IP addresses which were supposed to be given to us because we were very much concerned about their blacklisting. We did not want to go ahead with blacklisted IP addresses because we strongly believe that this blacklisting is bound to effect the services and authenticity of the network on which our communication will be done via Leased Line connection in question.

On March 27, 2010 when Mr. Mohit (Technical Person) from Airtel came to install CPE and line connections etc. had told us the IP Addresses which were to be given to us. After we checked the status of those IP Addresses, we found them blacklisted at atleast three servers (out of almost 100 worldwide) who maintain these records of various abuses by IP addresses worldwide. After a series of telephonic discussions and website details to show them blacklisting of Airtel’s IP addresses Mr. Mohit left along with Router (CPE) and told us that we will be contacted either by Sales or Technical person(s) soon on this matter.

Thereafter, we entered in the real world where customer means NOTHING in the eye of a company of repute like Airtel and where persons like Mr. Anurag Lamba and Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai are responsible for sales and maintaining customer relationship but in actual, their sole purpose is to increase their sales figures and meet the targets at ANY COST. Even if customer is left hanging without any firm answers up to their satisfaction they are LEAST BOTHERED but WE as a customer fall prey to their mind games and various techniques to lure the customer to get the connection started somehow to start the billing process, rest does not come under their consideration.

We had addressed our complaint and concerns about the blacklisting of IPs which were to be given to us but all we faced was curt replies, rude talks, lies, false promises, escapism & refusal to solve the problems. All this had happened when connection is NOT ACTIVE as yet. One can easily imagine what will happen once the connection gets started and then a customer like us will be left at the mercy of so called customer relationship manages/executives of Airtel.

Subsequent serious of noteworthy incidents are given as under:

March 27, 2010:
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We sent an email to Mr. Shailenra Kumar Rai and Mr. Anurag Lamba explaining our deep concerns about blacklisting of IP addresses. We also attached screenshots and details supporting to our concerns. But we did not get any reply to our email and after several attempts to reach Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai and Mr. Anurag Lamba we did not get any firm reply that whether we will get clean IPs or not. Then it became a trend that whenever we called we were taken into conference with other persons which were so called seniors sales and technical persons but we do not possibly tell their this for sure and we were always told to let the connect start and see later on which we strongly denied because we were firm on our decision to go with Airtel Leased Line connection with clean IP addresses only.

March 29, 2010:
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We called Mr. Shailenra Kumar Rai to know the status again and during the talks he told us that Technical people from Airtel had already raised their hands that they will not be able to provide clean IPs the very first day (March 27, 2010) this issue was reported by us but still Airtel's staff kept trying to convince us to somehow get the connection started as once the connection starts it becomes the customer's responsibility to prove them innocent for the blacklisted IPs but in actual the IPs were already blacklisted by some way or the other type of abusing by spammers etc. Our question is, when sales people were already told by technical staff that it will not be possible to give clean IPs then why we were not told at that very moment instead of keep us persuading to let the connection start?

March 31, 2010:
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We called Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai and Mr. Anurag Lamba and also sent an email to them telling that we are not getting any firm response and in this scenario we cannot depend on Airtel and have to look for other alternatives. In our email, we also told that in present situation please treat our order cancelled and return our cheque. We also told that if we will not get cheque by April 1, 2010 we will stop payment of that cheque. Then Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai engaged us in other alternatives for clean IP addresses like WiMax and 2Mbps leased line and more on these topics. Same day earlier over phone, we also told Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai to return the cheque of Rs.25,000/- immediately for which he said he will bring the cheque in the evening but he did not.

April 1 & 2, 2010:
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Banks were closed due to financial year closing therefore we could not put stop payment for the cheque.

April 3, 2010:
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During daytime, when we were going through our bank records we found that our cheque was presented for payment (possibly on 30-31st March, 2010, while we were told that we will get the cheque) which got cleared from our bank account. This was very shocking to us because for the last 5 days we had told them to return our cheque. During all this time Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai had told us that he will return the cheque BUT all what we were told and promised by Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai and Mr. Anurag Lamba was just a false and nothing more than that. The name of our firm is Education Lab and right after seeing this transaction we called Mr. Anurag Lamba and told that we are calling from Education Lab and we got the reply "Who is Education Lab? I do not know that name". A senior person from Airtel had told this when for the past one month every single or alternate day we had kept talking on the matter and now suddenly he does not appear to remember us at all. When we made him remember us somehow, he told that he had told us that connection of Leased Line with clean IP address is not possible which was again a white lie because all the time it was us emailing them and telling our concerns and not even once we received any reply or phone call from Mr. Anurag Lamba telling us the same and when they knew it was not possible then why was the cheque presented for payment clearance? To raise his sales figures and look impressive on paper?

When we had specifically told to return our cheque because we are cancelling this order and Mr. Shailendr Kumar Rai had confirmed this on phone that he personally will bring the cheque then there was no point of putting that cheque for payment.

There are a couple of incidents among many that prove that this harassment is done on purpose with no other intention / reason other than torturing the customer just to include our order in their sales figures of March 2010 whereas this is simply a false presentation in the eye of Seniors of Mr. Anurag Lamba and Mr. Shailendra Kumar Rai sitting elsewhere. They should be well aware of what had happened actually and also what is about to come.

Taking a simple incident, when Airtel's mobile/landline/broadband connection is disconnected immediately if not paid within a specific period then why in our case when entirely false representation done by senior persons of Airtel, our cheque was presented for payment that too when we had cancelled our order and had asked to return our cheque immediately. This is nothing but a double standard and malpractices followed by sales persons of Airtel. The amount taken from us (via our bank account even after we cancelled our order) is our hard earned money which is not collected by cheating or false representation but by our series of sleepless nights and hard work done by us and this amount has to be return by Airtel to us immediately.

We are sure that no one at Airtel is concerned about this, but this incident is also going to the community that praise the stellar support Airtel provides and practices done to harass and torture customers. Maybe others will care. We have also enjoyed the responses from several large companies that use Airtel services. We will continue to share our experiences with others, as we believe it's the only satisfaction we are able to get.

We are appending all the correspondence done so far to this letter for viewer's (especially commercial establishments) ready reference so that they are well aware of the consequences if they deal with Airtel.

If additional information or further discussion of this matter is desired, please contact us as listed below.

Warmest Regards,

Education Lab