[Resolved]  Airtel — Disconnect of service based on unbilled amount.

I too agree with the above said case. I have a Airtel Karnataka postpaid connection number [protected]. I also ran into the same situation. I had set my credit limit as 2000. I was constantly monitoring my usage as well and it was well under 2000 (around 1100). One fine day, I get a message asking me to make a payment of 5300 in 6 hrs. The unbilled shows 6500 at this point. I contacted CC many times to find out why the unbilled is so high. They did not have a clear idea about this. After escalating this to many levels, I finally got an explanation for this.

For customers who opted for Rs. 98 2 GB pack, the pack is applied only at the end of the month during bill generation. i.e Usage of 2GB and below will be discounted and everything above 2 GB will be charged at 30ps/20Kb. Till then every 20Kb you consume will be charged 30ps. (Rs 15.36 per MB...Rs 15, 729 per GB)...If you use 1GB, your unbilled will swell to Rs.15, 729 (which is way above the credit limit we set say Rs.2000). The system checks the unbilled amount against the credit limit and suspends the connection and expects you to make 80% payment upfront.

1) First of all it's ridiculous to charge 30ps/20Kb for both EDGE and 3G speeds
2) On top of it, if a consumer has 2 GB pack enabled, why would every 20Kb be counted against his unbilled usage? Only data usage above 2GB permitted limit should be counted in unbilled. Only if the customer is running on a zero rental plan should the usage be accounted in the unbilled amount.
3) 80% o[censored]nbilled amount is outrageous. The CC themselves claims that amount is approximate and exact amount will be available only in the bill. As discussed in point 2), the bill swells to 15K in case the usage is 1GB. Airtel expects 80% of this amount to be cleared upfront. Why should a customer park 12K of his money in airtel's bank account?
4) One more suggestion given by Customer care is to increase the credit limit. The maximum credit limit they could provide me is Rs. 5000 which will be crossed after ~333MB o[censored]sage. At that point the system will again suspend your connection and expect you to pay 80% i.e Rs.4000. So for every 333MB you browse, you pay Rs.4000 which will keep on accumulating in your account as credit. This is a post-paid connection and it does not make any sense to make upfront payments before the bill is generated

I have escalated my case to the appellate and explained the above scenario and got my outgoing restored. they are looking into it. It's high time, Airtel get their act together and put their systems and processes in place and in correct order before it becomes a shame for them.

Rakesh, My Mob No. is[protected]. My connection is terminated since 1sh of this month. I have raised several complaints with your CC but there has been no resolution. My bill generates on 21 April and I not been able to use my services for the past many days.

How do you expect me to proceed. I am currently waiting for my bill so that I can clear my outstanding amount and go with some other service provider.

Just to let you know that I have 8 airtel connections in my house and several others in my friends circle which all will move if I don't get proper resolution. I have not been able to use the service for almost a month and I don't think paying the monthly rental has any meaning at this point. Let me know what you can do about this. I have waited almost for a month now and getting my service resumed now will not help unless I receive compensation.

** correction.

My Mob No. is[protected]

@Airtel_presence: I am using this thread as a placeholder to track the progress of the compalint. You guys have called me today and have promised a resolution very soon. I am having my fingers crossed.

I hear a monotonous response from Airtel that "This is the current process". From a customer's perspective, this process is causing trouble to them. I feel that the feedback from customers should form a vital part in framing the process so that the customers have a warm experience utilizing the company's services. It should cause inconvience/irritation/agony to the customers.It would eventually scare away the customers.

I don't know to whom I should be writing to next??? To Sunil Bharti MIttal himself???

@all who are tracking this thread: The outgoing was barred again yesterday(sunday) morning. The appellate forum is not available on Sundays. So I have to call them today morning and lodge my protest again. They had it restored this afternoon. The icing on cake in this situation is that there are people from the "dues collection" team which is calling me continuously from morning strongly persuading/requesting/forcing me to settle 80% of the outstanding amount i.e Rs.9250. Their advice is to settle the "80% of the unbilled amount" or experince "disruption in service". I don't understand who authorized them to collect "80% of the unbilled" amount and on what basis they are persuading me to make a payment???

My points are clear and simple.
1) I buy a CUG connection on a agreed monthly rental of 149 for discounted voice calls and SMSes. I set for myself a credit limit of Rs.2000 so that I will be alerted(not threatened, harassed and armtwisted) when my usage crosses that amount.
2) I find that the GPRS costs of zero rental plan are high and enable a Rs.98 pack which offers me 2GB of free data usage. This is also like a postpaid rental plan. The understanding is that I shall use 2GB data and if my usage exceeds 2GB, charge me at 30ps/20kB.
3) When calculating unbilled amount, if the system feels that my voice call usage is high, it should block my voice calls. If the data usage is high, it should bar my data services. Instead for data usage that is well in limits of 2GB, my outgoing voice calls are barred. Instead of treating the 98 plan as a "plan", it is being treated as a discount at the time of billing.

The claim from Airtel is that since this is my first month with Airtel, I am experiencing this problem. I can firmly say that this is bound to happen next month as well. In the next month, @30ps/20Kb, I would have reached an un-billed usage of of Rs.2000 as soon as I have browsed ~133MB of data. At that point, the system will detect that I have gone over Rs.2000 credit limit and will bar my service and expect me to make a payment of approx Rs.1600 (80% of the un-billed amount).This is a never ending cycle where I pay 1600 for every 133.33MB I browse and this amount will keep on adding to the credits in my Airtel account.

I suggest the Airtel_presence team to keep these points in mind and amend their process of calculating unbilled amount.

I am promised on every call that I will be informed of the progress over e-mail. I did not recieve a single e-mail from anyone on Airtel. It seems that they would not want their glitches to be documented. They seem to prefer voice calls only which do not hold good in the court of law in case there is a bigger level escalation.

***correction

It should NOT cause inconvience/irritation/agony to the customers

@Airtel_presence: Thanks for the response. Can you elaborate to me what resolution has been provided? I was not contacted by anyone in this regard nor any explanation provided. When you say resolved, does it mean that the issue with unbilled information has been resolved and will not pop-up next month?

Please update the resolution details in this forum and also appreciate if you could call me/mail me and explain me the resolution. Also can you update me the complaint number based on which the team worked on so that it will help me in the future for tracking.

Thanks,
Hari

How can you state that the problem is resolved. I received a call today from a lady regarding the complaint I raised who asked me to make 70% payment and my service will be restored (AS IF I DID NOT KNOW THAT).

Rakesh, I am seeking an answer more than a resolution. My billing date is three days from today and I have waited for this for a long time now. I don't have any problems carrying a disconnected line for another three days. So, stop giving me assurances that my services will be re-activated IF I MAKE THE PAYMENT BEFORE THE BILL GENERATES. I am not paying a penny unless you justify the unbilled amount.

I told the lady that Airtel is cheating customers and her response was "I know this and I also understand sir, but this is the process we follow". I guess cheating customers is a part of your process now.

I asked her how do you want the customer's to use the 2GB in a month with your existing process and she said had no answer. I guess you people don't know what you are doing.

The resolution is simple. Either change your process to calculate unbilled amount for GPRS usage or change your subscription plans that states 2GB free usage as Airtel cannot provide it.

Let me know if you can really resolve this issue or not.

Dear Harrycane,

May be we are barking at the wrong tree. God knows how many more are affected with the same problem and did not express it openly on forums like this.

My outgoing was restored 2 days ago and today it got disconnected again. I called up Appellate and spoke to one Mr.Ramesh. He says that they are not authorized to change the process. They do not seem to recognize this as a problem as well since their "System is following the process". I asked him a transparent way to forward this as a feedback to the market research team or policy making team and keep me in loop about the happenings. He says that he cannot do that. He claims that the appellate office is the highest escalation authority in a telecom circle and the customer should resolve all the issues in their respective jurisdiction.

I feel that despite having a state of the art infrastructure, apathy and indifference to customers problems is eroding away Airtel's market share. Moreover 3G integration has been the "butt of every joke" in Airtel. It's high time Airtel mgmt acknowledges this and takes preventive action before enough damage is done. I am uttering these as a loyal customer of Airtel for the past 5 years. I was with Airtel, Andhra Pradesh before and I landed in Bangalore recently. In the past also, I happened to use the 98 pack but never faced this problem.

I happened to call your blocked Airtel number from a number ending in ******3176. Do msg me your alternate number so that we can discuss the course of action.