[Resolved]  Airtel Data Card — Airtel India’s Unethical Behaviour - Instead Of Compensating My Loss, Threatening Me

Address:

Hooghly, West Bengal

Hi, this is Bidyut from Hooghly, W.B.

I purchased Airtel Data Card (No. [protected]) on December 15, 2008 paying Rs. 3249/- (Rs. 2999 for the Data Card + Rs. 250 Security Deposit). They told me I will get a surfing speed of at least 100 kbps up-to 256 kbps.

I opted for the Rs. 999 / month Unlimited Data Usage Plan with a Rs. 1500 Credit Limit.

The service was somehow ok at the beginning - that means at least I was able to surf websites properly.

Later around 2009 October - November the quality of the service started deteriorating and I was getting a surfing speed of 5-10 kbps only, for most of the time the connection speed was so slow that even the lightest websites such as Google will have hard time opening in Internet Explorer.

I lodged complaints with their customer care and they promised me that the problem will be rectified within 48 hours or 96 hours etc. etc. This went for months. I lodged complaints almost every week but they never did anything measurable to solve the issues. Although I hoped for the best and continued with this kind of horrible service and paid my bills regularly up-to 2010 February.

Then I told their pathetic customer care department to discontinue my service if they are unable to solve the problems. They gave me the number of their nodal officer and again I explained the problems to someone named Mr. Rajshekar on [protected]. I explained that although I am paying my bills month after month but most of the time I am unable to browse internet because of the poor service provided by them, so I wish to discontinue. He promised me that he will look into the matter to solve the problem as soon possible and I will get a rebate for the duration with this kind of problematic service, so I don’t need to discontinue the service.

After a month or so, a technical person from Airtel came to my home and after verifying with his laptop, confirmed that they have some network problem in this locality etc. etc. He didn’t mention anything about solving the problem in near future.

In the mean time I stopped paying the current month’s bill and when their billing department called me, I again explained the situation and told them to discontinue the service immediately or issue me a rebate after rectifying the problems to keep the connection alive.

As my credit limit was Rs. 1500/- I was sure that my connection will be automatically disconnected if they don’t issue a rebate and I stop payment for a month’s bill which was around Rs. 1100 /- including the taxes.

Instead of trying to provide me proper services and issuing a rebate to minimize my loss and sufferings, this pathetic losers increased my credit limits to Rs. 3300 /- without notifying me.

Not only that, for the month of 2010 March to April, some ‘Value Added Services’ ‘Videos_Hungama Content’ and ‘Game_Hungama Content’ added to my account to charge an extra Rs. 266 /- I never opted for these services for sure. Obviously I was unwilling to pay these bills.

Then after suspending my connection, someone from their billing or collection department called me and again hearing the whole matter from me, told me that a full rebate for the current dues will be issued and my connection will be restored shortly.

Surprisingly, my data connection was back within next few days but with the same kind of problematic slow speed and inaccessibility to the internet for most of the time. I again lodged complaints with the customer care and few days later they again suspended my connection.

Well, I then opted for the BSNL Broadband, and nowadays can’t imagine even a single day without it.

Now after more than a year, Airtel has send me a notice asking me to appear before lok adalat court for amicable settlement of outstanding dues amounts to Rs. 4264.18/-

What a pathetic losers they are.

I am thinking of filing counter case against Airtel claiming damages for my financial losses and mental harassments caused by their pathetic service and customer care department. Should I move to my local civil court or how to move to the consumer court first?

How should I move? Please advice.