| Address: Ahmedabad, Gujarat |
My name is Bhavik. I was using Airtel Broadband Service and always paid the bill on time. I disconnected the service in APR 2013 due to change of address. There was some pending balance for which I never received the bill but my service was disconnected as I had requested. On 19/7/2013 I received a call from Airtel Collections department that there is a pending balance on the account and asked me to pay it. Since I was out of town at that time, I asked them to send me the bill by email so that I can take care of that. I never received the bill on my email.
On Friday 26/7, I received the call from them asking if I had paid the bill. When I said I have not received the bill, the lady on the phone confirmed my email address that was on their records and it was incorrect. I gave her the correct email address and she sent the bill which I received and confirmed to her while we were on the phone. On Saturday 27/7, I received a call from the same lady and she started talking very rudely. Unfortunately, I had a medical emergency in my family and had to attend to that. I told her not to call me repeatedly and that I was unable to pay the bill today but will do so tomorrow. She kept asking me to confirm the "Date and Time" by which I will pay the bill. Only a can ask such a question since It is practically impossible for anyone to answer that question. The lady was shameless and despite me telling her that I have a family emergency today, she was not willing to let go and kept asking "The payment is late. I need a date and time by which you will pay the Bill". Finally I disconnected the phone. After that she kept calling me immediately again and again. I answered the phone and told her that I cannot talk right now and that I will take care of the bill soon. Again, she started taking rudely. When I told her that I am going to disconnect the phone, she asked me to speak to her manager Rahul Sharma. Thinking that the "manager" would be a reasonable person, I agreed to talk to him. To my dismay, he started asking the same questions "Give me a date and time when you will pay the bill...blah blah blah". When I disconnected the phone, he started calling my phone repeatedly. HE CALLED ME REPEATEDLY 25 TIMES FROM 2 DIFFERENT NUMBERS - [protected] AND [protected]. BOTH THE "MANAGER" AND THE LADY CLAIMED TO BE AIRTEL EMPLOYEES.
I know that Airtel customer service is monitoring this form. My questions are...
1. I had neither received any call nor a paper bill about the outstanding amount. Why did the bill go directly to collections? Isn't it common sense to contact the customer first and only if he does not pay the bill, send it to collections?
2. Doesn't Airtel train their collection personnel? They sound like a bunch of rude and frustrated losers who do not know how to interact with a customer.
3. A customer with an outstanding bill is not a criminal, especially since he pays a "LATE FEE" on the next bill. In my case, I had no clue about the outstanding amount and no attempt was made by Airtel to contact me and inform me about the outstanding amount. The losers from customer service (Rahul Sharma and a lady whose name I cannot remember) were acting like I have committed a crime.
4. Calling anyone on their mobile 25 times back to back is nothing short of harassment. Especially when the other person is already going through an emotional distress and have spoken with you and explained his situation
5. Doesn't Airtel look at customer's tenure and past billing payment history before sending the bill to collection ? A quick look at my tenure as a customer and past bill payment history would have given a lot of information
Again, I am not disputing the bill. My point is that my bill cannot be deemed late since I was never informed that I have an outstanding amount. I should have been contacted through regular channels before sending the bill to collections who are a bunch of insensitive . Next time this happens, I am going to file both a criminal complaint and a complaint in the consumer court for Harassment. I know other people who have had similar experiences for no fault of their own.
![Indian Institute of Natural Resources Management [IINREM]](/thumb.php?bname=1&src=indian-institute-of-natural-resources-management-iinrem.jpg&wmax=182&hmax=300&quality=90&nocrop=1)
AirTel — internet service is not good
my name is manish bhayanai am from rohtak.
i am very disappointed from the internet service of airtel, whenever i call to customercare centre they always told me that you will get a downloading speed of 30-40 kbps, but instead of this i always get a speed max up to 3-4kbps.
kindly sort out my problem as soon as possible. i positively facing a big problem while downloading.