[Resolved]  Airtel — FRAUD AND FALSE COMMITMENT BY AIRTEL

Address:

Haryana

Hello,

My name is Shiva Sharma and I have been a very loyal and esteemed customer of Airtel for quite some years now. I am writing to share my concern and bitter experience with Airtel regarding unresolved queries and false commitment and unethical practices. I will break my complaint in three parts as I have 3 different complaints.

PART 1 – Unresolved Query leading to money loss , constant chasing by me to seek help from Airtel

I had been using [protected] in Delhi until March 2011 and in March 2011 I got married and moved to Bangalore. I wanted to close my Delhi number and clear all outstanding. Usually I pay my bills online through my Airtel account and print the bills from there as part of my Airtel bill is reimbursed by my company. Meanwhile, I lost my Delhi sim and account password and called customer care to obtain it. Ideally when someone loses password, the customer care sends the password on the mobile number and email id. Both my email id and mobile number were registered with Airtel for this purpose. I shared the concern that I did not have [protected] sim and requested them to send the password on my current Bangalore number or email. I asked them to mail me soft-copies of the bills as well but that again is password protected and password was not sent to either phone or email. Despite my continuous calls to Airtel Customer care and talking to some 4-5 executives, I was not provided the password on either channels. In the meantime, my reimbursement cycle got over and I could not submit my bills and hence incurred loss of 4500. I was chasing Airtel to help me pay my bills and close my account. But no help was provided.

PART 2 – Constant calls from collection officer to clear outstanding and pay extra charge too and FALSE COMMITMENT

I stopped chasing them after sometime and suddenly in July they wake up and ask me to clear my outstanding. I got a call around July 9 from Ashok Malik - [protected] , [protected] who is I guess collection executive and he asked me to pay 7127Rs wherein my actual amount used until March was 5982Rs. I spoke to Malik and told him the whole story about why there was a delay from my side and how I had been calling Airtel for passwords and bills. Malik replied to me by saying that he could provide me the bills which make up 7127Rs and that would not be password protected. I was really disappointed as these bills could have been provided to me when I asked for them in March and the outstanding could have been cleared then only not leading to addition of extra charge which was added because of the delay by Airtel not giving me passwords and bills in March. I asked for relaxation as I already lost 4500 which my company could have reimbursed incase I would have submitted bills during the reimbursement cycle. After many conversations and arguments, I asked Malik to put me through his senior who has more authority than him and could help me. By this time, I had started going through the mental trauma. I spoke to his senior and again repeated the whole story about my chase in March but then the relaxation he could provide was only Rs 500 – Rs 1000. I was not ready to pay the hefty amount as I incurred loss because of Airtel. In the meantime, on July 13, 2011, I got a mail from [protected]@in.airtel.com regarding the nonpayment and escalation to legal department. I was shocked to see how these people can harass their “Platinum” customer who has even paid 10k to 20k bills per month and never asked for discount because that was actual usage. This was the first time I asked for discount cause Airtel was at fault. The mail also mentioned contacts of Ashwani Gandhi Mobile Number -[protected], & Rajkumar Parmar Mobile No-[protected] for further clarifications.

I replied to the mail within an hour writing the whole story of March and then talks with Malik and his senior and marked it to nodal officer too. But I did not get a reply from anyone except the auto generated mail for acceptance of mail. I spoke to appellate officer as well, whose name I don’t remember and narrated the whole traumatic experience once again to her. She said that she does not have the authority to give me relaxation of more than 700Rs and I could talk back to collection officers as they could provide me more discount. I again spoke to Malik / Ashwani on [protected] and after many arguments, they settled for Rs4500 and gave me relaxation of Rs 2627 on my outstanding amount of 7127Rs. I asked them for a receipt to which they assured me that once I pay my bill, I would receive it on mail and that my account will be closed. I trusted them and cleared my bill the very next day in hope of ending the mental trauma I had to go though because of Airtel and sent a mail on July 14, 2011 to [protected]@in.airtel.com;nodalofficer.[protected]@airtel.in;appellate.[protected]@airtel.in and called them on [protected] to confirm the same and asking for receipt. I did not get any reply from anyone except the auto answers to the mail. I sent reminder again but they turned deaf ears. I stopped chasing them thinking that my account is settled and closed now. After the rude behavior of all officers, Peace prevailed for more than a month.

PART 3 – Calls again and Legal Notice and Unethical practices

To my utter surprise, this was height o[censored]nethical practice by Airtel. I got a legal notice on August 23, 2011 from Airtel on my company’s address in Gurgaon regarding nonpayment of Rs2627 on my Delhi number [protected] and extra charges of legal process. Please note Rs2627 is the waive off amount that Malik and Ashwani had given me. I then called Ashwani on [protected] and he bluntly refused to agree that he spoke to me in July for this negotiation. I had an argument with him regarding the same and told him about the legal notice which was sent to my office bringing discredit on me. This was casual for him. I then called Mr. Rajkumar Parmar escalating the whole issue to him. According to him he was unaware of this and wanted a day’s time to revert and promised to revert on August 24, 2011( which is today). I waited for his call and finally called him in the afternoon to check on the status. My call was answered by a female and I was asked to wait and then call was abruptly cut. I called again 4-5 times but no one answered. After an hour, I called again and the same female answered saying that Mr. Rajkumar Parmar was on leave. I then called Ashok Malik on [protected] and my call was answered by some other executive saying that Malik was on leave and when I checked for Rajkumar, he said that he was in a meeting.

IT IS HIGHTIME!!! I WAS TALKING TO A TEAM OF LIARS AND UNETHICAL EXECUTIVES UNTIL NOW. I WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THIS TO THE AUTHORITIES AND MAKE THEM AWARE THAT THEIR EXECUTIVES ARE GIVING FALSE COMMITMENTS TO CUSTOMERS AND HARASSING THEM. THIS EXPERIENCE HAS CERTAINLY LEFT ME WONDERING ABOUT THE CREDIBILITY OF “AIRTEL”. ARE THESE EXECUTIVES TRAINED TO LIE TO THEIR VALUABLE CUSTOMER? ARE THEY TRAINED TO DUPE THEIR CUSTOMERS? ARE THEY TRAINED TO HARASS THE CUTOMERS ?

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS MATTER – NAMELY ASHOK MALIK, ASHWANI GANDHI AND RAJKUMAR PARMAR. NOT ONLY I INCURRED MONETARY COST OF CALLING THEM AGAIN AND AGAIN AND LOSS OF 4500Rs BUT THE AMOUNT OF MENTAL PAIN AND STRESS THEY HAVE CAUSED IS IMMENSE. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN TO ANY OTHER CUSTOMER.

I HOPE PROPER ACTION WOULD BE TAKEN ON THIS MATTER AND A CONFIRMATION OF SETTLEMENT OF MY ACCOUNT WOULD BE PROVIDED TO ME .