[Resolved]  Airtel - Postpaid — Financial Harassment & Mental Torture

Hello,

My account number is: [protected].
Issue: My actual bill amount is supposed to be Rs. 200 and change, but I have been charged Rs. 1,200 and change.

This is regarding providing the wrong information and misbehavior by your representatives, employees and the agents about the services and the complaints raised.

I took my new connection on 30th Nov 2009 and the first bill got generated on 9th Dec 2009, in which I've been charged Rs. 950 extra where I shouldn't be charged. The bill says:
- Premium Number: Rs. 750
- Activation Charges: Rs. 199, where I'd paid the activation fee while taking the SIM itself.

Here, Airtel relationship Center on 100 Ft road, Indiranagar - where I took the connection, the representative didn't tell me that the number would be chargeable. He just took the activation fee and the deposit amount from me.

- If the number is chargeable, the number fee would have been collected from me at the time of collecting SIM card itself - this being the common sense that every customer care representative should be knowing, no one did help with the waiving off these additional charges.

Instead of trying to resolve this issue, they have surrendered my account to some third party people (I believe they are collections people in case of defaulters) who called me from Chennai and kept bugging me by hell of calls and hell of messages to pay the bill, where in I have told the customer care people clearly that I will not pay the bill unless the issues are resolved.

- The activation fee had been waived off but the premium number fee hadn't been waived off.

Your employees named Sujatha, Suguna, Kapila who are call center people told me they will call me back on the issue and update me the status but had never called me with the status.

The complaint numbers (multiple) in this regards are:
F[protected]
F[protected]
F[protected]
F[protected]
SR#29917618
SR#29857070

And there are many reference numbers with I don't remember (You can look at my account for other complaint numbers and service request numbers).

Yesterday (29-Dec-09) when I again called customer care, Kapila told me something irrelevant and when I insisted her to let me talk to her manager, she connected me to Ravi - who is the floor manager that time (sometime on 29th Dec in the afternoon).

He, instead of telling me he will try to work on resolving that issue, was rudely talking to me saying that the bill generated was valid and they cannot waive off the amount at any cost - because it's the services charges. And that's it - not even he tried to convince me with the issue. He was just sticking to the point that the bill was right and cannot be waived off - as if I was telling the false things or false claims.

When it continued, I was pissed off by his behavior and asked him to cancel my account. At least then he could have convinced me. But instead of that, he said he would help me in cancelling the account and connected me to cancellation department.

Then I happen to talk to Raghavendra (from cancellation team) who had helped me - told me to go to Airtel outlet and let them talk to him.

- A floor manager couldn't help me in any form but the cancellation team did. A manager himself is ready to lose customers and you could think of the team he would be leading - how would be their attitude towards customer services.

Then, I went to the relationship center where I took the connection and called up cancellation team from there and let them talk to the agent sitting at the counter.

Now, the issue had been resolved – they waived off the extra charges they have put on me for nothing.

My concern is:
1. Even after calling hell of times and raising hell of complaints, no one could help me or got an idea to call that relationship center and ask for the issue.
2. And Mr. Ravi, being the floor manager, did talk to me as if he is least bothered about the customers and was ready to lose me without even trying to resolve the issue.
3. Instead of working on resolving the issue, called me hell of times; sent me hell of alerts to pay the bill and even surrendered my account to some third party collections team as if I am a defaulter.
4. It is your duty to call up whomever it is required and clarify yourself instead of insisting me to walk in to the showroom again and let them talk to you, which shows your inability to handle the customers and their concerns - due to which you would lose many customers.
5. Why should I (customer) waste my time, energy, money and whatever to walk in to the relationship center when there is no mistake from my end, leaving behind my office and work, where you yourself can contact them over phone for any clarifications?

- I would have cancelled my account with Airtel if the issue wouldn't have been resolved. It's not about the money which I have to pay; it's about "why should I pay you extra for nothing"???

It was so prolonged conversation with customer care people and still couldn't help unless I took an initiative to walk in to the showroom. The problem was at Airtel’s end but not on my side.

Not only this issue, have they activated the services which I haven’t asked them to activate. Later when complained, they disconnected those after charging me the monthly rental for the same.

Finally, it's the WORST people you have in your customer care and the services are UTTER WORST. I started the complaining process somewhere in the 2nd week of December and it took more than 15 days to resolve it, that too with lot of idiotic mental torture and harassment indirectly.

- If possible, warn those people who couldn't help me in any form and rather did talk to me very decently indecent claiming me as a culprit - namely Sujatha (Cust. care), Suguna (Cust. care) and Ravi (Floor Manager).
- Or train your people and let them provide decent services rather than guess works.

 For your information, this type of behavior by Bharti Airtel’s employees is eligible to file a complaint against the company with the consumer court for this kind of “Financial Harassment & Mental Torture”.

Please acknowledge this and act upon the same.


Thanks a lot,
Bharath.