[Resolved]  Airtel Postpaid — Barred All communications

Hi,
This is a complaint regarding my Prepaid->Postpaid migration on my Airtel connection.

I have been having a Prepaid connection from the past 5 years with a history of high balance. Recently I decided to move to Postpaid connection to activate my blackberry services and make the payments easier( i was told my balance has to be high otherwise). And today my connection is been barred of any communication and no bothers to mention me the reason for the same. Here are the chain of events,

Date 14, December, 2009:
I call Airtel Customer care to confirm the process to convert to Postpaid and activate blackberry services. I was told that I need to submit a last month salary slip, address proof and pan number.

On the same day I approach a Airtel Relationship Center and submit all the documents along with filling new forms and signing the same. At that time the person across the bench informs me that a new number will get activated in 4 hrs and a migration will take 7 days. I agreed that 7 days is ok for me, so please go ahead and process it. I paid Rs.300 as some security deposit. He tells me that I will recieve an SMS on migration after which i have to swap my old sim with a newly provided sim.

Date 22, December, 2009:
Nothing seems to happen till date. I had to take the evening off and spend 2 hrs at the Relationship Center understanding what is going wrong. Then he mentions that my address verification is pending and called up the verification section where I gave the person the landmark and route information to reach my home.

Date 23, December, 2009:
Nothing happens again. I have to take one more evening off and spend about an hour at the Relationship Center just to make one more call to the Verification Section. This time I take the number i can call in case no one turns up at my house again.

Date 24, December 2009:
Today, some one completes the verification but nothing happened again. All of a sudden my phone stops working at 9 pm in the night. I assume that my postpaid is activated and swap the sim. Everything is working fine along with me recieveing sms on how to use various features in a airtel postpaid. Still no sign of Black berry services.

Date 25, December 2009:
I call up airtel customer care(121) and ask them for a status on my blackberry activation. They have no clue. So I lodge a complaint. After which i decided nothing is going to happen and fill another form for Blackberry services. Everything seems fine and service got promptly activated by evening on the same day. The phone works great for several days.

Date 29, December 2009:
At about 11:30 AM, I recieve a SMS stating that my connection is Activated with a Deposit of 300, Activation fee of 0 and Number Charge Pamnt as 0. And then at 2PM. another message saying that my credit limit has ben revised to Rs. 600.

At about 3PM all of a sudden I am not able to make any phone calls or send any SMS. At 6 PM I call up 121 asking why my services have been disabled. I get a reply saying I have not submitted some document. I wanted further information on what exact document do they want. He then claims that I have spoken to one of his collegues and he has told me about the missing document. I tell him can you tell me what documents are required, he has no clue. And i am supposed to spend one more evening in Airtel Relationship center for knowing that. I call up second time ask him to connect to the relationship center so I can talk. Unfortunately they have no way to connect to their own relationship center. I then call up the number that was given to me while i was running around for the address verification done but that number is now invalid.

I had not received even a single call from Airtel before that stating that i have to submit some document. In my opinion I must atleast be given 24 hrs time for submitting any critical document and may be a week time for non-critical document. Airtel disconnecting the call just like that, without a reason, invalidates the entire reason to buy have a phone. If in case I had some emergency situations that i have to call some one, I end up with a bricked connection. I dont think Airtel would take responsibility for the damages in such a situation.

Now its a bundh situation in Bangalore and the Relationship center is probably closed. I dont want to take chances of stepping out of my house in such a situation when i am not in a position to tell my loved ones even where i am.

Other bit of information that I wanted to add is, I stay with my family and my mom always stays at home atleast during those days.

The relationship center is 100Ft Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore.


My number is +91-[protected].

Please let me know what exactly am I to do. Why am I to spend so much money and time for a service I pay as requested from Airtel. I do not want to loose my number as its a long standing number and many friends and business contacts have the same. I do not want to go another time to the Relationship center, I feel its just a fruitless effort.

Regards,
Arun Murali