[Resolved]  Spice / Idea Mobile Phone Services — Cheating me through SMS - Rs. 49 internet surfing SMS

I am a long time user of Spice / Idea ISP and sticking to it because my phone number has been sent to a huge contact list that I can't change my Service Provider. I use a pre-paid connection from this Provider.

I own a HTC P3470 GPRS/GSM/EDGE ready touch phone. I received an SMS from Idea/SPICE mentioning "For Rs. 49/month, enjoy unlimited GPRS internet on your mobile phone and surf yahoo, google, msn, AOL ... send an SMS to ..."

I sent the SMS to the required number and in an hours time, I got an SMS mentioning that they have received my request and currently processing it and that I should be expecting the GPRS settings that I need to apply on my phone to activate this feature. Along with that Rs. 49 from my pre-paid account was charged.

I did not get the promised 2nd SMS and I had to call back their service center for the same. As ever, the consultant said "sorry" and she would help me with the settings manually. Unfortunately the person was not able to figure out how to get GPRS connection settings on my mobile and found it difficult to continue. Half done, she gave it to her manager who then again asked which phone I was using and mentioning that I was using HTC P3470, he reconfirmed from his manual that SPICE / IDEA "does not" support GPRS on HTC phones. (This is a big lie, as I have used this service in the past on the same phone). Now they tell me that HTC P3470 does not support GPRS.

Now according to them they cant provide the service, which I was disappointed, but was still okay. Now that they can't offer me the service, I asked them to re-credit my Rs. 49 that got deducted when I sent the SMS.

To my surprise, the consultant / Manager say that they can't do that. How can you charge me Rs. 49 for a service and not provide that service??? If they can provide that service, they should refund the same back to me, which is not the case here. All I am told is that I need to get a new phone which supports GPRS and use this SIM card of theirs on that phone. How silly and frustrating can this get?

The experience left me feeling cheated outright. How can they not refund me Rs. 49 when they can't offer a service? The SMS does not carry any message about my phone not being ready to handle their service or any kind of disclaimers. How can they take entice me into a situation where I become a victim.

Rs. 49 is not a huge amount. But it is the principle on which a company should run. Imagine Rs. 49 from one person and considering the total network that Spice / Idea has and how many they may have cheated. Irrespective, they should have a system where the users are not charged for a service not provided.

I request the Consumer forum to raise a complaint against SPICE / IDEA Bangalore to correct their process and prove their credibility.

Regards,
Vinay.