[Resolved]  Tata Docomo — Cheating with fake information in OBD call

Address:

Ernakulam, Kerala

Dear sir/madam,

I am a customer of Tata Docomo's GSM based mobile service for a past few months. I was attracted to take a connection because of their new and attractive offers in tariff and talktime offers which no other competent companies havent offered that time. Despite of some signal reception troubles in my area, i was pretty happy with their connection. The customer care were quick responsive and informative.

But things went wrong a couple of weeks back. I received an OBD marketing call from Tata Docomo with a pre-recorded female voice which played a message starting with "Free Free Free". I listened to the whole message, and the content clearly said 'set a callme tune from following songs absolutely free without any rent or downloading charges for 15 days. After 15 days i will be charged Rs 15 per month and so..' and played a list of 3 or 4 songs followed by a prompt to press a button to select needed song. I waited till end of the message, and pressed 8 to select the Malayalam movie song "Anuraga Vilochananayi" which is the last option in the list. After confirmation, the call ended with a thanks.

After some seconds the call had ended, two messages rushed into my inbox. I am posting the exact content of messages right here.

Message 1 : "Thank You for subscribing to Callme tunes.Rs.18 has been charged for 18 days.Dial 543211 for more songs.Charges:Free for first 30 secs & 5p/sec thereafter"

Sender : 543211
Sent : 12:46:31pm
[protected]

Message 2 : "Thank you for downloading Anuraaga. Rs 15 has been charged for the song. To download more songs call 543211. First 30sec free & 5p/sec thereafter"

Sender : 543211
Sent : 12:46:32pm
[protected]


I was totally clueless about what is happening. Because i selected the song by pressing the button because their OBD call promised me i can enjoy "Free callme tunes for 15 days without rent and downloading charge". I was told that i will be charged ONLY if i continue the callme tune service further after 15 days free period. But now Rs. 33 have been deducted from my account balance!

I immediately contacted the Docomo customer care, and a representative answered. I told him the above story and after gathering information about me he told me to hold the line for a few seconds so that he will check for information and return back to me. After a few minutes the representative returned to me asking apology and said that he found i had got a wrong OBD call message from them. I told him it is okay, no problem but take steps return the decucted money back to my account balance. The customer care representative told me that he will surely note a complaint and forward it to their concern department so my problem will be solved within 2 days. He also asked me another number to contact and i gave him my another(Airtel) number. I asked him to give me a complaint request reference number and he immediately gave me the number which was :

"GBL09122777".


The second day, March 14th i received a call from a lady from Docomo. She asked me details about my complaint and i repeated whatever i told to the customercare representative and gave her the complaint request reference number. She assured me that my complaint is accepted and i will be having my problem solved soon. I asked her to tell an estimated time span required to get this issue solved and she told that they cannot say any time but my problem will be solved shortly. I reminded her that problem is from Docomo's side and not from my side and the customer care representative himself had admitted it. So, it is not fair to take long to solve this problem. She promised me it wont go longer anymore and i will be provided with solution soon.

Days passed, and no one contacted me back. I called to customer care inorder to enquire how things are progressing. I provided the representative my details and complaint reference number. The representative put me on hold and went for fetching details about my complaint and came back saying the complaint had closed and i was charged properly.

I argued with him repeating the previous story and he said "Sorry sir but we cannot do anything other than this, we have only this much information so i will transfer this call to a senior." I told him that i am at my office now so i cannot hold for long, but i will wait if he can transfer within a shot time. But he said he cannot assure me about the time to connect and asked me whether i can call after office time or not.I said ok and called customer care at evening. I told the representative about my problem and requested for transfer to senior department. I holded on call. After 4 minutes on hold my call got automatically disconnected. I tried again and again my call got disconnected after 4 minutes.

Later one day i got transferred to the senior department, and he said that i am charged correctly and hence i cannot be refunded back. I argued with him but all in vein. He repeatedly said that i will not be refunded and the conversation ended with me helpless and losing my talktime value of Rs. 33 for no reason.

I was cheated, and by that time already 8 days had passed after i registered a complaint with their customer care. I decided to complain about this in consumer complaint forum and bring this cheating into light and into the public so more people and customers will be aware of this type of fake and cheap tricks of cheating customers and extracting money illegally from their account balance.

Dear sir/madam, the OBD call clearly told me call me tune service would be free for next 15 days without rent and downloading charges, and i need to pay only if i continue to use the service after 15 days of free usage. Also i selected the last song only after hearing entire OBD call message. So, in which circumstance did this company - Tata Docomo did charged Rs. 33 from my account balance? Their customer care executive himself admitted it was a mistake from their part and i got a false OBD marketing message and he asked apology to me. They can check the recorded voice call logs of 12th March from my number([protected]) to customer care to verify whether i am lieing or not. Isnt this cheating? I as a customer had only positive reviews about Tata Docomo's services until this event. But now i feel i'm cheated and fooled by the company. I cannot further recommend their service to any person whom i knows. Strict actions should be taken against these type of companies who treats their customers as fools. Am i guilty by taking a Tata Docomo connection? I strongly believe appropriate action will be taken to get my problem resolved and assure no other customers will face this kind of scamming from this company in the future.

With Regards,
Jithin PG.