[Resolved] Vodafone Mobile Service — Insulting/insinuating allegation made by its employee Ms.Shikha from +[protected] at 6.10 pm on 22.12.2009 | |
I have a pre-paid Vodafone connection No.[protected], obtained after duly furnishing evidence of residence, etc. On Dec 22, 2009 6.10 pm I received a call on the said mobile from mobile no. +[protected] from a lady calling herself Shikha of Vodafone and alleging, while addressing me as one Mr. Arora, that a huge payment of the bills on a/c of the aforesaid mobile no.[protected] has been outstanding. ,When I declared that I was not the Mr. Arora being addressed but A.Banerjee, formerly of the Indian Revenue Service,and a retired Chief Commissioner of Income-tax and, also that mine was a pre-paid facility and NOT a post-paid one and, further that, therefore, there was no question of any outstanding bills whatsoever, she had the audacity instead of asking me as to when the connection was obtained. I vehemently protested in a loud voice (I am 65 years old and it was my usual time for my daily evening evening meditation), she had the temerity of even telling me that there was no need for shouting. I had then to tell her that she could verify from the records about the identification furnished by me and the date of the connection given by the company and I was not interested to talk to her, but she insisted on alleging that the bills were pending. It was at this stage that I disconnected the call out of disgust. I sent aletter (UNDER PROTEST & WITHOUT PREJUDICE) by e-mail to .M/s Vodafone, Delhi through vodafonecare.[protected]@vodafone.com on Dec 22, 2009 at 8:10 PM strongly resenting the misbehavior of its employee and the tone used while talking to me, without any reference or regard first to the records of the company itself and falsely alleging that I was a defaulter in respect of the alleged post-paid connection (purportedly once allotted to one Mr. Ajay Arora), and demanding unconditional apologies from the as well as the employee with the assurance that this windiscretion of character assacination by the company would not occur again in the future. I also warned the company that, considering my age and the mental agony and anguish caused by the unwarranted call and threat/allegation made by its employee, entitled to suitable compensation, and further that, I would be constrained otherwise to have this instance of making false allegations/insinuations against, and unwarranted harassment of, a senior citizen and a retired senior civil servant widely publicised to begin with. The company's shameless misbehaviour only continued thereafter. Thanks to the development of automated programmes installed by these companies in the name of consumer service, prompmptly at Dec 22, 2009 8:13 PM, a message appeared on my mailbox from [protected]@vodafone.com with the subject: Happy To Help: Objectionable allegation made by your Ms.Shikha from +[protected] at 6.10 pm on 22.12.2009, stating therein inter alia that, this was this was an automated response to my e-mail with the promise that "we will respond to you within 2 working days". Several days passed without any further and the promised response. On Dec 26, 2009 at 6:45 PM, I sent a Reminder to vodafonecare.[protected]@vodafone.com informing them that I was still awaiting the minimum courtesy from the company in terms of a letter by way of its reply to my letter/e-mail dt. Dec 22, 2009. Promptly again a similar automated mail came to me at 6:47 PM and I also replied by email [to [protected]@vodafone.com and vodafonecare.[protected]@vodafone.com] equally promptly writing as under: "What is the use o[censored]nnecessarily sending these useless automated messages containing false promises as highlighted below, when you do not keep the promises and do not mean to keep the promises either? I did not get any response as promised in the previous automated messages within the self-committed 2 working days and, I am sure, you shall not keep the following promise as well, not only within the time-limit of 2 working days but NEVER at all. "Now I think you will agree that I am rightfully entitled to go to the Press and Media both. It will be a very good story of human interest, being the true episode of deliberate and conscious falsehood". I received again an Automated message as usual from vodafonecare.[protected]@vodafone.com at 7:16 PM, but the copy sent to [protected]@vodafone.com bounced back in a second with the comments inter alia that the "Delivery to the (said) recipient failed permanently" as it rejected the message. And this useless exchange of mails (Automated, from the company's side, of course) cotinued for a few moments more and I gave up finally on Dec 26, 2009 7:16 PM out of shame and disgust, mainly for my country's failure to check these companies from threatening and ansulting resident Indian citizens and tax-payers. This is for information of all the users of this portal and the cocerned authoroties, in case they watch it though. With best wishes for a Happy New Year to you and your users. Was this information helpful? | |
Aug 13, 2020 Complaint marked as Resolved | |
 3 Comments | |
Comments
I am grateful for the comments of Mr. Natabar Dey on my complaint which I saw only today[protected]. For his, as well as for this website's, information, it is stated that, I sent a complaint, both by e-mail and also by hand, to the TRAI from where I have received not even an acknowledgement as yet (possibly due to the long year-ending leeway usually available to govt, ]. servants, and further, that I am aware that vernacular newspapers in Bengali language are too touchy to enable their readers to have any access to them by emails. They do not even respond to the suggestions to this effect.
Laws/rules in India, after all, are meant for the unprotected.
I am also grateful to Mr. Dey for highlighting the fact that, email contact addresses of almost all manufacturers/service providers, both of domestic origin as well as foreign, are not given away and there is no law compelling them to do so. But, in almost all communications from govt. officers/courts/police stations/municipal corporations or committees/all departments, ministries, sections, officers of all levels, etc., never mention their emails to stop citizens from reaching the issuing authorities through emails thereby compelling them to personally approach them, naturally for obvious purposes.
I am not aware of any law whatsoever in existence against this practice which clearly operates against the rights of citizens.
Is it possible for your website to start a campaign against this pernicious practice?
I must also add here that, though I am a member of a few consumers associations, your website is definitely the best forum for publicising the grievances of the consumers.
Laws/rules in India, after all, are meant for the unprotected.
I am also grateful to Mr. Dey for highlighting the fact that, email contact addresses of almost all manufacturers/service providers, both of domestic origin as well as foreign, are not given away and there is no law compelling them to do so. But, in almost all communications from govt. officers/courts/police stations/municipal corporations or committees/all departments, ministries, sections, officers of all levels, etc., never mention their emails to stop citizens from reaching the issuing authorities through emails thereby compelling them to personally approach them, naturally for obvious purposes.
I am not aware of any law whatsoever in existence against this practice which clearly operates against the rights of citizens.
Is it possible for your website to start a campaign against this pernicious practice?
I must also add here that, though I am a member of a few consumers associations, your website is definitely the best forum for publicising the grievances of the consumers.
I would just like to add, by way of an additional input, that the CAG has decided to audit the a/cs of five big leaders in this sector of internet/telecom service providers and these five include Vodafone.
The decision of the CAG to take up the audit of five telcos-- Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Tata, Vodafone and the state-run BSNL is timely, though the effect of the expensive and time-consuming exercise will remain doubtful unless the powers-that-be gather enough courage to take necessary action against the errant auditees. As regards the TATAs, as an erstwhile customer of their VSNL internet service and a sufferer of that outfit’s unilateral decision to forfeit the amounts lying at the credits of numerous users/customers for their refusal to renew their subscription until the balance at their credit was fully exhausted, I would expect that VSNL will also be subjected to this proposed audit. In my case, there was more than Rs. 1500/- lying at my credit when the company unilaterally cancelled the service without any prior notice and also forfeited the amount. It is highly doubtful if such forfeited amounts are ever offered as income for purposes of taxation. I must make it clear that the company refused to refund the amount and instead insisted on renewal of subscription by making fresh payment. And, when the matter was taken up by a consumers’ forum, the company simply ignored their letters resulting in the forum deciding to give up their efforts.
As regards the other entities, BSNL is perhaps better and cleaner, while the service of the others is far from satisfactory. It would have been better to have included MTNL too in this “survey” by the CAG.
Such being the power and clout of monoliths like the said corporate (as is clear from the fact that when any grievance against these (dis)service-providers is referred to the TRAI, there is not even an acknowledgement from the latter of the recept of any complaint/grievance), even with their well-publicised political influence, one only hopes that the proposed audits would not become either non-starters or mere publicity stunts.
The decision of the CAG to take up the audit of five telcos-- Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Tata, Vodafone and the state-run BSNL is timely, though the effect of the expensive and time-consuming exercise will remain doubtful unless the powers-that-be gather enough courage to take necessary action against the errant auditees. As regards the TATAs, as an erstwhile customer of their VSNL internet service and a sufferer of that outfit’s unilateral decision to forfeit the amounts lying at the credits of numerous users/customers for their refusal to renew their subscription until the balance at their credit was fully exhausted, I would expect that VSNL will also be subjected to this proposed audit. In my case, there was more than Rs. 1500/- lying at my credit when the company unilaterally cancelled the service without any prior notice and also forfeited the amount. It is highly doubtful if such forfeited amounts are ever offered as income for purposes of taxation. I must make it clear that the company refused to refund the amount and instead insisted on renewal of subscription by making fresh payment. And, when the matter was taken up by a consumers’ forum, the company simply ignored their letters resulting in the forum deciding to give up their efforts.
As regards the other entities, BSNL is perhaps better and cleaner, while the service of the others is far from satisfactory. It would have been better to have included MTNL too in this “survey” by the CAG.
Such being the power and clout of monoliths like the said corporate (as is clear from the fact that when any grievance against these (dis)service-providers is referred to the TRAI, there is not even an acknowledgement from the latter of the recept of any complaint/grievance), even with their well-publicised political influence, one only hopes that the proposed audits would not become either non-starters or mere publicity stunts.
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But are Indian operators like VSNL, etc. better?
One thing more, and very relevant, in this context. Almost none of these operators in the Telecom sector, or foreign mobile phone manufacturers, huge consumer goods manufacturing companies (Indian as well as foreign) and, above all, many Banks of repute like HSBC, etc., -both Indian and foreign-are NEVER accessible to their customers at all through e-mail and in spite of one's best efforts, one can never obtain their e-mail IDs, thereby totally denying the consumers their right to easily and conveniently reach them. And, if at all there is a contact number, like Vodafone’s only, they only have AUTOMATED replies and never, never is any meaningful, purposeful and decisive reply to any letters/queries sent through e-mail.
But, do you know that the most widely circulated Bengali newspapers/journals and most of the West Bengal Govt. Deptts/Ministers and officials as well as PSUs of that state also DO NOT HAVE ANY EMAIL ACCESSIBILITY ?
So much for transparency in governance-including corporate governance-in India.
I would like to know if the aggrieved (and rightly so, being a retired civil servant as claimed, and of 65 years of age) Mr. Banerjee tried to contact the cellphone no. from which the call from the employee Shikha (real name) came on his mobile, and if the TRAI, the all powerful paper tiger to control these foreign operators, actually and in effect the modern avatars of the foreign invaders of this country for ages, has the system of watching your great webpage regularly to keep itself abreast with the nauseating and audacious behaviour of these new INVADERS of our self-respect and dignity at the cost of the sovereignty of this independent country. Will similar conduct and behaviour of an Indian commercial entity in USA, UK, Germany, the Muslim countries, the EU be ever tolerated?