Excitel Broadband — danger to life and consumer harassment

Address:

332 Sector A Pocket C Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, Delhi, 110070

On March 1st, 2019, we decide to put up a new internet connection of Excitel Broadband based on the recommendation of our friend. The Excitel model operates on 3rd party contracts and hence, the internet services vary from area to area even within the same city. The technical service providers visited our place on March 2nd and installed their equipment (including the wire, adapter, fiber net cable, and another device, we had purchased our own double bandwidth router) in the evening. We had purchased a one month pre-paid plan of 50 MBS and we were promised a fast internet speed given the fiber net cable which was installed. However, the following few days of experience was harrowing, to say the least.
Firstly, within a few hours of installation, the adapter connected to their device literally burst in my presence. The adapter was clearly of some shoddy quality and could have potentially endangered my life or someone else had we been closer to the device. Thankfully I was at a safe distance but the burst adaptor's pieces went flying into different directions, tripped the MCB panel and completely damaged a whole section of our electrical sockets. The damage to these sockets and their subsequent repairs alone cost me Rs. 1600.
Secondly, the internet speed which was being provided proved to be disappointing. Within an immediate radius of a metre, the speed obtained was about 90% of the purchased plan. But if one increased their distance even by a few inches, the obtained speed was not even 20 % i.e. 10 MBPS. In our bedrooms and balcony, one could barely get a speed of 10 MBPS. The technicians had not bothered to wait for even half an hour for us to check the strength of the signal and speed. For this purpose, we directly called the third-party contractors (a man by the name of Suraj whose office is in Kishangarh) to inform of the same in addition to the hazardous incident of a burst adapter.
Thirdly, on March 3rd the technicians visited again to replace the adapter but were unable to solve the issue of low speed obtained in our bedrooms. They insisted that the problem was in our routers (despite our router being of a double band with and from a reputable brand- TP-Link) and that we should wait for a while for the speed to settle in and get better. By March 4th, there was no improvement for the same. We even registered a complaint on their app for the low-speed issue and the technicians who visited repeated the same thing which had been told to us the previous day. The customer service was lax, to say the least, and given our need for internet services on a regular basis, we decided to give a disconnection request on the same day itself via the app.
On March 5th, 2019, we decided to find about the refund policy and the process to get our money back for the same. We had long conversations with the customer care around noon which included the supervisor. However, the company refused to take responsibility for the 2000 rupees spent on our services. In total, we had spent Rs. 2820 whose break down was as follows:
Rs. 1000 for installation.
Rs. 1000 for the device
Rs. 820 for the pre-paid plan of one month
The customer care service refused responsibility for the refund of Rs. 2000 and moreover, despite having barely used their service for four days, they claimed that we would not get any refund for the Rs. 820 paid for our one month plan. We spent a good two hours trying to convince, cajole and explain our situation but to no avail. Following this, we contacted the third-party contractor to claim our refund of Rs. 2000. Instead of calming our nerves and convincing us of a smooth refund, Suraj told us to talk about our refund with the Excitel customer care service! This was the limit of the harassment we had faced so far. No one was claiming any responsibility for any sort of refund. A second conversation with Excitel customer service to explain how the third party was refusing to take responsibility for the Rs. 2000 refund, was to no avail. In fact, the customer care representative refused to escalate my complaint by retorting that his superiors had already had a conversation with me regarding this. Despite me explaining repeatedly, over a 14-minute conversation, that the third party was refusing any responsibility for any sort of refund; the representative kept parroting the same line of non-responsibility over the refund of Rs. 2000. Despite my plea to him that the third party had refused responsibility, he refused to transfer my call to his seniors.
If this is not a clear cut case of consumer harassment, I don't know what is. I will personally never recommend Excitel broadband to anyone and will make sure this complaint is public in all forums via blogs, social media, etc.
I will personally not rest till I have claimed refund and till Excitel is held responsible for the possible hazard which was presented to my life and safety and the consequent harassment I face in its customer service.
Suraj: [protected]
Excitel Customer Care: [protected]
Client Name: Ayushya Kaul