[Resolved]  Hathway — No service provided, no refund issued, continuous threats

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

1. I had taken a 2mbps hathway internet connection in January for three months. In February (around 13th), the connection stopped working and I started a series of complaints with the call center. Each time it would take a week to action. In totality, I had no service for February end and through major portions of March. 2. I complained then to hathway zonal officer, whose contact number was given to me by the call center (Manjunath Reddy, Koramangla). He promised me better service for April and asked me to renew my service for April as well to a higher speed plan. I switched to a 5mbps plan and I was sent a technician two days later, who said my modem had been faulty all along and gave me a new modem. The new modem worked until mid April but then suddenly started restarting on itself. I again began a series of email and call exchanges andfinally fed up, I asked for disconnection of service on April 24th after not having internet for more than a week. 3.A cable technician was then sent to replace all cables, and he reported that the problem was with the modem.I had shown him the difficulty in connecting that I was facing for each time I logged into the internet, I would get logged out in 2 minutes, and would have to attempt to log back again and that would take half an hour. He apologized and sent a modem technician few days later, who replaced the modem, but the problem still persisted. He said he didn't know how to solve the problem and would escalate it. It was already end April bythen. I sent Hathway billing and helpdesk emails that I was unsatisfied with such long outage periods and demanded a refund. I was replied to saying that the connection was now working. I sent a video of my modem continuously restarting then to prove that my connection was not working. On May 7th, I called Hathway helpdesk and said I was fed up with hathway services and am switching over to another service provider, andthey can take their modem back. Nobody came though I got calls from modem technicians that they were on their way on May 10th. Finally I pulled out the cable myself, and packed up the non working modem in a box, and sent a note to billing helpdesk. I got a call saying my problem would be fixed and that I need notdisconnect. I said I didn't want the connection anymore for I had already paid for more than I have received. I spoke with Ms. Sandhya, Ms. Vidhya, Mr. Sunil (cable technician), Mr. Raja, and Mr Suresh who each called about modem pick-ups on disconnection at various points in time. 4. On May 31, I got yet another bill demanding money and a threatening phone call on June 1 that if I didn't pay, I'd face legal action.Why should I stand to be threatened to pay for the month of May when I haven't even received services for March and April, and when I have myself disconnected the service due to non-interest in action by hathway team? 5. I wrote all these to the nodal officer, and then forwarded a copy to appellate authorities. After no response, I have filed consumer complaints. 6. Hathway harasses customers by giving them a non working connection after taking three month advance as prepaid without issuing receipts until consumer complaint is threatened, then tells them to renew the connection to fix any problems; and finally when the customer has paid more in phone calls to hathway technical desk, the customer finally calls and disconnects the service and switches to another provider. Then the hathway representatives call and say they will fix the connection but won't disconnect it. When the customer says no fix is required, they pretend they are sending a representative to collect the defunct modem, but they never send one. Instead they wait for lapse of another month, then blame the customer for not returning a defunct modem and issue a threat for legal action with yet another bill for another month of no service. Why should we consumers keep paying money to hathway to store their non working modems in our house? This is their tactic to threaten consumers into keeping their connection which doesn't work, and extorting money from them. I believe such providers must be brought to the notice of the consumer courts, and I have used all available legal forums to register complaints. I have complete email threads, call records, videographs of modem self-restarting and never showing internet line.