Tata Sky — non receipt of signal

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

This refers to my Tata Sky subscriber id no.:[protected]. My set top box / dish antennae has been receiving limited signals (latest position – no signal since Friday, April 24, 2015) since March 6, 2015 (which has been Holi festival in India) and till date this issue has not been resolved despite repeated reminders/followup. Now what follows is a classic example of bad service given by an India service provider, which is not expected from the reputed Tata Group and its global JV partner SKY, leading to mental harassment. It so happened that on the said date the opposite flat neighbor (Flat No.203) shifted his residence. I understood from my next door neighbor (Flat No.202) that the technician who had come to uninstall the dish antennae for Flat No.203 would have erroneously loosed the wires of other dish antennae, as they too faced the same problem as I. In the meantime upon calling the call centre of Tata Sky, there as a pre-recorded message on the IVRS that the Company was facing signal problems and that the consumers were requested to bear with the Company as they were solving the problem. In the meantime, on March 21, 2015 (which has been Gudi Padwa festival in India) my new neighbor came to reside in Flat No.203. Upon checking with him, he said that he had been getting full signal whereby he could watch all the channels that he had subscribed. After a few days, upon checking with my next door neighbor Flat No.202, he confirmed that Tata Sky technician had come a few days back and had fixed his signal problem and that he too could now view all the channels that he has subscribed for. He also mentioned that the Company pre-recorded message on the IVRS was generic, the fact is that Tata Sky was facing a big problem with signals and hence numerous complaints to cater to. Hence he had opted to give a missed call on the predetermined number as given on the IVRS, he got his work order number and the company technician came and solved his signal problem. What seems abnormal here is that if Tata Sky consumers at large are facing a common problem of signal then why did the technician not resolve the problem of one building entirely and go away by resolving only one connection? So following his advice, I too give a missed call to the predetermined number on April 7, 2015 and after a few seconds I was messaged the work order number. I was happy that this moved fast, but little did I know that this was the tip of the ice berg where I would be harassed and mentally tortured. Since then I have given numerous missed call on the predetermined number but my signal problem has not been resolved by Tata Sky. I even called the call centre numerous time, FYI, it takes around 7 minutes to come to the IVRS menu which states that if you wish to speak to the customer service representative then press 9, thereafter the hold time to speak to them is on an average 10 minutes. Imagine the several calls made by me and the time and money spent by me on the phone calls, for no fault of mine, leave aside the harassment and mental agony after having paid in advance the full subscription fees for the entire year, in advance. One of the customer service lady with whom I had a call was really disgusting, she mentioned to me that my official complaint was on April 7, 2015 so I will get 3 days credit for the inefficiencies of her company. But when I asked her that the IVRS mentioned that the consumers was told to wait and that the problem will be resolved, she had no answer. When I asked her by when will the problem be resolved, she gave me her standard script answer, “as soon as possible”. I asked her to define what is the company definition of “as soon as possible”, is it a few hours, days or week? Upon asking this question, she had the audacity to tell me that I was getting upset without any reason and that my problem will be resolved. Here, I am the consumer, the company has taken full year advance subscription money, not giving me service and I have been advised not to get upset, its funny. As you may be aware, in India the schools have summer vacation till mid June, my son is not able to watch his cartoon channels, leave aside my mother who is also not able to view her programs and leave aside me who has no means of TV entertainment after having a hard day at office. You are requested to kindly hear all my recorded messages to believe in what conversations transpired between me and the customer service representatives on the various calls. Till date I have got about 20 messages from Tata Sky from various numbers, to hide their inefficiencies, i.e.: AD-MYTSKY 4 messages on April 7, 2015, AM-MYTSKY 12 messages during the period April 8, 2015 to April 19, 2015 and DM-MYTSKY 4 messages during the period April 21, 2015 to April 25, 2015, all stating the complaint has been lodged, work order issued, technician will come, call closed, etc. The company broke all heights of service when on Wednesday, April 22, 2015 around 6.00 p.m. a person in the name of Anand (cell number [protected]) called me up to say that since he was around the location where I live could he come immediately to resolve my issue. I mentioned to him I would have appreciated if he would have given me a prior call to fix a mutually suitable time and come, however I accommodated him by saying that while I was still in office he could come at about 7.45 p.m. to solve the problem. To which he told me that his duty time was till 7 p.m. only and that would come tomorrow to solve my issue. So I told him for fix a time and he give me a time of 6.45 p.m. for Thursday, April 23, 2015. On Thursday, not wanting the so call Anand to slip away to give some lame excuse, I reached home at 6.00 p.m. and called him immediately stating that though the schedule appointment was for 6.45 p.m., I had come home early and that he could come early if he is free. To my utter shock and disbelief he had the audacity to tell me that he was at Vile Parle (another Mumbai surburban) and it was not possible for him to come today at as per schedule. Showing as if he was doing a favor on me he gave me a phone number of one Mr. Dharmender (cell number [protected]) and told me to speak with him and that he would solve my problem. I could finally get in touch with the said Mr. Dharmendra after calling him 7 times, who in turn told me to call on Mr. Kishen (cell number [protected]) who he believed was in my locality and would solve my problem. I called Kishen who promised to come and solve my problem in the next 15 minutes. 1 hour passed, Kishen did not come. I tried calling both Kishen and Dharmendra about 7 times each, neither of them bothered to take my call / return the same. My harassment by Tata Sky does not end here, I get a text message from the company that my problem had been resolved and the company had closed the call. I again tried to call Dharmendra, but he did not take my call. Finally I wrote a text message to Dharmendra stating that since no body had come to resolve my problem then how come I get a text message from the company that my problem was now resolved and my call has been closed. Still no response from the said Dharmendra. I called Tata Sky call centre and complained for this unacceptable behavior of Anand, Dharmendra and Kishen (all this after the call being made for the last about 14 minutes). I was assured in standard script by the customer representative that he will lodge a complaint to take strict action against these representatives. He further assured me that on Friday, April 24, 2015 there will be a call from a company representative at 10.00 a.m. at that I would be given an option to choose the time at which the company representative could come and address my problem. Come Friday, and there was no call. Again a lie from the customer service representative. At about 2.00 p.m. I got a call from my mother that a company representative had reached my home, his name was Rahul. He has come without any prior intimation, all this when it was siesta time for my mother. Since she too was anxious to resolve the issue, she allowed him in and he did some setting changes. Thereafter he demanded from my mother the terrace keys. My mother said that she does not have the same as we live in a co-operative society and that terrace is locked and the keys are with the co-operative society secretary / watchman. Despite that he forced my mother to get and give him the terrace keys. This was like for a moment a goon coming to your home and holding one for ransom. My mother obliged him by calling the watchmen from the house window, he came and gave the terrace key to Rahul. Rahul then went to the terrace and came back after a few moments stating that the signal problem had now been resolved. My mother on a safe side, in case there is any problem after Rahul leaves, asked him for his cell number. He gave the number as [protected], my mother wrote it on a paper and then started to dial the said number to check whether the number is really with him / working. Seeing this Rahul immediately realized what was happening and apologized to my mother that he given a non-functional number my mistake and the correct number was [protected]. Theafter Mr. Dharmendra calls me from a cell number [protected] telling me that my problem had been resolved. When I asked him why he had send his person without prior intimation, he mentioned to me that since this man was in the vicinity doing some other person work, he dropped in by my house to resolve my issue. No sooner did Rahul leave, whatever partial services that was coming from Tata Sky also stopped and there was no signal absolutely….till date. I reached home in the evening and called the Tata Sky call centre. On the IVRS I was told that there was a wait of about 6 minutes, despite my call completing 20 minutes, nobody came on the line. I had to disconnect the call as again I was being penalized. So, the next day, Saturday, April 25, 2015, I called Tata Sky call center in the morning at about 7 a.m. It was like making a call to God, leaving aside my daily routine and prayers time. I was again promised by the Tata Sky customer representative that this problem will be resolved immediately. Till date status quo………..I suo moto called the first person viz.: Anand who mentioned to me that oh no Sir, you should have called me 15-20 minutes back, I was at a site, just 2 building away from my home, I like………how am I supposed to know that. He as usual said that now he had left my locality and not possible for him to come. He told me to call him on Sunday, April 26, 2015 and “remind” him to come and resolve my problem. I called him on Sunday and the same story, , , , Sir, , , , I was in a building just two minutes away from my house…………left this area and not possible to come. He gave me a number of one Mr. Gopal (cell number [protected]. I called the number……no response….. I fail to understand that how disorganized can a company be, despite having an open call for such a long time, the company representative come to a place 2 minutes away from my house and does not resolve my problem. Even I had bad experience with your call centre on earlier occasions, they had blocked my number a few years back for a few days for I having made repeated calls for my annual subscription renewal. Really fail to understand the annual renewal policy of the company, despite having paid in advance for the renewal, the company expects me or for that matter any consumer to call ONLY on the first day of new subscription indicating the package chosen, then only the activation takes place else the company at its sole discretion changes the consumers default choice from annual subscription to daily subscription. This is like acting stupid and swindling millions of money from the common public at large. Even the experience for migrating from analog to Digital settop box had not been good and the company has again made millions of money by duping the consumers. Since I have paid a full year subscription fee, I feel my neck with under the Tata Sky sword, with no option to continue that miserable “as is” service or lose ones hard earned money. I had similar bad experience with another Tata Group Company viz.: Tata Docomo, harassment, bad service, swindling customer money on the name of technology changes and finally had to disconnect the phone for peace of mind by having to forego all the prepaid advance money paid by me. I think the house of Tata’s though has good people on the top but it has selected wrong management and the people under them. Request you to kindly take this as a formal complaint and ensure that I get Tata Sky full services and that I get credit for non receipt of signal from March 6, 2015 till the date of resolving of the issue and compensation for such mental stress to the tune of Rs.25, 000/-. Kiran Rajput P.S.: I have sacrificed my family and personal time on a Sunday evening just to write this letter, for no fault of mine.