Vodafone India — fraudulent charges for a special number I never called

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400053

Vodafone in my last month's bill, has charged me Rs.1736/- for seemingly making a single call to special number 51717 lasting 124 mins which i never made. Firstly i didn't even know this number existed before i called Vodafone customer care and enquired about the bill amount being so high. They were the ones who told me the number was 51717. Secondly they want me to believe i called a number i don't know and spoke for over 2 hours! When i checked about this number online i found i wasn't the only person who's faced this issue. Vodafone has charged several other people similar charges on the same number. If one types '51717 Vodafone' on Google an entire page full o[censored]rl links of similar complaints turn up. This seems to be a big scam Vodafone is pulling on unsuspecting customers. Even after raising a complaint about the issue all I have been getting as a reply is that it shows in my call log so i need to pay for it. There's not a single person from Vodafone I've interacted with so far who's seeing this as a serious lapse on the part of their network. Not only is this scary that your phone network just adds random charges to your bill and expects you to blindly pay for it but their attitude about this entire issue just seems to shun any responsibility.