[Resolved]  Vodafone India — fraudulent sale of postpaid connections - reg.

Address:

Sarita Vihar, Delhi

I am a victim o[censored]nethical sales scam by m/s vodafone idea pvt. Ltd.

In july 2019, i had signed up for a family plan of 5 connections for a sum of inr 999 per month exclusive of gst. I had been getting regular telemarketing calls from vodafone sales persons for me to sign up for the aforementioned plan. They have also given me the rates and benefits in writing over email.
Unfortunately, i was fraudulently sold a different plan of higher value.

I had opted for 5 connections for a single plan of 999 per month, whereas vodafone assigned all 5 numbers separately and billed each number 399 inr each; which amounts to be inr 1995 per month excluding gst. This is grossly unethical and unprofessional with respect to a brand of such repute.

Immediately, i tried to get in touch with the sales executive whose number became switched off and it’s the same till date. I wrote to vodafone customer care and social media team to which their corporate sales employee mr. Himanshu kumar (Himanshu. [protected]@vodafoneidea.com) took responsibility of the fraud sale and assured me that all the 5 numbers would be migrated to family plan of 999 “shortly”.

Months passed and the assured migration never happened and i got bills of around inr 2500 across all the 5 numbers instead of my signed up plan of inr 999.
Mr. Himanshu promised bill amount waivers which rarely happened and i had to pay up the bills in order to avoid disconnection / suspension and late fee. He always underreported the waiver amount for processing i. E. Instead of inr 300 waiver, he waived off only inr 125 and that too not across all the 5 numbers.

As a culmination, i had to face severe crisis related to temporary suspension and late fee against all the 5 numbers along with mental agony of calling mr. Himanshu several times to which he didn’t respond. After all communication attempts to mr. Himanshu and vodafone customer care failed to materialize, i decided to move out of vodafone network.

In september 2019, i applied to port out 3 out of the 5 numbers to airtel network. Since then, i started getting harassment and abusive calls asking me why i was leaving vodafone network. When i explained the issue to them, it went to deaf ears and the port out requests got delayed and rejected in some cases for reasons best known to vodafone team.

Ultimately, i ported 3 numbers (7xxxxx8883, 9xxxxx1184 and 9xxxxx7429) to airtel network in october 2019 after paying around inr 1200 across the 3 numbers.
Immediately after moving out, i was sent a bill worth 471, 271 and 184 respectively to which i again contacted vodafone. They asked me to pay up the bill and threatened that they will force airtel to disconnect my numbers in case i don’t pay up. This is insane.

As usual, mr. Himanshu did not receive my calls regarding bill waivers and continued sending me emails like “working on it” “it will be done soon”. The other two numbers’ port out request has been rejected by vodafone for a bill due amount of inr 750 which also remains unaddressed till date.

To conclude, i am facing the crisis of pending bill amount across the following numbers which i had never applied for or never requested for :

• 7xxxxx8883 : inr 271 (Ported to airtel)
• 9xxxxx1184 : inr 471 (Ported to airtel)
• 9xxxxx7429 : inr 184 (Ported to airtel)
• 9xxxxx7178 : inr 165 (Migrated to prepaid)
• 9xxxxx4375 : inr 443 (Suspended)

All the numbers are on the verge of disconnection and vodafone is constantly demanding the amounts by calling during odd hours.

My repeated attempts of getting resolutions from vodafone customer care, appellate authority as well as corporate care team has failed to bear fruits.

I am just asking vodafone to clear the bills ; let alone compensate the mental agony and harassment i had to face in the past 4 months of ‘service’ by vodafone.