My Troubles with Airtel India @mybroadbandproblems-blog - Tumblr Blog

Phone Conversations - Indefinite Loop within Airtel

So, here's how it went this morning. I went to the CONTACT US link on Airtel Home Page and it led me to a series of questions about my region/circle and the nature of complaint to bring me to this page

http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/airtel.in/home/foryou/broadband+and+fixed+line/broadband/reach+airtel/

This page details how one can connect with Airtel, including contacting their Nodal Office & Appellate Tribunals (they actually call it the appellate tribunal - how asinine for them to name it imaging in advance that there is going to be "appeals" from customers) Anyways, so the text in a PDF file that is on Airtel website says this

We have always believed in a personal touch to all our interactions with you. This booklet is one such endeavour, and will provide you with information you need for your future interactions with us. It tells you about our service standards and our processes. It also describes how you can get your complaints resolved, should you, at any point in time, find our services below what we promise to deliver.

The PDF file can be downloaded from this URL http://www.airtel.in/applications/xm/MOPTelemedia.pdf

Towards the end of this PDF file, they have listed their Nodal Offices & Appellate Offices with names & contact phone numbers with email addresses for these officers.

My first call was to the appellate office on phone number 011-41614690 which took me to their IVR driven call center and the employees were unable to connect me with anyone but a floor supervisor.

The agent actually was helpful (at least I thought so for about 5 minutes) and gave me another number for contacting a MR. Gurmeet Singh Sandhu, who he claimed was "seniormost" Nodal officer. The number he gave was 011-41614777

I got pretty excited that finally, there are some actual workers in Airtel with names, that can help me with this - So, I called this number, and surprise - It's the same IVR, same number.

Now, go back above and read what Airtel claims in the PDF document

a personal touch

Imagine my surprise, when I am not even able to speak with the same CSR again, and I explain my plight to another executive from start.

This is when the fun begins - He says please call 011-41614777 if you wish to speak with Mr. Gurmeet Singh Sandhu (This was after he actually thought I WAS Gurmeet Singh Sandhu, but that was because the line wasn't audible enough) when I am actually talking to him on the same number.

Now he is confused, so he gives me another number (the one I called in the first place) yes - 011-41614690 and I tell him the same thing - Now, he says you didn't follow the IVR right, I am going to take you through this - I agreed. I dialed that number from another line, went through the instructions exactly as he explained, and voila! We are back to another CSR, her name is Neha, who expresses her inability in connecting me with anyone from Airtel Appellate office.

Now, I am confused. Which one of them is lying? He says dial that number, she says no... So, he decides to connect me to a "Senior Supervisor" - That part of the call will actually be in another post but the situation, as it stands now is that he has promised to revert back in 2 hours guaranteed - at 12:37 pm today.

I promised to give him 3, but told him that in case I hear back from the collection agents again, then I am going to physically go in to Gurgaon police station and name some of the managers and directors of Airtel in my complaint, just to make them aware of the situation.

Waiting for now, we'll see how it goes!

Oh, another thing, I noticed I made a couple of posts on Airtel Facebook Wall, and as it turns out, they have been responding to others, just not to me - I am being singled out, which means that there IS someone that is reading what I have to say, but just doesn't want to fix it.

hmm, I wonder how long will this go on!!

Third Call - Once again Airtel Collection Agent threatens to Trouble my Family

Ok, third call in less than 24 hours - Airtel office doesn't seem to be in sync with its collection agents - Airtel apologizes on the facebook page and asks me to connect with them by sending them my mobile number - I send it to them, and haven't heard back since...

The collection agent calls me again first thing in the morning and starts to argue with me, calling me a thief, and in general arguing with me with baseless comments and without any awareness of facts.

so, here's how this call goes

He asks what do I want to do, to which I tell him that I have sent emails and letters to Airtel, why don't you just respond to those?

I tell him that I don't know him and don't have to talk to him - I am dealing with Airtel and I have written numerous emails to them without response.

He says that you should have come to our office to close the matter - Really, that's what you want your customers to do? Come to your office because you can't read and respond to emails, letters and facebook wall posts?

He continues to argue that he will give me a settlement letter or else he will keep calling me daily, morning and evening

He pushes me to the point of serious irritation at one point, and then he starts to call me names, such as thief

He says that I continued to hang on to the account and service for 8 months - I have emails and phones to Airtel that constantly tell them to fix the service, else I am not liable to pay for them - but he just doesn't have this information

His sole agenda is to irritate me to the point of just agreeing to pay whatever money he wants

At one point, he actually agrees to take 2500 rupees as settlement for 4 months of service, and when I tell him that I have already paid 2000 out of that, he changes course and says stuff like "Koi Ehsaan hai agar 2000 diye hain to?" Basically, his objective is to not take any monies paid so far in to account and collect as much as possible with this threatening and arm twisting mode

He once again gets insulting in his tone, and threatens to "take me into remand" once he gets the number of one my family members.

Some one from Airtel WILL have to read this at some point, I am saving all of these recordings that I am going to use in case I decide to sue them for harassment and general misconduct at some point.

Amazing is the state of affairs in this country!

#airtel #collection agent #threat #rude #bad customer service

So, after I failed to generate any response from Airtel whatsoever on my ongoing troubles, I wrote them a long letter in last week of September. These are copies of a letter that I sent to their office, with due receipts, stamped and signed.

Another threat, this time to my family - By Airtel Collection Goons

OK, so I just got this another call a little while ago- Started out fine, but somewhere during the call, the guy gets frustrated with my patience and in his frustration, he mutters something like this :

Wait until I get my hands on one of your family members / relatives phones and then you will come running and begging for me to settle this with full amount.

Is that even allowed by law in the collection pretext?

Are the airtel goons trained to threaten customers with anything and everything they can?

Last time, someone was threatening me with disconnection of my mobile phone service if I don't pay up what they are demanding (against my broadband).

I am going to upload the call recordings shortly, but in general it goes something like this

Sir, you told me that cops will call me to shut up, we haven't received any response - Why?

Why don't you finish the matter - Your bill is 11,000, how can we settle it in 2,000?

I explain the details about the plan and about how Airtel is over charging me, but this gentleman is as thick as they come, so he is having a hard time comprehending and eventually, says that he doesn't believe Airtel can do anything like this ever!

When all my attempts to explain to him fall on deaf ears, he comes back with - I can settle this for 7000 -8000 rupees. Just pay it, and get it over with

I tell him that I won't even pay 7 or 8 rupees, because I am not in the wrong - I never asked for the service that you claim you provided - He doesn't believe in this at first

About two minutes in the call, he starts to tell me that I am not going to be able to do anything, and while Airtel is bothering me, I won't get any police help

At about 3 minutes in the call, he mentions that someone abused me on phone this morning very badly, and that he will get that same person to do this again at 8 / 9 pm this evening

I asked him what did the other person say as I had already hung up on him when he started yelling, he feigned ignorance, but promised to call back at 8 / 9 in the evening and hurl his abuses again.

According to this person, I have utilized all of these services that they are billing me for, and therefore, I am liable to pay for them.

At about 3:40 minutes in the call, he does mention that you haven't paid for 8 months, they are going to continue to harass me for another 8 months

At 4 minutes, he makes a clear threat stating if he gets hold of my family's phone numbers,he is going to make such calls that I will be forced to beg him to settle the case, for the full money that they are demanding.

At this point, when I ask him to confirm what he just said, he again starts twitching and then, I make one more attempt in explaining him the situation.

When I tell him that Airtel has never informed me of any changes to my plan, he asks me to come to his office for clarifications.

I inform him that I don't need to, why can't you email / write to me with what you have to say

I explain the billing once again, and make another attempt at explaining him about how / why I disconnected Airtel services.

The gentleman requests me for evidence, but by now, I am tired of sending evidences on email / post to them and so I refuse.

He hangs up!

Overall, I believe he either saw some notes on my earlier conversation, or whatever it might have been, but he abruptly hung up, and hasn't called still.

I have all recordings, anyone wants to hear, feel free to drop me a note.

#airtel #bad customer service #broadband problems #fraud #collection agents fraud

The first threat call from Airtel Collection Goons

So, this is not really the first call, actually this was the second call after they were harassing me earlier in the day, I threatened them saying I am going to report them to the cops.

This didn't seem to worry the agent, who on the contrary, was mocking my threat and promised to call after 10 minutes to confirm that I have reported the matter to the police.

This is when I started to record my calls. He called after about an hour I guess, and then this recording was created.

In this call, the agent:

1. Asks me why is he not receiving a call from anyone, when I told him that the cops will call him.

2. Tells me that I am obliged to attend to his phone calls, and talk to him

3. He won't stop calling me until I pay

4. Tells me that I should be scared of him.

5. Persuades me to call the police once again so that they call him.

6. Upon my telling him to not call me again, he refuses and actually promises to call back in 5 minutes.

All in all, he is trying to basically create a mess in my day's routine, and force me to get annoyed to the point of just paying him to get him off of my back.

Have you seen the beggars on the road side? How they scratch your car windscreen or windows, so that you get irritated and annoyed, and just throw a rupee or two in their direction?

This is the attitude of airtel collection agents - On one of my previous calls, one of their agents was saying "You are a defaulter! You are a Defaulter" repeatedly, just so that I get irritated and either pay him out of sheer frustration, or engage in a verbal duel with him that leads in to his becoming abusive

In both these instances, I had to resort to hanging up the phone, because I just didn't want him to get the pleasure of annoying me.

#airtel #collection agents #rude behavior #bad customer service #threatening calls #illegal coersion

Why are you with Airtel?

This one is interesting - Pity I didn't have my recording app installed then - So I am talking to this collection goon from Airtel, trying to explain my position to him, when in a heated exchange of words, I mentioned that "the company is a crook"

He seemed to have taken some offense to this remark and actually ended up asking me -

So then why are you still with airtel? You are using airtel mobile, why don't you cancel that as well?

May be I will do just that, makes sense after all, doesn't it?

Looking at my plight, are you asking yourself this same question - Why are you with Airtel? Well at least, airtel employees seem to be asking the same question from its customers!

#airtel #horrible service #bad customer reps #fraudulent bill #incorrect charges #wrong invoices

Airtel Silence | Shameful | Another Email

So, back in September, after my repeated emails to them, I found another email address from one of their representatives who asked me to send an email to this address

[email protected] and I sent them this email - This has yet to be answered, sent on 15th September 2011

My phone was installed in the first week of July, and has been disabled since the 2nd week of July. I have repeatedly called your customer service phones and have been given several assurances that this will be fixed, but I haven't yet heard back nor is my phe working

If you try and dial this phone, it says NOT REACHABLE

What's wrong with your services? Almost 2 months and you can't fix a phone line, inspite of being one of the world's top 5 telecommunications company?

It's utterly shameful, especially since I am wasting my time, effort and energy in trying to get this resolved for over 2 months now and have been given numerous false promises.

#airtel #complaint #broadband problems #bad service #rude stafff #arrogant company #india telecom

Failed plan upgrade request - No justification from Airtel

After speaking with Airtel executives several times during end of August and early September, I finally got to a point where they confirmed that my speed will be fixed, and that my allotted plan quota will be increased to 30 GB instead of 10 GB.

He mentioned that this will be done from the next billing cycle, due to some technical considerations - (At a later date, I believe I even requested Airtel to bring in a call recording for this - they refused to provide me with the same)

So anyways, when nothing happened after my billing cycle changed, I sent them another email

Hello there

My account number is 16626313

I am facing serious problems with my Internet. I signed up with a 10GB internet plan at 4MBPS and received a confirmation email for the same from Airtel. Last month, my service speed was reduced after 6 GB of download, yet you billed me for the 10GB plan

I requested for an upgrade to a 30 GB plan, which was confirmed to me as being activated from my next billing cycle, that is 11th of September, 2011. It's the 14th of September now, and I am yet getting speeds of less than 1 MBPS.

When I called your office today, I am informed that my speed is 1MBPS and my data allocation is 6GB. Please tell me why was my plan changed without my authorization.

I want to enable 30GB 4MBPS Plan and I understand and agree to the monthly charges of Rs. 1399 as informed to me. Please take care of this at the earliest and confirm immediately

Thank you

#airtel #bad service #complaint #broadband problem #customer service #bad repo #terrible

1. The Phone Goes Dead

This is basically how it all started -

Within about one week after installation and the "WELCOME TO THE AIRTEL FAMILY" email, (I can't remember the exact time this happened) but sometime in July, my phone line went dead.

I asked my office to submit a formal request/complaint (since I didn't know how to connect with their land-line service department from my cellphone - 121 didn't connect me) and over a period of several weeks, we continued playing a tug of war with Airtel.

We were given the request ID 48630532 for our request for Re-Activation of the phone.

When nothing happened, we were given another request ID 49158152 a few weeks later.

When nothing happened still, we sent this email, and were given yet another ID 3161462

One of those email exchanges is here: Please note that this email was after almost two full months of ongoing troubles we were having with phone AND the broadband speed - I didn't realize the full extent of the problem for until after two months :

Notice, how the airtel representative addresses my colleague (her name is NEHA) as MR Gupta. but that's another story!

About My Problems with Airtel Broadband

Airtel is called 5th largest telecom company in the world and this blog is a direct call to action for it's chairman Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal -

This blog is my email to you - Directly - You need to read this and respond - with a resolution!

BACKGROUND

This blog is about my horrifying experiences with Airtel India. I have been a customer of Airtel since 2002, when I first moved in to Gurgaon. I have had two land line phones and one broadband internet connection at my home since then. I disconnected these services when I went out of the country for a year.

Once I came back, I applied for a new phone and a broadband connection in my Gurgaon apartment with Airtel and my troubles pretty much started right away - First of all, they informed me that there is an outstanding invoice in my name on my previous broadband phone - When I gave them proof of disconnection, they said this -

"Our retention department was trying to reach your mobile phone, but they couldn't so the service wasn't stopped"

My response - Of course my mobile wasn't working, I left the country, and I cancelled the service for this and this reason alone!!

Anyways, after a bit of haggling with the sales rep, he agreed to get me a new phone and a broadband connection.

LIST OF MY TROUBLES

Within a couple of weeks week, after installation, my troubles started in many forms:

1. The phone line was terminated in approximately 2 1 weeks after installation

2. My broadband quota was reduced without my consent/approval/information from 10 GB to 6 GB (This I found out after like three months)

3. My Internet download speed was reduced from 4 MBPS to 1 MBPS and further to 256 MBPS

4. I was being billed for both plans - 10 GB as well as 6 GB - I sent them a copy of the bill to demonstrate this

5. I requested for an upgrade to my plan, they upgraded my cost - and started charging me per kb after 6GB as against my allotted unlimited quota of download.

6. My bills were inflated and without any reasoning or justification -

7. I complained to them over and over and over and over and over again, but have not been able to get someone to listen.

8. My mobile service was threatened with disconnection if I don't pay up

9. I was verbally mistreated, and threatened by their goons

10. I was physically threatened by their goons prompting me to send them an immediate letter to put matters on record.

11. Their staff, most of the times, logs in the requests - incorrectly - You call for billing, they log it in as technical support query and what not!

IN A NUTSHELL

So this blog is about my troubles and put matters of Airtel on the record, and for the world to see.

A HUMBLE/POLITE REQUEST FOR YOU - THE READER

Any one of you reading this blog - Please help me by forwarding / sharing /tweeting this so that this reaches the ears of Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal and he sees the sorry state of affairs his company has come under.

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