Airtel Making Money by Cheating!

Cribb sent in my Hardik

The company that is supposed to be the best and most widely accepted service provider in India is also a known ‘CHEAT’ when it comes to maximizing its revenues. I heard a lot about this malpractice employed by the company but didn’t believe it unless I experienced one. They had activated some ‘Jokes alert’ service on my number without my notice and when I used the SIM, after a long gap, the entire balance had vanished.

I got a recharge done and observed my balance day after day. Everyday there was a minimum deduction of Re. 1/day and sometimes Rs. 3/day without even using the SIM at all during the day. When I complained about this, they gave elusive replies on activation which was never done from my side – In fact I checked up all SMS / outgoing calls for past 1 year and there was no such activation done.

When I ask for the refund on email, even the nodal officer (Karnataka) writes back after a week ‘We regret the inconvenience but cannot do anything’ In fact one of my friends had to literally go and fight with the executives at an Airtel office to get a refund of such mysterious deductions. I have already changed my SIM and am using Tata Docomo services and their response is quite satisfactory on customer queries. If you have an Airtel SIM, please keep a check on your balance, else they may be eating away your money on your back.

8 Responses to “Airtel Making Money by Cheating!”

  1. Honesty used to be the best policy in good old days in govt/ private/cooperative sectors.Now dishonesty,courruption,diplomacy is the policy of the these organisation.we are all part of it,how can you fight them keep changing service providers–good luck.Do not give a blank certificate to any one in such short notice of change sir.

  2. True, Roney.
    SIM change is to avail better and efficient service. While fight is agaist such corrupt pranks employed by such so called ‘reputed companies’ as you described – both are distinct from each other.
    If people like you and many others simply crib without acting upon, they are very much ‘being a part of it’ by cowardly submitting and encouraging them to suck your money. But it takes guts to fight back for the right cause and fortunately with adequate sources like this one, media, consumer forums, and non-dormant people unlike you, these companies can be put to task.

  3. Cribbing for many of us is a good pass time.But seriously if this plate form is supported by the master cribber to shape it and give the leadership to fightback collectively for the common cause against the recognised but bad implemented policy (viz Transperency..) surely it will bring tangible change in govt/private and cooperative sectors and benifit all of us.However with the approach of guts one may won at times in his personal task but in most cases of fight individually against a group/organisation even for the right cause one would miserably fail and may meet an ugly end.Honour and honesty has no merit now a days in the on going era unlike Abhimanyu era who fought alone against groups of warrior’s for the sake of clan’s honour, lost his life with dignity.Cricket match fixing scam,DDA house draw 2008 scam episode,DESU loss NDPL gained profit for the same task etc…Learned Khuswant singh in his coloumn of H.T. wrote that sir, Sibu soren whose vigilence pending have won and become C.M., while Manmohan singh whose integrity and merits are above board had lost M.P. election.Hardik you may agree that Every body is interested to know who is complaintee but not the contents of complaint whether it is a media/or any other fourm.So to complaints now there are two methods adopted for addressing a complaint 1) Find facts and try to solve it or keep lingering 2) If you know complaintee harass or eliminate him. The complaint would be solved there would be no complaint. The second one is easy and is adopted by all deptt/media and judiciary etc..Diamond cuts Diomond needs to be adopted in present set up on similar lines of Diplomacy cuts Diplomacy and no guts sir?.

  4. Same thing happens with Reliance too. They randomly deduct 70 to 30 rupees. When you customer service they say something was activated.

  5. Such things happened to me too.
    I called up the regional center, and a guy who was find a solution (which according to their website , was the Superman guy for solving issues said)
    “Sorry,! we can’t do anythin in this regard”

    Thank god that companies are paying huge perks to those regional head idiots who simply say “Sorry,! we can’t do anythin in this regard” to their beloved customers(that too accoring to their website)

    They are “happy to piss off” anyone who asks for a help

  6. Naveen Kumar Singh on April 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    What type satisfaction does Airtel provide to their customer? I dont know how is it possible that their Broadband Connection Enrolement forms are used by their Terminated Sales Executive ? Does Airtel provide freedom to their Sales Executive to fraud with public in Global Market ? Does Airtel ditributed their forms without maintaining any record? I dont know how airtel promises to provide 100% Cutomer Satisfaction and Faith ???

    One of the Sales Executive name : Amit Mathur comes to me and offer me Broadband Connection on March 13,2010 and he promised that we have connection in next 4-5 days. He filled a Enrolement form (Form id : 2163908) in front of me and took cash of Rs 1500/- .

    After that whenever I called him he used to told me that “Sir, we need one more day. Threre is problem with Line”. On 20th march when I called to Airtel customer care to check the progress of my application and contact with Sheetal (Having office in Okhla Delhi) then she replied that me that this Sales Executive(Amit Mathur), already resigned from Airtel two months ago. But I asked Sheetal to write complaint against Amit Mathur(Complaint ID : 30711378).

    After that whenever I call to Amit Mathur he neither piked my phone nor replied me back.

    Also, I visited Airtel office B-38,C-1,Sec – 57 Noida but I did not get any concludatory response from customer service associates.

    Now, it is my request (whatever you can understand), either provide me connection or give back to me all of my cash money (Rs 1500/-) within 5 days otherwise I will go to Consumer Forum to register my problem and take strict action against Airtel.

    Also I will cc this mail to News Channel, Airtel MD, other companies providing Broadband connection like Reliance etc and a group of Telecom Ministry.

    It is really a matter of shame for Airtel, how can terminated employee sales their connection and looted rupees on behalf of Airtel.

  7. My Airtel Broadband connection; suddenly went kaput on 19.05.10. After struggling with the router; I tried to contact the customer care dept. Unfortunately; the moment an option was selected to speak to a Customer care executive; the call would drop. All the attempts to reach a Customer care executive failed. Eventually the broadband connection never worked the entire night.

    This resulted in wastage of precious time, energy as I had to work at nights to support my offshore clients. Also this caused a total disconnect with my client that resulted in one whole day worth of productivity lost.

    Next morning; I was able to connect to the Airtel customer care dept. After speaking to a few agents; it was officially acknowledged by them that the service was down last night for upgrades. I asked them then why this was not communicated to the customers for which they had no reply. I talked to one of the Floor Supervisor’s who after having seen the mental stress and productivity loss on my end; finally told me that they would waive one day fee from my monthly bill. I asked to be connected to her manager; for which they would not easily comly. After a lot of persuasion finally I was provided an email address and phone number of a nodal office.

    I didnt know that I was up for another ordeal. The Person’s name given to me was one Mr Gurmeet who was available at 41614777. I called the number and the phone was picked up by one person named Jatin. I asked him if it was Airtel’s number to which he said yes. Then I asked him to connect me to Mr Gurmeet. He didnt even have the courtesy to tell me that Mr Gurmeet is not available; I am available in his absence and how may I help you. He just said. you are speaking to Jatin. I asked him again and again that I want to talk to Mr Gurmeet but he would not budge. Finally I had no option but to speak to him. I asked him if he was aware that Airtel broadband service was down in NCR (Noida-GZB) region anytime to which he said “NO”. The service was never down. I told him but your Customer care dept told me that we know the service was down due to technical upgrades but he would not acknowledge the fact that the service was down. He asked me what my Airtel no was which I gave him. He then said “the service is working now isnt it? You had problem last night. He was not at all professional, lacked basic customer care etiquettes and was outright rude. He asked me to give him complaint #. I said none of your customer care staff gave me any complaint#. He said I cant do anything without the complaint#. I asked him again if I could talk to Gurmeet becos that was the name I was given by Airtel staff. This guy wouldnt even say anything whether Gurmeet is available or not (or I am the concerned authority in this regard so you may talk to me now) but would stick on just one blank statement “you need to talk to me”. He didnt say even once that we are sorry for the inconvenience you have faced or anything to show that he was sitting there to serve the customers. He was acting as if he is the supreme authority on this planet. The call got disconnected in between and all the subsequent attempts to call the number failed as nobody picked up the phone in the nodal office.

    This is an outright indication of taking consumers for a ride by befooling them; harassing them and not having any regard for professional ethics. Please avoid this company Airtel.

  8. Same happened with me. Some service got activated without any reason, I immediately called the customer support and he said the service will be stopped and I asked for how much have you charged so far refund it all. They said the refund will be made. The best practice is to be aware. It could be bug in the system or something deliberate but in the end, it is the consumer who will loose so buyers beware…