Oct 25, 2014 01:29 PM
17307 Views
I had taken an aircel connection last year and have been gullibly paying bills of almost 3000/- every month without checking the details and only recently when I had traveled to delhi on official duty I got wind of their unethical billing and fraudulent practices.
I was at delhi for just a day and I was billed 778/- for roaming gprs usage, all the while I was in a meeting the whole day and didnt find time to use that function on my phone. when confronted everyone I spoke to was vague and gave some bull#@^ about my phone latching on to another network on roaming and that the charges for one day was almost 800/-.
The first call to their customer service number resulted in the executive cutting the call on my face as he was unable to justify that charged amount. this was going for 4 times after which I finally gave up and emailed them. the email reply was also vague and the only thing they were harping on was that I have to pay.
I then decided to try out vodafone and sent a number portability request and that was when things changed.p Profuse apologies followed and one executive even volunteered to revoke the charges if I decided to stick with them. when I told her that I am not looking for charity and I want to be treated with fairness and courtesy and not teased about and insulted, she gave up and the request for number portability went through after I settled the complete bill once and for all.
However it took a total of 17 attempts to generate a number portability code on my phone, but I was determined and finally got it after sending code requests from another friend's instrument with that sim. The number portability was done by september end and suddenly now aircel is again generating a bill for usage(Rs.511/) from the sim number from the date of number portability till the complete disconnection of the number from their network.
What is shocking is that I am getting messages from vodafone stating that if I dont settle the amount with aircel, my connection will be disconnected. If I had the resources I could stand up to this telecom mafia cartel but unfortunately as a single helpless individual, I forced myself to pay this amount and mentally heaped a lot of curses and ill will on that fraudulent network and the crooks that are associated with corporations like this.
With businesses and'corporate' houses such as aircel and similar ones its no wonder that our country is never going to reach the standards of developed countries and the only way to defeat these crooks is to stop patronising such companies in future.
