Dear Sir,
I am writing to you after trying to get my issues addressed with customer services numerous times and after failing to reach you on telephone.
I have been Airtel broadband customer (A/c No 13508684, phone - 011-45589201) since Jan and have subscribed to plan 555 since then. In this entire period of more than 3 years, I have never exceeded data limit of 2 GB under plan. However, In the bill dated 6th May where I was charged for nearly 8GB download. My internet usage has been same or has in fact reduced in last few months. This is evident from my billing since Dec 10. Since May me and my family have been out of town several times, even further reduction in usage was expected. Hence I was extremely surprised to see above bill.
I called up customer care and raised billing complaint (Ref no 46664948) on 22nd May. I informed that I am absolutely certain that my usage can’t be more that last few months, and I suspect the issue has something to do with wireless router that was installed recently. I was told that someone will call me to enquire or update on the issue and I don’t have to make payment till my issue was resolved. When I didn’t receive any call or update on the issue, I called up customer care again on 4th June to enquire about status. I was again surprised when I was told that issue has been closed and there are no billing error. On asking why I was not updated, they said they called me twice and on both occasions I asked them to call later, since am busy. This is absolute lie since I didn’t any call (or sms) from Airtel in that period.
I informed them that I am not satisfied with response and issue persist since now another billing period is over, and as per Airtel website, I am going to get inflated bill again for billing period 5th May to 4th June. Despite my repetitive questioning and requests, they failed to provide satisfactory response. I informed them that I expect some senior person to call me to understand my grievance.
Frustrated after failing to get my grievances heard and not receiving any call from a seniors, I called customer service again on 10th June, to request cancellation of my broad band with immediate effect. The ref no was 1506144.
On same day i.e. 10th June I received call from Mr. Ravinder of Retention department. He apologized for my experience and offered to waive my billing amount to some extent. He offered following settlement: (Ref no same as above i.e. 1506144)
1. I need to pay Rs 3, 800/- for entire billed outstanding of Rs 7, 100/- as of 10th June. Remaining amount will be waived off.
2. I need to pay above settlement amount by June 25th.
3. From 5th July my plan will be converted to an unlimited plan with rental of Rs 649/- (this will include 512 KBPS speed till 10 GB and 256 KBPS thereafter, will also include Rs 100 calling value (local STD to any phone)
Though the above settlement still seemed unsatisfactory to me, I still agreed to it to avoid any further issues or avoid change of land line no.
I was yet again surprised to find on 18th June that both my outgoing calls and broadband has been disabled. The disconnection it appears was done on 13th June. On the call to customer care I was informed that this has been done due to nonpayment of bill dated 6th May. When I informed them of my 10th June conversation and settlement with Mr. Ravinder, they provided various explanation and refused to either acknowledge or accept that settlement.
As of now my attempt to get my grievances heard and resolved continues to be futile. This includes trying to reach nodal officer on phone no provided, who always seems busy. This is nothing but pure harassment of customer.
Above experience has exposed me to pathetic customer care and grievance redress mechanism in Airtel. They are not only fail to provide satisfactory response to customer issues, they refuse to let customer talk to any senior person. They don’t fulfill their promise. Customer issues, requests, promises, settlements with customer are not recorded / updated properly. No one seems to know about discussions, talks customer might have with others in Airtel.
I expect a quick acknowledgement/ response and fast resolution of issues. Failing to get response and resolution to my issues will force me to escalate the issue to appropriate forum, including to the TRAI and Consumer forum.
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