I have been a customer with Airtel in India (Bangalore) for almost 7 years and I have been in various plans - both prepaid and postpaid. A couple of years ago, I availed the Lifetime Incoming Free plan (Sachin plan, I assume) and until last month was on the same plan, satisfactorily. I used to spend about 4 to 8 $ a month for the call charges and used to e-charge my prepaid account directly from my online bank account. This was pretty convenient since we need not have to go to a retail store to purchase a top-up or currency card.
Early this month, I had to travel to another city for a few days and decided to e-charge for about 250 INR, unlike the usual 150 INR (Around 4 Dollars), since I knew I would be on national roaming charges and I was expecting quite a few calls.
I tried to echarge on 3rd September and the amount was shown debited from my bank account. I would normally recieve a sms message as soon as the echarge was successful with the updated account balance, usually the whole of 150 INR that I would charge, in my prepaid cell account. This time however all I received from the 250 INR was 50 INR. I didnt have time to find out what happened and waited to come back from my trip to find out.
On 13th September, I spoke to the Airtel customer care personell using the direct 198 complaint number and after waiting for a long time managed to understand from the CSE, that I was tranferred to another plan, a campus plan, "because" I had charged for 250 INR instead of the usual 150 INR. This would not have happened if I had charged for 150 INR and I would have recieved full talk time worth 150 INR, as was hapenning earlier on.
The "great" thing about doing a echarge from my bank account was that there is no warning or intimation or approval requested from me, or any customer I assume, to be transferred to another plan altogether, when all we want to do is charge our prepaid account a bit more than usual. The new campus plan would deduct some amount everyday, if I were to have currency in my mobile prepaid account.
So normally, if we were to charge for more currency, we would expect more talktime (though some amount would be deducted as service charges). This time that was not what happened... I was charged 200 INR of the 250 INR I wanted to charge my account for... as charges to switch to a new plan... which I was not even made "Aware" of!!
The only way I could have found out of this, according to the CSE, was by calling the customer support on the number 121 and find out about the latest plans going around, everytime we have to recharge our account. Till this time... we were talking about "convenience"!!
All rite... if it was not enough that I had lost and would not get a refund for my 200 INR (around $4... pretty cheap),
I was also informed with deep regret by the Airtel Customer Support Executive and his manager, on behalf of Airtel,
or Mr. Sunil Mittal, that I would not even be able to revert back to my old plan for a complete period of another 1 Year and in this duration, a daily amount would be deducted from my mobile prepaid account, if I were to have any currency. They were generous enough though to not drag me to a negative balance :)
Well, I thought about what happened and why it happened. And then all of a sudden I was enlightened by what seemed to be a more practical strategy... though the CRM folks would swear it was not true.
Here's the logic: I had opted for the prepaid lifetime plan with Airtel a few years ago by paying around 1000 INR (Around $ 25... cheap again). Then over the years, I was not one of the "most" profitable customers with a very low "Net Lifetime Value". And hey, I have been a "loyal", not so royal, customer. I would probably end up spending around 2500 INR a year (around 60 $). Now there had to be a better way to make me pay more and not really loose a customer... well at least the bet was that I would not want to loose a 7 year old number. So the convenient way would be to put me into any other more profitable plan at the earliest chance made available! And "I" gave Airtel a chance to help me, as a customer to convert my plan without my knowledge or confirmation. No one had called to check/verify, if I really wanted a plan change.
Now I am stuck with this campus plab, as Airtel and Mr. Sunil Mittal grow to become the largest cellular service providers in India. What are my options???
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