My fiancee is using Airtel Prepaid connection in Pune -- Every once in a month I receive a congratulations SMS from Airtel saying stuff like "You have successfully subscribed to caller tunes. Rs 30 has been deducted from your account...".
Today I received a new surprise which says something like, "You have successfully downloaded VAS... Rs 2 has been charged from your account. Your balance is Rs. -1.20". This was not even an SMS message - it was what you call a "Flash message".
The most interesting part is that in none of the instances did I request any of the services to be activated. Airtel is subscribing me to these services and charging me for the same every month on their own wish -- very systematically.
I'd rather say that Airtel is doing this in a very pre-ENGINEERED manner.
I'm even not unaware of the fact that this happens with many other Airtel subscribers around the country. Several of these victimised/victimized customers do call back to the Customer Care cell. Some of them get a refund. A large of number of these victims ignore these messages for various reasons..
The irony of my situation now is that, Airtel now charges for speaking to the Customer Care personnel, which I can't do as my balance now is below Rs. 0.00. I wonder how Airtel subscribed me to a VAS when I didn't have the required balance -- this is an irony in itself.
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