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Submit Complaint..I would like to bring to the attention of the higher authorities of Bharti Airtel the lackadaisical way in which my problem is being dealt with. I was using the broadband services of Airtel on the fixed-line number 0141-4001814 for almost two years but I requested for the cancellation of the service in November 2010 (Reference number: 138121116) since I was shifting out of the city. I was flooded with offers to transfer the number to the location I was shifting to, but since it was out of the Rajasthan circle, the offers weren’t viable. Anyways, I shifted back to Jaipur towards the end of June and requested for a new Airtel connection on 30th June, 2011 with the reference number 9535286190. Within about 90 minutes of requesting for a new connection I received a message informing me that the connection isn’t feasible. I was surprised because until November I had a connection at the same premises; so I contacted Airtel’s customer care center and was told that I have a payment pending of around Rs.3,400 on my previous connection i.e. 0141-4001814. I was taken by surprise yet again and went to the Airtel’s Jaipur Head-office in C-Scheme to settle the issue.
There, I came in contact with Mr. Ashish Saxena who told me that according to their records the company had not received a cancellation request and hence, the bills were issued. I explained that it was not possible since I had requested for the cancellation in November and hadn’t been living there since then. He then said that the connection had been involuntarily cancelled in February 2011 due to non-payment but offered to issue a ‘NOC’ if I paid the amount for the bills issued till January. He reasoned this by saying since your last payment was made in December for usage of our services till November, we should at least pay for the bills till January. Upon being told that I actually wanted a new connection but the due payment was hindering the process, he said he will contact the customer care center to see if they had mistakenly retained the number and related information. I later on gave him the reference number and Mr. Ashish confirmed that it was the reference number for a cancellation request received in November. But he still continued to ask me to pay the amount till at least January in order to use the broadband service on my previous number only.
On 7th July, Mr. P C Maal from the retention department came to my house to complete the formalities required to restart the service on the previous number. He seemed to be unaware of the aforementioned issue and upon being informed, he spoke to Miss Shikha from your Delhi office. Ms. Shikha also informed him of the same; then I requested him to let me speak to her. I tried to reason with her but instead she told me that usage had been detected in April and May. She then offered me a 50% discount on the total amount (about Rs. 3400), which I refused. Mr. Maal then asked her if he should go on with the retention formalities to which she refused incase the payment wasn’t made.
Now that I have narrated the entire story, I have a few questions to ask.
1. Why is it that your records don’t show my cancellation request in November?
2. Why wasn’t the connection cancelled despite receiving a request in November?
3. According to Mr. Ashish my account was ‘involuntarily’ cancelled in February 2011, then how is it that the bills were issued till April 2011.
4. If the bills were being issued, why did I never receive them after November (neither on the address nor on my email-id registered with you)?
P.S: In my absence letters were regularly collected from the premises but I never received any from Airtel.
5. How did your company detect usage in April and May, when I wasn’t even living in the premises and the connection had been ‘involuntarily’ cancelled in February?
6. We never asked for the concerned number to be retained, but somehow according to your system I had requested for the retention of this number. Do you people update just about anything in your system while the customer sits unaware?
And today they sent an extortion agent to my house, who threatened us to pay the due amount. Had I not called the customer care to request for re-issuing my broadband connection, I would have never come to know of this issue at all. If there were outstanding bills, why was I never informed? If there were issues that needed my immediate attention, why was I never informed about the same? I never received a letter, an email or a phone call about any of the aforementioned issues. I have never failed to pay my bills in time, and you can check your records to confirm my credibility. Had I had the slightest inkling about this, I would have brought it to your notice long time back. Ever since I became aware of this problem, I have written to higher authorities but have only received auto-generated replies assuring me the resolution of my problem in 3 days which obviously never happens. It shows just about how firm Bharti Airtel’s customer service is.
I have been using Airtel’s services for quite a long time and had been satisfied up till now. As if the careless way in which this problem is being dealt with was not enough, the awful lot of discrepancies have only added to my already harrowing experience in resolving this matter. After such a terrible experience with Airtel, I would rather move on to the services of another provider since there isn’t a dearth of such sources. This letter is actually to inform you of the state of matters in your company: not only are your executives extremely casual in dealing with customers, but also the company is causing mental harassment and attempting to fool a customer into paying for services he never used. Not to forget the fact that your system isn’t updated, rather it is unaware of the existence of important information relevant to a customer’s account. This is only causing you to lose your reputation.
