Did you guys know how easy it is to apply for a telecom connection with service providers such as Airtel in India??
I have experience to share with one and all. Well, I do not mean to expose any of the short-comings in the policies or procedures of the telecom service providers through this blog, but I would like to question why a consumer is taken for granted??
I wished to apply for a new GSM connection with Airtel. I submitted all the necessary forms (duplicate i guess) and then they provided all types of reference numbers to track their sales order. I used the phone for quite sometime and I decided to cancel the connection!!. Billing cycles are understood only by Airtel and they are hardly explained to consumers and if at all they explain they hardly take feedback on whether the customer has any comment to say on their billing process. So consumer must be smart enough to understand that the deposit he or she pays towards the new connection(s) hardly comes back to him/her eventhough it is refundable. You maybe wondering why that is so?? Hang on!! I am gonna explain that in detail..it is all mentioned in the ‘cancellation process’!! Did the consumer ever reads that i do not know?? Anyway the experience goes like this: I am ready to request to submit cancellation request. I reach nearest Airetel Franchisee and enquire about the procedure. There are 2 ways to go about. You could be asked to call customer care and submit your request over the phone for cancellation. Then they would say that the process would take 10 working days …etc., then comes another ’sale’ game from Airtel. Firstly Airtel does not seem to have any practice of providing ‘a cancellation’ confirmation number and acknowledgement document which can be used as legal document. Without any such document, the consumer has to rely on the reference number Airtel customer care provides to the consumer. Such reference numbers are not legal documents which state that the service provider is committing to ‘disconnecting’ the service and line. You may be wondering what’s all this fuss about?? Ok if your Airtel GSM line subscription comes up with some 1999/- (Rs 1999/) plan you would have paid around so much amount as refundable deposit. Please be prepared to lose that amount even if you submit the cancellation request promptly!! I would like some math whizkid to explain to me in which case I will definitely get my deposit back!! so now imagine if Airtel could retain the refundable deposits from their millions of subscribers …assuming if there are about 100,000 (minimum) disconnections/cancellations per year, Airtel could easily make 300 times of that number (it could be anywhere running into Crores of Rupees??..i am not too good in maths!!), assuming that on average each subscriber/consumer is supposed to get Rs 300/- at the minimum if the cancellation is made effective. If someone explains the billing cycle fundamentals etc., then at least Airtel can walk away with 50 % of the above mentioned amount.
Am I missing anything??Is my understanding is correct?? Any wise soul in India who is already Airtel subscriber can send me few details so I would be able to get knowledge on this entire process
