Airtel 3G activation and Incorrect data usage metering

I have been quite-no-crib customer of Airtel for almost three years. I had initial issues but life was going pretty smooth with them since then. Only till August 16th when I got a call from Airtel regarding 3G migration and good plan where I was offered 500 local calls, 300 local and national sms, 200 MB 3G data free. Rental was Rs 600 but I was offered 50% discount for 24 months. I was currently on Rs 199 rental plan + Rs 99 gprs. So, this sounded good. I was told that new plan will be activated within 4 hours and I will get sms for confirmation.

I didn't get any confirmation on plan change till next day. I called the number back but it was switched off and then I tweeted to airtel_presence. All tweets screenshots posted at end of this blog. I got reply to tweet but no action till 20th when I got following sms.

The above sms, which I received on 20th August at 4:24 pm, talks about free local calls and sms but no information regarding free 3G data or discount on rental. In fact, it says data will be charged volume based. Since I don't want to pay airtel for talking to customer care, I chose to tweet to them. Again tweet was responded but no call for a day. I got a call on Tuesday 5:22 pm but since I was riding cycle from office to home, I couldn't take the call. I again chose to tweet. I got following sms.

This sms, which I received on 21st August at 7:07 pm, talks about discount on rental but again no information on free data plan. Shocker was to follow. After 7 minutes, I received following message.

Following are screenshots from airtel website which shows my unbilled usage till 20th and 21st. If I have used 740 MB, my unbilled usage should be more than Rs 4,500 in 2G plan or Rs 2,250 for 3G plan. But amount is much lesser and compared to my usual usage.

Folllowing important points to be noted

1. SMS talks about 3G data usage till 20th. 3G data got activated only on 20th at 4:24 pm
2. Timing of this sms – just 7 minutes after activating  discount on rental. Now what Airtel, recovering your rental discount?
3. According to my earlier 2g data plan, I should have been informed when I was near to 300 MB or crossed it. But that never happened.
4. My unbilled usage as per website is much lesser than what claimed by sms. 

I got a call on 22nd August. And lady confirmed that I have used data of 740 MB. And there is no way they can find detail till bill is generated. I got really pained by the answer. I asked her to cancel my 3G and put me back to my previous plan and 2G internet. My 3G got deactivated but 2G internet was not enabled. With no more option, I tweeted again. I got another call on 23rd August. I then came to realize that I am still on this new plan but without 3G network. My plan was switched then but informed that they can't do anything till bill is generated.

I have raised this issue with Airtel before the bill is generated. Instead of investigating the issue, I have been asked to wait till the bill is generated. And only then they can't check the usage detail. There are enough stories on net where fraud bill has been generated and then they have been harassed to pay the bill. Airtel even involves collection agency to collect the pending bill amount. I surely don't want to go through that. And I hope Airtel listens. 

Following are all twitter messages that I sent to Airtel. 

Sir, we can't register your complaint.

Indian telecom and Internet service providers are quite popular for their pathetic customer service. Mostly due to process issues between their customer center team and their engineering team where there is no mechanism for customer representative team to push their back-end teams to resolve issues or get a reverse feedback of an issue from the back-end team. But I was recently shocked when a reliance customer center executive told me that they can't register my complaint. Yes, you read it right he didn't register my complaint.

Here is how it started. I logged into to reliance website to pay Internet bill. I don't use any of reliance telecom product. And hate their website as much as their any other service. But have to log in every month once to just pay the bill for my wife. As a regular monthly ceremony, I initiated the payment from their website. Reliance telecom website uses billdesk for payment services. So, it directed me to bill desk site. After first level authentication of credit card number, name, expiry date and cvv code, it redirected me to my credit card website to enter my credit card password. After successful payment, I should be redirected to billdesk site and then automatic re-direction to reliance website for generating receipt. Instead I got an error which is from billdesk.

I had got text message from credit card company regarding usage of credit card and I was very confident that issue had happened between billdesk and reliance website. This means the amount have been debited from my credit card account.

Being a good appreciator of self service, once again I logged into reliance website to log a complain regarding this issue. I shuffled through their various categories and subcategories and couldn't find any relevant option to log this complain. I just decided to use one billing category, hoping that somebody will anyway look at complain. Surprisingly, they allow only 200 characters. Now, which complaint can be written in just 200 characters especially against Reliance service. Or they might have been influenced by twitter. If folks can raise their issues with Airtel_presence there, then why not here too. Nevertheless, cutting all possibles words that I could cut, I typed the complaint and click submit. As I should have expected, even logging complaint failed with an error.

I decided to call their customer center. Not that I like talking to them but I was left with no option. I patiently explained the issue to him. He suggested that I should call the bank. I once again attempted to explain that this is not really bank issue as issue happened after redirection back from bank. But he persevere as he might have been trained to. I am sure anybody who has talked to any of these telecom call center executive can imagine what I was going through. I actually tried third time. And when he repeated that I should talk to bank, I asked him if he can at least log a complain. And he repeated again that I should talk to bank first. Now, that was frustrating. I repeated – can you just log a complain? No sir, I can't do it – he replied. What, why – I exclaimed. Shocked me asked why can he log a ticket. He replied that he doesn't have option to log this ticket. Are you kidding – I seriously asked. I had a payment issue at your website and you can't log a ticket. And he was back to his perseverance that this is bank issue. I wasn't in for any further argument. I almost shouted - Can you just give me an email id or phone number where I can inform this issue. He was agitated too and gave me customer center email id.

I wrote a mail to this email id. Somebody called next day and informed that they have received the payment and replied the same on email. And now I wonder if something could be resolved on email, then why not the same could have been resolved through their ticketing system or call center. Indian telecom and ISP providers really need to work on their processes.