Consumer Blog

Message from AR-Airtel

Pegu — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:15:29 +0000

Recently it happened with me.

I got a promotional message from Airtel with sender id AR-Airtel, and when I opened it, it opened as Service Message, which read something like this,

Hey !! Koi karna chahta hai sirf aap se dosti, Airtel Friendz Chat per only at Rs. 30/month Click.

http://10.2.45.161/wapchat/main.aspx?channel=WAP/AirtelLive.

And the above is a click able link as one can guess, it uses AirtelLive! Now, be aware, it does not tell you about the complete story! I learnt the complete story hard way, after spending 10 rupees as well as Rs. 30 a day after!

Being curious, I clicked the link, and it immediately took me to some webpage! After that I closed, but I immediately got an alert, Rs. 10 deducted from my balance! The story did not end there! After 4 hours or so, I got an SMS from 54321 saying that You have been successfully subscribed and Rs. 30 has been deducted!

I immediately called up customer care, but they explained me that the Rs. 10 was charged for using the AirtelLive service, not for chatting! And why was I subscribed ? They said I must have clicked subscribe but if I insist they can reverse the subscription and refund!

I said wow! Airtle has started a new scheme to scheme away money from its customers!

So, be careful when you get this kind of innocent Service Messages from Airtel. My friends tell me that they even sent messages for subscription of monthly bollywood picture download etc. etc. Be aware of those, even if you do not subscribe, you may still end up paying Rs. 10 for clicking that link and after

What service you call it ?

Pegu — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:07:12 +0000

Recently it happened with me,

I have a reliance GSM prepaid connection of reliance Rajasthan Circle number : 902427XXXX. Without any request from my side, I received SMS on 22 May 2010 8:58:22AM from 52345 as follows : Dear Customer, U are subscribed to CallerTunes at Rs1/2 days, To cancel,SMS Unsub 1003 to 1552233 (Toll Free Reliance).
I did not do anything, but please be informed, I did not ask to activate the CallerTune service and by balance was promptly deducted.

On 23rd May 2010 12:12:27PM, I again got SMS from 51234, with the following YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO CRBT SERVICE HAS BEEN RENEWED AT RS. 2 FOR A PERIOD OF 2 DAYS. TO UNSUBSCRIBE SMS UNSUB 1003 TO 155223(TOLL FREE) on = 97.253.29.72:9080.
And also Rs. 2 was promptly deducted.

On 29th May 2010, I got SMS from 51234, which reads YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO CRBT SERVICE HAS BEEN RENEWED AT RS. 30 FOR A PERIOD OF 30 DAYS. TO UNSUBSCRIBE SMS UNSUB 1003 TO 155223(TOLL FREE) . on 97.253.29.72.9080.
And Rs. 30 was promptly deducted.

Since, I never subscribed to CRBT service, still they send those SMS and promptly deducted money! I had complaint to them, lets see what happens!

Message from AR-Airtel

ICICI Bank’s ATMs not working in Udaipur, Rajasthan

Pegu — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:54:47 +0000

Recently, I tried to use ICICI banks ATM located in Sector – 4, Hiran Magri in Udaipur. I found it was not working and on inquiring how long it had been not working, I got replies from curious onlookers that its not working for last few months!

ICICI Bank ATM Woe in Udaipur

Now imagine the cost of maintaining an account in ICICI Bank! If you do not keep Rs. 5000 minimum balance, it is almost Rs. 3200 a year, that Rs. 800 or more per quarter for not keeping the minimum required balance! Apart from this, there are many service charges with fine prints!

Now, with this kind of service charges, ICICI bank is unable to keep its ATM in working condition for months together!

Three reasons why I hate Caller Tune or CRBT

Pegu — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:15:12 +0000

Before you people get ideas, let me introduce myself. I am IVR developer myself. Caller Tune/Hello tunes, called CRBT technically, is nothing but IVR (Interactive voice response) system. Sadly, I am also one of those CRBT developers and I know CRBT is major revenue spinner for telecom companies as well as value added service providers like us, but I thank God that, Telecom companies have not removed plain old ring back tone.

But, I hate using CRBT and hate it when I do not get to hear plain old RBT (Ring back tone, for those uninitiated) but some song from some movies or album. I hate CRBT for three specific reasons and I thought I might share with you. Here they go :-

1. The song you like, I hate them

Imaging the situation, one guy calls up from hospital to inform his relative that his father just expired. As soon as he dials the mobile number of his relative, he gets to hear ‘Piya tu ab tu aajaa….”.

Fe days back, I called up a number of South Korea and it played some Korean! My bad! Few days back, I called my friend Rahul in Banglaore, he played the a song in Kannada! I told, Rahul, I do not understand Kannada, thank you, your melody is my noise.

With CRBT, you can not make out how many rings have passed and when it is time to disconnect as called party may be in a meeting! It is good manner to disconnect after say 4 rings! But how am I supposed to know 3 stanzas of the song make equivalent of 4 rings, and t is my time to disconnect ?

Finally, I like old Hindi songs, and Beatles! Most probably you hate them. Then again, lemme tell you, I hate your Shahrukh Khan numbers.

2. My God! I am paying for making my callers listen two lines of song!

How much should listening to a one song of 5 minutes duration cost ? Rs. 10, ok I agreed to pay that amount to download song from VAS short code to my mobile which I can listen again and again forever as long as I want! Have you ever thought about CRBT ? Here are few facts:-
a. You pay rental of Rs. 30 per month for making your caller listen to 1 line of song which they hate and you stop as soon as you pick up the call.
b. If you want to change the song, you pay Rs. 15!
c. You change by either calling to IVR which charges you Rs. 6 or Rs. 7 per minute as long as you are connected to the IVR.
d. If you send SMS to change it, you pay Rs. 3 for one SMS.

So, finally what you get ? Your caller gets to listen 2 lines of the song, and a unhappy caller whom you made listen to some music he hates!

Make CRBT free and see, if I use it!

3. You can no longer use speaker while phone you dial is ringing

Thanks to Caller tune or Hello tune, you can no longer switch on your speaker on the mobile of telephone instrument! You just are not sure what caller tune you may hear as soon as your called number starts ringing.. errr, playing.

Imagine your friend setting up some funny ( really, really funny) caller tune for you ( yes it is possible to configure different caller tune as per caller ID) and you happen to call him from a meeting and your boss asks you to switch on the speaker so that everybody can listen!

Here are my three reasons why I hate Caller tune, hello tune, CRBT what ever they call! Finally, I hate more when they activate it without my request and the song being a Bhajan! Well it happened with me once!

So how about you ? Do you have any interesting incidence thanks to Caller tune ?

TRAI will allow to post complaints in its website

Pegu — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:40:38 +0000

As per recent news, TRAI ( Telecom regulatory authority of India) will allow mobile subscribers to post complaints in there website www.trai.gov.in .

This is an welcome step and if implemented properly, it will be great help for addressing any customer grievances.

Here is the news :

NEW DELHI: Empowering India’s 500 million plus mobile users, the country’s telecom regulator has decided to set up an online customer redressal mechanism, providing a platform for dissatisfied consumers to express their complaints against their service providers.
Put simply, any customer can log on to this web-based system, that will be maintained by Trai, to register complaints, violations or any other grievance against their mobile operator. This independent platform will work on a real-time basis, implying that the operator in question will immediately get the complaint, a top Trai official told ET.
This official also added that this system would enable Trai to monitor if customer grievances were being addressed. “We can then see as to what per cent of customer complaints are addressed,” the Trai official explained.

Source : Economic Times

Next big move : SLA for government services

Pegu — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:51:18 +0000

What could be the next big move by ruling UPA(United Progressive Alliance) government at the center after RTI ( Right To Information) act, PMO has announced that service level agreement would be implemented for select government services for providing selected government services. Central government is targeting Delhi, Union territories to start this by April 2010. Delhi is likely implement this from April 2010.

This could be a much needed push towards speedy government process as well as reduce corruption. It may be mentioned that, failure to implement SLA would result in penalising the concerned government officers per day. Here are the list of service which will come under SLA ( Service Level Agreement):-

1. Issuing of ration cards
2. Issuing and renewal of driving licences
3. Registration of voters
4. Issuing of voter identity cards
5. Registration of births
6. Registration of deaths
7. Registration under Department of Value Added Tax
8. Issuing of SC certificate
9. Issuing of OBC certificates

PMO also wants state governments to come forward themselves to implement SLA on their own as many services are under state governments.

Most probably, this will help common people greatly and help India achieve its goal of being a truly welfare state.

Telecom companies fined for not verifying customer ID

Pegu — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:13:41 +0000

Recent reports says that, many Telecom companies have been fined by DOT! In order to inflate their subscriber numbers, most probably, telecom operators are pushing their field marketing agents so much that they are compromising on a serious security issue of verifying customer identity details. Here is the news :

NEW DELHI: The Government has imposed a penalty of a little over Rs 42 crore on the mobile operators for SIM cards bought on fake identity so far, which refers to defaulting on subscriber verification norms.

A Department of Telecom official said the total amount of penalty imposed for SIM cars brought on fake identities on various operators so far is Rs 42.77 crore from June 2008-November 2009.

In 2008-09 alone, DoT had slapped a penalty of Rs 32 crore on the operators for failing to adhere to the subscriber verification norms.

DoT has imposed a penalty of Rs 7.38 crore on the service providers operating in J&K and in Assam, the penalty is Rs 1.76 crore from April-July.

The major defaulting operators are BSNL, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, Tatas, Dishnet group, MTNL, Spice Communications, Reliance Telecom, BPL, HFCL Infotel, Sistema-Shyam, said the official.

Fake SIM cards have been used by the terrorists/insurgent groups. The minimum financial penalty is Rs 1,000 per violation of subscriber verification. With the mobile subscriber base growing very fast, this figure is expected to swell further.

Earlier in April, DoT introduced a graded penalty system under which operators pay Rs 50,000 per subscriber if more than 20 per cent of their user base is without valid identity documents.

Source : Economic Times.

Bank pays for deficiency of service

Pegu — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:10:54 +0000

I have come across a very interesting story where a bank consumer gets justice from supreme court of India. t took almost 10 years, but it finally happened when a bank account holder in Vijaya bank finally got back money which he lost due to deficiency of service by Vijaya bank.

I am quoting the whole story here as I find it inspiring for people who have suffered due to deficiency of service provided by banks.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal of Vijaya Bank which was held responsible for gross deficiency in service resulting in unlawful withdrawal of Rs 3,50,000 from the account of a customer by using a cheque leaf of the newly-issued cheque book. Gurnam Singh, the complainant had a savings bank account with the appellant bank. Somehow he lost his cheque book containing one unused leaf and the requisition slip required for issue of a new cheque book.

On September 24, 1999, when Mr Singh visited the bank to draw money, he was surprised to find a balance of Rs 1,682.93. It was found that the requisition slip had been used to get a new cheque book issued from the bank and the remaining cheque in cheque book was used to withdraw Rs 2,500 from the complainant’s account. It was also discovered that Rs 3,50,000 had been withdrawn from the account by using a leaf of the new cheque book. Having failed to get the amount reimbursed, Mr Singh approached District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Chandigarh, alleging deficiency in service by the bank.

After examination of his account-opening form, the requisition slip and the cheque in question, the District Forum on December 4, 2001, came to the conclusion that there was gross deficiency in the service by the bank which resulted in loss to the customer. The District Forum found that the specimen signatures on the account-opening form and the cheque used for withdrawal of money were different. More significantly, when the cheque for Rs 3,50,000 was presented, the balance in the account was only Rs 3,46,682.93 and yet it was honoured by recording a debit entry of Rs 3,317.07 as recoverable from the complainant, said District Forum. Consequently, it accepted the complaint and directed the bank to credit Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,50,000 less Rs 5,000 in the account of the complainant along with interest @ 10% per annum from August 17, 1999, till the date of the correct entry.

The findings of the forum were challenged by the bank in the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh, which upheld the order. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission also turned down the bank’s plea. It finally came to the apex court.

A bench comprising Justice DK Jain and Justice TS Thakur while dismissing the plea said, in the absence of overdraft facility, how did the bank honour a cheque for an amount more than the account balance.

Source of the stoy : Economic Times and link is here.

Kingfisher Red will remove non-reclining seats in phased manner

Pegu — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:09:30 +0000

On 21st November 2009, I wrote about non-reclining seats in Kingfisher Red airlines in India. I also wrote to its chairman about my inconvenience due to this in a 2 hour flight. I was almost overwhelmed by a response from the chairman himself. But than, you always expect that kind of customer friendly system from Kingfisher, a place for good time!

In that reply, Dr. Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO, Kingfihser Airlines mentions that, he is aware of these non reclining seats in few Kingfisher Red flights. He has also assured me in that email, that, they are addressing these non-reclining seats in phased manners. I think what he means is, he would be removing those non-reclining seats in phased manner!

The quote from the email :

“I note as well your feedback on your experience on IT 3345 and regret to learn that you were inconvenienced on account of the non-reclining seats on this flight. I assure you that the service and facilities on Kingfisher Red are being augmented to offer more value to guests. I am aware that the seats are non-reclining on some Kingfisher Red flights; however, please rest assured that this is being addressed in a phased manner across all aircrafts.”

This will be a good step for Kingfisher red.

Kingfisher Red and non reclining seats

MTNL offers half paise call per second!

Pegu — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:44:12 +0000

So, is it another good news for mobile customers ?

Public sector mobile service provider in Delhi and Mumbai has announced a 1 second call rate of half paisa to its own network and 1 paisa to other network! This makes 30 paise per minute to its own network and 60 paise to another network!

Most probably, this will start some more price war among other operators. Then customers would be really benefited. But now a days, it is frequently observed call disconnect, network congestion in almost all operators. Instead of decreasing prices alone, mobile service providers should try to increase quality of service of mobile networks too.

Here is the news:-

NEW DELHI: State-owned telecom MTNL on Tuesday raised the bar for competitive tariffs by announcing a half paise-per-second plan for mobile calls on its 2G as well as 3G network in Delhi and Mumbai circles. For calls made to other networks, the tariff is 1 paise-per-second, MTNL chairman and managing director RSP Sinha said.
Under the per second billing plans which will become effective from December 2, subscribers will pay one paise per second for local and STD calls across the country on all networks, he said. MTNL, which also offers 3G services, will also offer video calls at one paise per second across the country. It has also slashed the local SMS rate to 25 paise per SMS, although the STD SMS rates remain Re 1 per SMS. Source.