Unprofessional TATA broadband

[DCEite]

I applied for a TATA broadband connection a week back. After some queries on phone about my address, a representative from them came to my house and collected the money for the Quick Power 360 plan (Rs. 3641) for 6 months. He also took photocopies of my address and identity proof.

I was shocked when yesterday i received an email from TATA broadband that the internet connection is not available in my area, and as and when it will be available, they will contact me.

Why are they in such a hurry to collect the money even before getting the area feasibility report?

I did get an acknowledgment slip from the person with a receipt number for the payment. Now i keep calling the customer care and they keep giving me complaint numbers. The representative who took my money keeps saying that he will come tomorrow to refund, but doesn't show up.

What to do now?

[amya]

DCEite, sorry to hear about the incident.Dont take me in a wrong way; but you chose a wrong service provider. This is exactly how they run their business. I will tell you my experience with TATA Indicom. Some years back, I had taken a TATA Indicom postpaid connection. After few months, I decided to switch to a GSM service provider and requested to send their executive to my office. He came,collected the outstanding amount,the handset and accessories and gave me a TATA indicom reciept.More than 6 months later,I recieved a legal notice from them saying that I have not paid the outstanding amount and if I dont pay it, they will drag me to court.I made a call to them and guess what I came to know, the amount and the handset and the accessories never reached their office. Fortunately I had made the payment through cheque, and it had not been presented in my bank, I immediately stopped it and slapped a return notice through one my advocate friends, giving all the details. They never bothered me again.
So what I would suggest,make one more call to the call center, ask for a supervisor or a TL, ask for his email ID or full name at least. And send an email to the customer support Id with the TLs name, and warn for a legal action, if they dont reply, if possible, slap a notice or rush to consumer court.
The amount that was taken from you may be very less compared to the efforts that you put. But believe me, the relief that you did not give up just like that, on your hard earned money, is much bigger.

[BMWlover]

The Broadband scene in India has a long way to go. Its overpriced and doesnt offer 1/10 th the speed or quality offered abroad.
I have been using BSNL broadband in my home, and the experience has been less than satisfactory, with connections getting dropped once or twice every month due to server/wiring issues and whatnot and every time it takes a phone call plus a day or two to fix..
I tried using Sify before that, and the less is said about that the better...horrendous net speed and way to overpriced. 1Re for each MB means 1k for each GB, and here In the states i prolly end up using 2-3gigs a day on Movie downloads, gaming and what not, all for a small fraction of that price.
My experience with TATA has been generally good, almost no downtime and good package plans. It was probably a mistake on the local agency's part, but still thoroughly unprofessional and unexpected.

[Alfa_Kilo]

I have a TATA Indicom connection right now, and it is terrible. I made a big mistake by going in for a pre paid plan. Once they get their money, they forget about the service they paid to provide. I am planning to shift to Airtel soon.

Yuo may have to visit their local offfice and speak to someone in person to get your money back. This is a throughly unprofessional company, and calling their call centres rarely helps.

[reignofchaos]

Tata Indicom customer service is terrible to say the least. I have it since the last two and half years and the only reason I have stuck to them is because they have great bandwidth and relatively good uptimes compared to other ISPs and there are no billing issues for postpaid connections. Also they are the only ones in the business that provide a 1:1 connection with a static IP. But have to agree their customer service is non existent.

Coming to the thread, has the cheque been encashed? Else just issue a stop payment on it.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by DCEite

I was shocked when yesterday i received an email from TATA broadband that the internet connection is not available in my area, and as and when it will be available, they will contact me.

Why are they in such a hurry to collect the money even before getting the area feasibility report?

I had the same problem with Dishnet DSL wayyy back in 2000. I paid 30,000 (yes 30K) for a 64kbps DSL line. This was the installation cost, my monthly was 2k.

Please make written correspondence. Helps you in the long run.

[extreme_torque]

The worst ever experience I had was with Tata Indicom. The damm thing wont work for even two days at a stretch and the 24 hour issue resolution at most times took more than 2-3 days, even 10-15 days in some cases and that is after speding a lot on the umpteen telephone calls that I made. There was no escalation, no shift lead, the only person you could talk to was the customer care executive. I faced a downtime of atleast 10-15 days every month and in absence of better options I continued for 7-8 months. The limit came when one month I had a downtime of 26 days... yes its not a typo and they refuse to give me an extension and that when I decided to get ride of it forever. I am on MTNL now and its infinitely better.

Never expected this of a TATA company. Read user reviews about the same on mouthshut and you will know how widespread this issue is.

[svsantosh]

Hi DCEite, Sorry to hear this, But your case is the n'th one I am hearing since TATA ventured into Telecomm. You may have to wait upto 3-6 months to get the refund.Brace yourselves. Why dont you stick to BSNL (I love it), Or Airtel Data card (if you have a laptop), as its said, 'Truck makers suck when it comes to car making, and (todays) car makers suck when it comes to phone/net making!!'

[WhiteKnight]

Originally Posted by DCEite

What to do now?

DCEite, I have multiple TATA Indicom connections, including Wireless data card. I could understand your concern. This organization not the most market savvy one.

Approach their office and get hold of a person who is a decision maker, and things could work out pretty well. I keep using TATA since I have built up contacts. Also, unlike many other service providers, TATA connections do not carry "hidden" charges. Also, they do not go hiding when there is a problem.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

Coming to the thread, has the cheque been encashed? Else just issue a stop payment on it.

No i made cash payment. Even though they dont accept cash, but since i didn't have the cheque book with me, he said that he will make the DD himself. I did get a receipt of the cash i gave though, on the TATA's form. He just mentioned cash instead of cheque/DD on the receipt.

BTW i received a call a few mins back from one of their customer rep asking me to confirm my address for sending the refund.
God knows how much time will they take to actually send it though.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

I had the same problem with Dishnet DSL wayyy back in 2000. I paid 30,000 (yes 30K) for a 64kbps DSL line. This was the installation cost, my monthly was 2k.

The Dishnet DSL got bought over by VSNL, and VSNL got bought by Tata. Now Dishnet DSL is known as Tata Indicom broadband.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by Samurai

The Dishnet DSL got bought over by VSNL, and VSNL got bought by Tata. Now Dishnet DSL is known as Tata Indicom broadband.

should have known that.

[Chevy_lover]

You can drop a mail to their customer service for the time being and it will speed up the process.

[suvi]

Originally Posted by BMWlover

The Broadband scene in India has a long way to go. Its overpriced and doesnt offer 1/10 th the speed or quality offered abroad.
I have been using BSNL broadband in my home, and the experience has been less than satisfactory, with connections getting dropped once or twice every month due to server/wiring issues and whatnot and every time it takes a phone call plus a day or two to fix..

BSNL gives 2 Mbps. i got atleast 1.5Mbps during downloads and is pretty decent for general browsing. i don't think you get much better speed/quality abroad.
the only problem is they take 8 months to give connection donno if it has improved now

[SLK]

I've got a couple of TATA connections.... yes there can be problems...

they are.. not the best!.... but then none in India are!

I've used my TATA 256k.. connection for more than 60gb per month .... worked fine!

Indian cities basically lack ALL infrastructure to have reliable wired connections.... just need to wait for some wifi technology to get matured.

in my area... ISPs sometimes cut out each other's wires!.... who's to blame?