[tsk1979]

We have an airtel IPTV connection from past few years.
Long ago our limit (Fair Usage) was 25GB.
This became 15GB, and now with 2mbps plans, its going to be 10GB in future.

But thats besides the point.
Currently we have the 15GB fair usage limit, which means after I use 15GB, speed goes down to 256kbps.

So between 17th-16th of successive months, there is a 15GB quote.

Every 17th, the quota is reset.

However, on the 22nd july, I get an SMS that I have exceeded 80% of my quota, and on 25th July it tells me 15GB is over.

Now this was fishy, I went to airtel website, and checked my data usage after 17th July, and its 2-3GB only.

Further investigation showed, that the bill has not been generated, and therefore the data was not reset.

So I called up customer care, and explained to them the problem, and the idiot advises me to wait till 17th August!!??

He is not willing to register a complaint.
Finally after going through 3 different people I am able to register a complaint with a complaint number, but I don't think it has helped.

MY 15GB/month has magically become 15GB for 2 months, and now I am on 256kbps.

Excuses are flying around "Site maintenance" blah blah etc., but nobody is telling me whether my problem is going to get sorted or not!

In between all this, its already 28th, and my bill is still not generated.
Has anybody else faced this issue.

From what I could gleam from my conversation with the "tech support", they know what the issue is, but they want me to wait till 17th August, by which my bill will "surely be generated".

I guess only recourse now for me is to file a complaint with DoT grievance cell. As for all other fraudband users, I would request you to check you usage to see if your Fair usage is being reset every month or not!

Really hoping for a competing IPTV provider to come in the market, so that we can get rid of this service provider!

[suman]

Airtel Customer Care are a real pain in the butt & it would be worth lodging a complaint with the DoT grievance cell just to see if anything happens. They just refuse to see sense & are not bothered if you scream or yell at them - some of their "technical" people have less knowledge than us on basic common sense items!

We had multiple issues with the wireless router & they would always send the same idiot who would do a temporary fix & go away. Despite our telling them not to send this guy, they wouldn't oblige (I guess they have technicians fixed by cluster in Gurgaon). Finally we told this guy that he needed to change it or else we would lodge a personal complaint against him & then he gave us a decent one

We're lucky not to have faced the fraudband issue - we do receive the warning from time to time but that's (so far) always been closer to the bill generation date & never just after.

[ASHISHPALLOD]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

So I called up customer care,
He is not willing to register a complaint.

Originally Posted by suman

Airtel Customer Care are a real pain in the butt & it would be worth lodging a complaint with the DoT grievance cell just to see if anything happens. They just refuse to see sense & are not bothered if you scream or yell at them - some of their "technical" people have less knowledge than us on basic common sense items!

Airtel customer care is joke,
i faced many problems, gave up to lodge the complaint.
Every time, rather than calling the customer care, i shoot the mail with some spicy words and Airtel service representative call me to solve the issue.
The issue get solved within hour.

Lodge complaint at 121@in.airtel.com

[999]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

MY 15GB/month has magically become 15GB for 2 months, and now I am on 256kbps.

Excuses are flying around "Site maintenance" blah blah etc., but nobody is telling me whether my problem is going to get sorted or not!!

Going by the recent news, they are in the middle of a restructuring plan, may be it is a mess there too with too many people moving places. They have already hiked the call rates in major circles by 20%. May be they are in the middle of changing IPTV rates as well. Anyways they are very unfair to you.
I am sitting with a MNP form in front of me, thinking to switch to BSNL,else my new SGS2 will make sure I am bankrupt by the next bill

[safari_lover]

Apparently they are upgrading their Software!
I have applied for shiiting my connection within Bengaluru and they need 22 days to carry it out!
The sales executive who sold me the connection says they have around 500 new applications waiting to be cleared, due to this software upgrade!
Can't they upgrade the software without affecting day-2-day business?

Now, I am forced to wait for another 2 weeks just to get my connection up and running again! There is no other ISP thant gives a fixed line and broadband service in my area, except for may be BSNL, which could be worse!

[bloodred]

Didn't have a very pleasant experience with Airtel myself.

Had take a BB plan paying in advance for full year upto April 2011 end. Was moving out of Pune in March end and asked them to disconnect, which they assured will take only 7 working days. A smooth talking phone executive convinced me to continue and that they will suspend the connection for a month, without any additional charge, and reinstall at new address in Gurgaon.

While movers were still dumping the stuff at new address, an airtel sales rep turned up to sell a new BB connection only to vanish the moment he was informed that I'm an existing customer and a shifting request has already been placed. Incessant follow up with customer care to put the connection in place yielded no response. A strong worded mail to 121 came back with usual copy pasted lines to finally inform me that they won't be able to install a connection due to 'technical reasons'. Wonder what they were when Airtel was selling new connections in same building. Told them to go to h*** and that there guys on ground are selling new connections. Forwarded same to nodal officer for information. But they couldn't care less for customer feedback.

Surprise surprise, the billing continued and phone number was never suspended / cancelled. One day received an sms for bill generated. An e-mail to 121 resulted in a revert that they will look into the issue and come back. Nothing happened and another month passed. Bill got generated for next month as well. Wrote to 121 again, still no reply. Forwarded to nodal officer, who refuses to understand what the issue is. The first line is 'looking forward to serve you better' etc. Had the audacity to write back that my request for waiver of two months of bill charges has not been approved.

When I firmly told that the mess is at their end, and if Airtel has woken up only after escalation to nodal officer, its their problem, they finally disconnected the connection (somewhere mid July).

The follow up calls for bill have stopped coming for now and hopefully won't be troubled again!

EDIT: As soon I pressed submit, got a call from an Airtel rep trying to tell me that I could get the connection reinstalled at new place... ha ha ha

[MileCruncher]

Well contrary to the popular perception here, I have been on BB899 from Airtel and also have Broadband and Landline from Airtel at home. I'm on the 1 Mbps plan with FU policy limited of 8GB. I'm sure I do cross that limit but have never faced reduction in speed.

May be I'm an exception in this quorum of discontent customers.

All the best Tanveer. Hope your issues get solved soon.

Cheers

P.S: I once had my Modem also replaced without much fuss.

[lucifer1881]

It is indeed troubling that companies like Airtel keep taking their customers for a ride. What is even more troubling is that despite hearing of such horror tales, people continue to utilize services of such companies. Does that give any of them any reason to pull their socks up?

My first mobile phone service provider was Idea. They troubled me so much that it took me less than 3 months to switch to BSNL. This was sometime in 2004-2005. I have never felt the need to switch thereafter. Sure, there are issues with BSNL too. For instance, to activate any additional service one needs to give them a written application. I am fine with that. I mean, how often do we need to active or de-activate services on our phone?

The deal clincher is their super transparent billing. We had an issue once with one of our phone bills. When brought to their notice they offered us a choice - either park the difference as credit so it gets adjusted in subsequent bills or take a refund. Now, how many players actually offer a refund of their own accord?

The above post is not meant to simply sing praises of a public sector company. The above post is trying to exhort people into action. We know Airtel or Idea or most other private telecom companies suck. What keeps us with them? In these days of MNP, there is no reason why one should not switch over when not serviced satisfactorily. This is the only way they will learn. Unless we start impacting their bottom lines, they are not going to change. No amount of posting on online forums will help.

[manasm]

The same thing has happened to me.

I received the SMS on the 17th of this month even though I have been out of the country with my family for from the 1st to the 15th.

This has never happened before and now I know someone else has the problem, I will walk up to the Airtel office and create a fuss.

That has worked for me before!

Originally Posted by tsk1979

We have an airtel IPTV connection from past few years.
Long ago our limit (Fair Usage) was 25GB.
This became 15GB, and now with 2mbps plans, its going to be 10GB in future.

But thats besides the point.
Currently we have the 15GB fair usage limit, which means after I use 15GB, speed goes down to 256kbps.

So between 17th-16th of successive months, there is a 15GB quote.

Every 17th, the quota is reset.

However, on the 22nd july, I get an SMS that I have exceeded 80% of my quota, and on 25th July it tells me 15GB is over.

Now this was fishy, I went to airtel website, and checked my data usage after 17th July, and its 2-3GB only.

Further investigation showed, that the bill has not been generated, and therefore the data was not reset.

So I called up customer care, and explained to them the problem, and the idiot advises me to wait till 17th August!!??

He is not willing to register a complaint.
Finally after going through 3 different people I am able to register a complaint with a complaint number, but I don't think it has helped.

MY 15GB/month has magically become 15GB for 2 months, and now I am on 256kbps.

Excuses are flying around "Site maintenance" blah blah etc., but nobody is telling me whether my problem is going to get sorted or not!

In between all this, its already 28th, and my bill is still not generated.
Has anybody else faced this issue.

From what I could gleam from my conversation with the "tech support", they know what the issue is, but they want me to wait till 17th August, by which my bill will "surely be generated".

I guess only recourse now for me is to file a complaint with DoT grievance cell. As for all other fraudband users, I would request you to check you usage to see if your Fair usage is being reset every month or not!

Really hoping for a competing IPTV provider to come in the market, so that we can get rid of this service provider!

[Guite]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

However, on the 22nd july, I get an SMS that I have exceeded 80% of my quota, and on 25th July it tells me 15GB is over.

Now this was fishy, I went to airtel website, and checked my data usage after 17th July, and its 2-3GB only.

Hi Tanveer, can you tell me few things? First, I don't get SMS alerts for amount of data traffic consumed. How do you activate this feature? Maybe I never exceeded data limit?

Second, I can't see data usage status on my account page, its all about bills. Can you please list sequence of links to get there?

I noticed that my connection speed is very slow these days. So maybe its same problem of quota not being reset. By the way 10gb/month is just too low in these days of streaming videos, watched by young and old.

[Holyghost]

My experience: I start receiving lots of marketing SMS for last 3 - 4 days and I was sure that I am registered for DND for more than an year. I call up the Airtel customer care yesterday and I get the reply that due to some technical problem at their end, and some customers number got removed from DND a week ago and that they have rectified the issue immediately and added all numbers back to DND.

Sounds well and good, but here is the catch. I have to wait for 45 days to reflect the DND changes and untill then I have to live with these marketing calls and SMS.

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

I think its for the first time that people have recieved such notifications.
Even I recieved such notifiction 2 days ago that I have exceeded 80% of my bandwidth.

Earlier even after exceeding I never recieved any such notification. Well all I will do is be slightly carefull for the remaining days of monthly cycle.

I think the issue might be because of the software ugrade they are performing. Tanveer hopefully your issue gets resolved soon.

[sgiitk]

See samurai's thread on fraudulent billing by them. Saw the new pseudonym - Scaretel. On Rimweb it is known as Airhel. Should sum it up. At least you managed to reach a human being, I am told even that is tough. The fellow must have been a call centre employee (most probably outsourced) whose authority is very limited, if not non-existent.

[StarrySky]

Apparently, I seem to be the only one who has had a good experience with Airtel.

I had an Airtel post-paid mobile connection in Bangalore and when I had to go abroad for a few months, I put the connection in safe custody (so that I won't lose my number). But, my "few months" stay got extended to over 2 years. Meanwhile, my safe custody period ran out (only 6 months allowed). Airtel sent reminders (by post) and disconnected my connection. However, since I was abroad I didn't receive any of the reminders (my mail was collected by my colleague in office who didn't open them). Airtel had also sent a DD to me to refund the security deposit I had paid when I took the connection. Needless to say, it was also left unopened by my colleague.

When I came back, I opened all the mails and found that the DD's validity had ran out (again, I think it was valid for 6 months or so from the date of issue). I went to the Airtel office in Bannerghatta road and explained the whole issue to them. In 2 week's time, I got a renewed DD at my address - without any further followup.

In Cochin, I have an Airtel broadband (unlimited 1Mbps)+phone connection and I've not had an issue with it so far. In fact, a month or two back I was quite busy for a few days and wasn't using the internet much. And I was surprised to get a call from Airtel asking, "Your usage has gone down, do you have any issues with your broadband?" I did have one issue at the time - I had changed the password to my router and had forgotten it. When I tried to reset it, I didn't succeed and my WLAN stopped working. I had to use an ethernet cable to connect to the internet. So I told the customer care representative about this issue - and there was someone at my doorstep in about 2 hours time to correct the issue.

[RaguHolla]

From The month of May Airtel started innovative way of fleecing customers! They just round of the amount to next rupee. What's big deal you ask. Ideally as RBI guideline if transaction comes to fraction of rupee, they can round of the amount to nearest rupee if amount is greater than 50p. However Airtel started rounding of the amount even if amount is 1p! How gr8 is that! Considering Airtel has 2 million customers, 1 rupee per customer is cool 2 million, this round off happens after tax calculated, meaning this amount goes directly to Airtel which they don't have to pay any taxes either!.