[Rotorhead]

This is going to be a little lengthy post, so kindly bear with me. Mind you, some of you might feel why I should be breaking my head so much about a mere 100 bucks, but believe me its not about the money, its more about the feeling of being cheated.

I am going to put forward an experience that I had with my mobile service provider recently and I am not really sure If thats how things work as explained by the customer care reps or am I/customers getting ripped off. I would also like to know if anyone else has faced such an experience before and how it was handled. I am not going to name the service provider since I am not really sure as i mentioned that if that is how things work or am i really getting cheated, and however I am also not interested in mudslinging at anybody's buisness.

My son loves to play games and especially when I travel long distances he likes to play on the mobile . So far he was content with the standard games provided in most mobiles like tetris etc, but recently he saw NFS on my brothers phone and he too wanted the same to be downloaded onto my mobile. I logged on to the service providers internet link to see what all games are on offer, and found there were quite a few but at a cost to download that game. I went from one link to another to check out the various games under various categories, and I was only interested to see if NFS was available to download, and after a lot of searching didnt find it, and hence closed the internet connection. And to my surprise I get a SMS from the provider saying that I have been charged Rs99 for downloading a java game. Then i wondered if I had mistakenly clicked on some game and it got downloaded by mistake, and when i browsed through the installed application on my phone, i did not find any game installed.

Next i called the customer care and explained the whole thing to her for 5 minutes and after all that she says the systems are currently down and asked me to call after 5 hours. The next call after 5-6 hrs another representative picks up the call and I explain to him. This person tells me that there are certain services that you will be charged even if you visit the link, and i told him that that is pretty much acceptable and that i will be charged for the GPRS call for the duration of my internet access and if I download any data, i will need to be charged accordingly. Now the next thing he says is that certain games are charged if you just click on them, and I told him that I will need to be charged the amount only if i download the game which i did not. Then he says that I might have started the download inadvertantly and stopped the download in between, but the point is that if the download was cancelled in between, then will i be charged for the full price of the game eventhough I decide not to continue to download ?. I told him to provide the details that he told me on the all through mail so that I can take it up with the technical team, and he refused to do so and asked me send out a mail to some other customer care ID and that i would get response to that within 24 hours. Also he mentioned some phones are not compatible and hence the app would have downloaded but not installed.

Now guys, you need to help me out in case where
1. if the download was cancelled in between, would I be charged for the chosen game ?
2. In case the handset is incompatible to the download, will it still be charged. Shouldnt the app provider provide info on what kind of handsets are supported before we can even start downloading.
3. Some of my friends have mentioned that there were certain games which were absolutely nonsense . So shouldnt they have a demo/trial version so that people can take a look at the game first and then decide to download ?. Cmon they charge close to 100 bucks per game and only when you download it you get to know that its crap. This is as close to getting the feeling of being cheated.

anyone else face such issues ??

[pranavt]

1. if the download was cancelled in between, would I be charged for the chosen game ?
2. In case the handset is incompatible to the download, will it still be charged. Shouldnt the app provider provide info on what kind of handsets are supported before we can even start downloading.
3. Some of my friends have mentioned that there were certain games which were absolutely nonsense . So shouldnt they have a demo/trial version so that people can take a look at the game first and then decide to download ?. Cmon they charge close to 100 bucks per game and only when you download it you get to know that its crap. This is as close to getting the feeling of being cheated.

1) Yes. They cannot easily know if you've completed a download or not.
2) Yes, you would be charged. And about the compatibility details, they almost always give them out. Give out the name of your provider and we can find out.
3) Most games have a demo and a full version. If you don't trust the quality of the game, then you're not forced to buy it.

[muni]

Yeah, I Had faced the same problem from Hutch ( now Vodafone) abt 3 years back when they charged abt 100 rs for something i did not download . All I did was attempt to download some stupid Song or Tune which never happened. They blindly took the number of times I attempted to download and charged me.

I find it hard to believe if they dont have record of the data that was sent as part of the download and why cant they use it to ascertain whether the download went through or not.

I felt so disgusted with the call centre representatives who were talking like parrots repeating the same sentences " Sir, this is how it works etc". I cancelled my connection and never paid the last Bill. I Was ready to fight them in court if they had insisted on payment of the Bill.

[pedrolourenco]

Airtel is famous for this.

[Ananthang]

Rotorhead,

Dont break your head and get stressed in this incident. Its not worth all the fight. These companies have made a habit to charge like this for Value added services as TRAI regulations are not proper for this VAS.

You will get unnecessarily stressed and loose your Peace. Please forget it and whenever you surrender your mobile, deduct whatever amount you were cheated till now and pay the remaining.

They will not trouble you if Rs. 200 - 300/- after you surrender the connection.

[travelwriter]

One thing we must remember is what is considered as a download.

When you are browsing a site, say Google, and you click on one link and that page opens up, it is called a download. It is not necessary that you download an application on to your mobile. Even if browse through various pages, you are downloading those pages into your mobile.

That is what gets charged.

[deetee]

Similar thing happened to me with Indicom,once I browsed lots of ringtones on their portal via mobile and listened (preview) to them but didn't download as I didn't like.Also after that , I browsed through some wallpapers,previewed ,but didn't download because they were not upto the mark.

After that as I called up a freind,I happened to press '*' button just to check if song gets copied automatically or it will ask my confirmation first. To my utter disgust, I got an sms saying that song is copied and so and so amount was charged for both subscription and monthly rental. That was a prepaid number and they didn't even seek my confirmation before setting up subscription or monthly rental.
Because of the subscription charges and other things ,my balance has gone negative.
I couldn't even call the customer care with negative balance , so recharged some meager amount and tried calling.
To my horror I was again greeted with a negative balance warning. I was stupid enough to recharge it again without bothering what ever happened to earlier money.
Even this time balance went to negative even though recharge was successfull.
I was fed up with this and called up customer care through friends mobile.
The C.C rep told that there is a due of about Rs.1000(yes thousand) against my number for data downloading ! I was
No matter how hard I tried to convince them they didn't budge that it was some problem with their system.
I didn't bother to escalate it further for I knew it is useless to go around those idiots. So, I dumped that sim and bought a new one and am happy that I forced them to write off Rs.950 (I recharged about 50).
Moral: Window shopping is costly with mobile operators, what ever you touch is as good as bought.

[Rotorhead]

pedrolourenco : same here buddy.

Ananthang : Like i said its not the question of the money, but its the feeling of being cheated. Not just that, imagine, how many more people would have faced this and how much the provider must be making for a service that is not being used by the customer, but they are getting charged for it. Also imagine if i had gone about clicking on multiple games then i probably might have got charged in thousands, and thats quite a lot of my hard earned money going down the drain.

travelwriter : point One is the charges for being able to access certain links, and the next is the charges for the actual services/feature that you intend to download and use. What you are talking about is probably the GPRS charges that apply for accessing sites and downloading content, and the charges are applied to the GPRS call and the amount of data being downloaded, but in this case the 99 Rs that we pay is a flat rate that I assume we pay over and above the GPRS charges just to be able to to download the game. Like i said, I understand being charged for the GPRS call, and if at all going to differnt links means a download, then that is fine, but the 99 Rs that I am paying additionally for the game which i havent downloaded, that just doesnt make sense. Am i correct here?

[pranavt]

So you go to a hotel and point at something in the menu, but don't eat it. I doubt they'll let you go without paying. What you could do is contact the CS rep and tell him to escalate your complaint and let you download that game again.

[muni]

Originally Posted by Rotorhead

pedrolourenco : Like i said its not the question of the money, but its the feeling of being cheated. Not just that, imagine, how many more people would have faced this and how much the provider must be making for a service that is not being used by the customer, but they are getting charged for it.

It is cheating Period. I understand the sentiments.

Another thing that i have noticed is the Banks which give unauthorised credit limit( you are not aware of it ) to debit card holders and by any chance unknowingly you do something in the ATM centre by checking some wrong option while withdrawing even though you have had a postive balalnce they charge you 500+ Rs for activation charges and dont bother to communicate to you about it.

For credit cards, it's a different story and you always have to keep an eye on what transactions are happening and whether you are responsile for it.

It is not a question of Few hundreds but it just makes your blood boil ( I am getting all worked up sorry)

The same people will use all kinds of communication possible if there is something due from your side.

crooks to the core.

Stop using their service and dont pay that is it and collect some proof about their misdeeds before doing it.

[akbaree]

IMHO it's a waste of time to talk with the CS reps. Infact sometimes I feel why do we have them. They generally talk like a recorded message anyways. Most companies employ so many of them to give an illusion of customer service. No offence to any CS reps though.
You can have your son get interested in rather reading books or enjoying music or still better - enjoy the drive itself; while you are on long drive. And buy him a playstation or XBox for playing games.

OT: You should get used to live like you are being cheated all the time. You pay so many direct and indirect taxes and what you get in return. Every piece of development has it's toll tax. So why did I paid my taxes?

Originally Posted by pranavt

1) Yes. They cannot easily know if you've completed a download or not.

It's difficult to know whether a download completed or not and so they made it simple - Just charge. That's good.

[pranavt]

Originally Posted by akbaree

It's difficult to know whether a download completed or not and so they made it simple - Just charge. That's good.

?? They charge you, then give you a link to the game download. Their job is done at that point. Whether you stop the download in-between or have an incompatible cellphone is entirely your problem. The onus is on you to dispute the charge.

[akbaree]

Originally Posted by pranavt

?? They charge you, then give you a link to the game download. Their job is done at that point. Whether you stop the download in-between or have an incompatible cellphone is entirely your problem. The onus is on you to dispute the charge.

The onus should be on the service provider to ensure that they provide the charged services or else don't charge. In this case, I believe, the customer is paying for the game and not for the link to download.

And I would suggest people to invest time in other better things than disputing some mad service provider's bankrupt thinking.

[pranavt]

Originally Posted by akbaree

The onus should be on the service provider to ensure that they provide the charged services or else don't charge. In this case, I believe, the customer is paying for the game and not for the link to download.

Do you buy a CD, drop it on the way home and expect to get another free CD because of your mistake?

Originally Posted by akbaree

And I would suggest people to invest time in other better things than disputing some mad service provider's bankrupt thinking.

OK OK, you people can circle-jerk about your service providers' experiences now. I'm out of this thread.

[sgiitk]

How about the champs - BSNL. I had a BSNL connection (one must accept when in odd places their connectivity is the most widespread) for over three years and always pay by putting the cheque in the drop box.

In March I had paid the cheque over 10 days before the due date. I get sms's asking me to pay up. Then outgoing is barred. Amount in question Rs.384 - credit limit Rs.2000. Contact customer service and a DGM. Connection restored, Next bill has Rs.110 + taxes on account of reconnection + late payment. Two months later again Rs.10 for late payment. Complaints have no response _ After all We are Bharat Sarkar and our motto is Bhai saheb nahin lagega.