Reliance and Merawala gana

I had taken two Reliance connections in 2006. The service was good, network was robust as compared to BSNL’s laughable alternative and the customer service was quite capable of dealing with anything thrown at them. Recently, I ported one of the accounts, which was CDMA to Reliance’s own GSM. I was quite happy with them.

Last week, the goodwill was suddenly broken. I got an SMS congratulating me that I had been successfully subscribed to ‘Mera wala gana’ service and Rs. 30 had been deducted from my balance. I had no idea what this goddamn service had to do with me nor how this crap came down on me. Luckily, there was an escape route – if I wanted to unsubscribe, I need to send an SMS to another number. I did this, with some heat, that I was compelled to do this ridiculous thing which I hadn’t asked for in the first place. Another SMS came that I have been unsubscribed from the service. On checking the balance, however, it dawned painfully clear on me that the money lost was indeed lost forever. They simply deducted the amount and won’t give my money back, even if I unsubscribed from their silly service. At about the same time, my second number got a message that it was successfully subscribed to ‘mantra’ service, with Rs. 30 going into thin air! If this was not cheating, what is?

I immediately contacted the customer care (*333), but mysteriously, all options to talk to a customer service executive has been blacked out. I tried the complaint service (198), but got the stock reply that all their customer service executives are attending calls and would I be kind enough to wait? I was definitely not kind, but waiting was the only real option. I waited and waited, minutes slipped past and got a full spectrum of advertisement from Reliance in the mean time. After 10 minutes, I disconnected since it seemed that they have deliberately tried to avoid any verbal communication with their service team.

I was determined to find a resolution to this issue or if it failed, to seek another service provider. I really wanted to have a chat with Anil Ambani and advice him on some other unethical measures he can personally undertake, if his company’s financial position is very bad, rather than stealing money from common people who earns money by hard work all day long. The TRAI web site was helpful in the extreme, as it gave the addresses of appellate authority of RCOM, whom I need to contact. It is called Online Telecom Consumer Complaints Monitoring System. I dispatched an email to the address, which was promptly replied to, the next day. An executive called me and said that my complaint will be resolved in two days and gave the phone number of another guy whose job was to see that every complaint is amicably resolved.

Two days passed, my money was not returned. Then the second executive called me and said that my balance has been restored and whether I was happy with the grievance redressal mechanism. I replied that I would be happy only after my money has been returned. At this point, he really became very gracious and announced that Rs. 100 will be credited to both of my phones as a goodwill gesture and hereafter, these two numbers will be removed from the purview of all such fake, cheating services. So, I’m happy now since I’m richer by about Rs. 140.

I thought this narrative would be helpful to others too. We are the customers and these bigwigs earn their livelihood from the money we pay them. We would give them money for efficient service and not for such gimmicks designed soley with the aim of cheating people. Let me be very clear, I have no complaints about RCOM’s quality of service and still think them one of the best. But, such unethical practices must be exposed in public and erring executives chastised a bit.