Once upon a time, I recharged for prepaid(wireless) Airtel 3G Broadband that assured the speed of >7 MBPS. Till the end of the plan I got not more than 90 KBPS. After a long gap I tried Airtel again thinking that things must have improved.
When I recharged for a plan for one month, I received an SMS that the plan would be activated soon. This SMS started coming again and again, about 2 to 3 SMS in a minute, till my phone’s memory was full. I had to keep deleting these messages, but there seemed no end to these repeated messages. Intermittently I received a message or two saying there was some problem in activating the service. Yet the former SMS continued. I contacted their customer care from where I was told the service was active and I could start using 3G internet right away.
With my past experience to my credit I doubted the authenticity of their assurance. But, as I had already lost a few days in pursuing this matter, I started surfing. After a few minutes when I stopped surfing, I checked the balance, and, as expected, some rupees were deducted from the balance. I knew they had not activated the service. Their speciality is that they stop your customer-care service if you call them more than three times consecutively, rendering you completely helpless no matter how much loss you are put in. You, then, have to call them from another phone.
Then, thinking that it would take another few days to solve the problem, I went for their 3-day 2G plan. This amount, too, was duly cut from my account balance. After surfing for a while, when I checked both the data-balance and account-balance, I found that(VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE) THEY HAD DEDUCTED THE DATA USAGE FROM MY 3G DATA BALANCE WHEN I WAS USING 2G SERVICE. My 2G balance, which I was using, was intact. IS IT POSSIBLE?
When the 3-day 2G plan was over after three days, I thought now I would start getting the 3G Plan. MY GOD! HOW CARELESS, RUDE AND INDIFFERENT THEIR CUSTOMER CARE PEOPLE ARE! If you contact 10 of them, they will tell you 10 different things to solve the same problem. They are not smart, well-trained and polite.
Then, I had to contact the higher authorities by email. Here things started working slowly but with some hope. Their email contents were often irrelevant to the issue. In getting the issue settled I lost almost the full month of the plan’s validity. Finally, they activated the plan and gave 13 days validity. I could avail of only part of the total data-balance, and forgo the leftover. Here, too, I got the speed of 90 KBPS max, that is about 80 times lower than the one promised.
GUYS, BHARATI AIRTEL OF OUR BHARATMATA IS SO GREAT, THAT I FEEL ALL THEIR EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE AWARDED BHARAT-RATNA.
Please tell me to throw myself before a running train, or drown me in the Arabian sea, or help me jump off the Tokyo Tower; BUT, PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME TO GO FOR AIRTEL’S 3G SERVICE! UNDER-EE-STAND?