I have been using BPL Mobile service for more than 2 years in Mumbai. The service was OK for about two years. For the past one month I have been facing dropped calls problem. I called the call centre and after waiting for 20 minutes, was told that I should change my mobile handset. I was using Samsung N500. I checked with a mobile repair engineer and found no defect with the set. Again on calling the call centre, I was asked to go to the BPL gallery to show the mobile handset. The representative told me that they don’t support Samsung units and use a Nokia unit. So I bought a Nokia handset. But even today the problem exists. I went to the gallery in Borivali. There, I could not believe my eyes, it looked like a railway reservation counter, with BPL customers crowding around . The security guy was issuing tokens for us to wait for our turn. There was this customer who was shouting at one of the four customer service representative. He was looking for the manager who was not to be seen. At last I saw him throwing down the mobile handset on the desk and after 5 minutes he was back with a policeman! This was the customer service center of BPL. Well the next I saw was the supervisor accompanying the policeman and the customer to the police station. After standing there for around 40 minutes I found myself facing the same nasty looking young chap who attended the customer who called the police. He was really pained to see me. His face seemed to say, ’’why the hell are you troubling me?’’. Anyway I explained the problem about my dropped calls and all he could do was to register a complaint which he promised would be looked into within 48 hours. Well it is after 48 hours now and no response from BPL. The condition is still same. So the only alternative is to change the service provider which I am obviously going to do. I have checked with many BPL customers and all of them have bad experiences. So think twice before going for a BPL connection.
Well, this company is in debt. It is going to be taken over by maybe Hutch or Essar (see today’s news - 19 May 2005)