I am a subscriber of six mobile connections from reliance moblie(CDMA-Tamil Nadu) and the tale(true story) is the essence of the experience in the past two years.
First, these people are rigid like a rock, who act as if they play by the rules! Here are some examples: I wanted an address change on my mobile billing address because I changed my residence and they say at the reliance web world that I have to fill a form! So far so good. The form I need to fill up is the form for a new connection and they need a photograph, proof of address and other documents! The web world staff say that is how it is done!
I try the reliance adag head office and they send me a mail listing the documents I can submit for address change and they sent me a downloadable form which(different from the form for new connection) I could send by post to their address at Mumbai. This was done promptly!
Few days later I received a mail saying the address has been changed and th same will reflect in subsequent bills(their language). This happened on April 21 2008, and till today the bills are being delivered at the old address and many are lost after redirection!
On this I feel I should have listened to the web world guys though they appeared ill informed!
Reliance has an obnoxious practice of calling the customers from their automated call centres(generally originating from 079, 0619 0124 and a few others) which announce schemes about astrology SMSs and such useless trivia! These waste your precious time particularly productive time.
Similarly the SMSs which have been sent to you are delivered along with their own promotional message from reliance and both are delivered at the same time. Often times the original message of substance from your friend is actually delivered several hours late and theis belies their claim of most advanced network!
It is not true that reliance calls do not drop: I have CUG scheme between my mobiles and they are being used by staff of my organisation. The call drops every now and then! We are all "mute" witnesses to them!
They have a strange method of recognising the ownership of the mobile! "Who ever holds the mobile is the owner". I have applied for STD barred mobiles when taking the connection, but some of them now have NLD(National Long Diastance) service on them which is infact solicited by the company all the time. Some staff not understanding the content on the SMS sometimes unwittingly subscribe to services like cricket info pack(Rs.49/-) find friends pack(Rs 49/-)! Strangely you need to visit the web world office to discontinue the services once subscribed! And I end up paying for this fleecing service!
A month ago, at the web world, after paying Rs.3000 in the Reliance web world counter ftowards the monthly dues on the mobile connections, I ask the staff to change a particular mobile number into the newly purchased handset and they say, I need to bring the old mobile handset, (not in working condition) to prove my ownership. The fact that I paid the bill just then, which is more than the cost of the handset and that the credit card bears the the same name(of the subscriber i.e: my name) also cuts no ice! Result: I said I do not want to upgrade! Funny guys! But these people are ready to activate an expensive service based on just an SMS from the mobile phone no matter who happens to hold it at that time, even a thief! They do not try to find if it was indeed the owner of the mobile or ask for some proof!
They have a donot call registry but they dont abide by the registered request. I still get the message prompts on these mobiles! Only thing they are prompt is in making these irritating calls to you two days before the date of bill payment asking "have you paid the bill?" If you say yes for example, they ask you "Where"? There is no way to get rid of this local manual calls!
Further they are propmpt in disconnecting the connection after barely two days of the payment due date. So even if you bill shows credit limit of Rs.1000 but your current dues are less than Rs500 including the packs you have unwittingly subscribed to, you stand the risk of being disconnected!
Their monopoly over peddling their hand sets is another big racket!
These people have a lot of hidden charges which I have not researched/delved into in detail but mind you they are expensive. But come to CDMA service, the other prominent player, TATA is also, as my friends say is not good! So I am planning to shift to GSM though it is inferior technology! And good old BSNL in the long term may be my choice!
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