AIRTEL THE MOST IRRESPONSIBLE ANTI-CONSUMER CONGLOMERATE – PART 2 - DIGITAL TV
Airtel boasts of the most efficient agency dealing in digital TV, Mobile, and broadband and Airtel payment Bank, etc. But the fact is that its different wings – not only the wings, but even the various sections in a wing also have no coordination amongst them. They do not know how to handle their software supremacy, They have put a big iron curtain between consumers and its executives, They cannot read/understand what the consumers write/want, probably the persons handling the desks are either robots or illiterate or misfit with their seats or even knowing anyone language fully or time available with them to read the question or query fully and do not know how to handle the tools/software available with them. They have a handy VEIL to keep them away from consumers with some recorded/guided question answers app, known as Airtel thanks application and the outsourcing phenomenon. Their mathematics is so poor that they do not know even the four basic principles of Arithmetic – the sum, minus, multiplication or divisions. Information provided by their customer care, website, and implementing executives all are different. Nodal officers, appellate will try to avoid interaction by not replying to the consumer’s complaints. I will discuss here in part - 2 about their digital TV Services
1.I have two TV connections at my home.
2.These connections were installed in April 2019.
3.The persons responsible for laying the cable from an outsource company just spread the cables for both the connections in a very irresponsible manner and demanded tips. I refused. On the complaints of my neighbours and me, the cable laying team revisited and relayed the cables. Interestingly when I told them that the quality/connection for TV set no 1 is not proper, the team did not respond properly. On complaint to airtel, it did not take action in the matter.
4.Within less than two months of installation this connection started giving a problem. Airtel will advise filing the complaint through Airtel thanks application – a guided mechanical/electronic application without any direct connection between airtel executive and consumer. It will always ask you to pay Rs 150 as visiting charges. If consumers say no, it will not proceed further living your complaint unattended. I agreed to pay and was obliged with a visit and corrected the fault.
5.The same problem started repeating again and again with the same procedure repeatedly. But nobody tried to sort out my complaint about the quality/connection. My emails were never attended to.
6.Once a team visited for the same fault. To my utter astonishment team person asked me point blank, ‘ Whether I want the repair permanent or temporary. If permanent, I will have to pay extra.’ I replied that I wish to have a permanent solution and will pay only as per bill/receipt. As I insisted on a full receipt, they informed me later that they have changed the transponder, giving me one piece supposed to be replaced and issued the bill. Obviously, there was no proper repair.
7.This proved to be a fake bill as the fault again appeared. Airtel did not take any action on my complaint through email and slept over the matter.
8.This way over a period of 24 months I had to part visiting fees and repair charges sometimes for connector and sometimes for other accessories making it a perennial extra income for the repairing team/airtel for the same fault left over at the time of installation with no action / proper reply by the Airtel, almost to the tune of Rs 2000/- or so.
9.Being fed up by the response of Airtel, in a recent complaint about the same fault on completion I refused to pay the visiting charges. Now Airtel came into action.
10.Their response was varied from that they will adjust the visiting charges, to that ‘charges to be paid are mandatory’. It has to be borne by the consumer.
11.This time I dug my heels with a threat to shift all my connections, BB, Mobile, and both TV sets and drawing airtel to consumer court reclaiming all visiting charges and the repair charges for the same fault repeatedly with compensation and other charges to cover harassment and court charges.
12.Now after much hassle they came to my terms, changed the cable, and adjusted the cost of cable, connectors, and visiting charges to be paid to the visiting repairing team towards charges in the renewal charges of my two sets.
13.The account on the website Airtel.in does not give the exact details of funds due or date of expiry although they claim complete transparency.
14.The time you want to see the details of the account on the website, it will guide you only to the recharge and payment mode.
15.For free channels group they will broadcast almost ten channels of Airtel asking to purchase something or recharges with their advertisements. Why we should pay for their channels. Interestingly every time we start tv, the first channel to be heard will be always the airtel channel.
16.If by mistake we click a channel, not in our subscription they will start advising immediately subscribing the same by giving missed all by RMN. They purely are after money without any respect for consumer’s rights.