It all started sometime back in December when I was transferred from Chennai to Bangalore. I called up the BSNL helpline 1500 to inquire about the process of surrendering a landline connection.
?Take the phone piece, the directories, your latest telephone bill and the original deposit receipt to G.R. Complex office and fill up a Surrender form.?
The instructions were pretty clear and unambiguous. So I put everything in a bag and rode my Pulsar to G.R. Complex, Saidapet from Thiruvanmiyur area. The lady behind the counter examined my application form for exactly fifteen minutes without uttering a word. Then she looked at me seriously and told me that I had not paid my last telephone bill. So she could not accept the application.
I told her that I paid the bill through ICICI Online bill-pay service. She did not know what it was. So she sent me the divisional manager?s office. This lady confirmed me that they didn?t get the payment from ICICI. I called up ICICI immediately and the customer service representative told me that he had no clue what I was talking about and that I should send a mail to the accounts manager by logging on to ICICI Infinity.
I was scheduled to leave to Bangalore the next day. So I thought I should visit the main branch of ICICI (Cenotaph Road) and get the issue resolved.
After waiting for about half an hour in the line, a manager calls on me and tells me as solemnly that the funds had been debited from my account and there ended their jurisdiction. Now I had to follow-up with BSNL.
When I asked him if he could confirm me whether the funds had actually been sent to BSNL, he told me to send a mail from ICICI Infinity to my accounts manager. Apparently that was the only way to get things clarified in this rocket age. The turnaround time, as per the ICICI Manager, was as little as two days!
That was when I lost my patience. I shouted at him and told him that I didn?t care about Infinity! I wanted a letter from ICICI saying that the funds had been sent to BSNL Chennai. That outburst did the trick. He sent a mail to someone in Infinity department and told me to wait a couple of hours before he could let me know the status.
I came home; finished my lunch; and called him after two hours. He told me that the funds should have reached BSNL. So I called up BSNL customer service and they told me that my bill was still not paid.
I went to the Cenotaph road branch again and got hold of the manager. I was about to clinch his collar when he told me that he would issue me a debit voucher stating that they had forwarded the funds from my account to BSNL Chennai.
I politely thanked him and took the debit note with me to BSNL office in G.R. Complex, Saidapet. By then it was 5 o?clock and the office was shut down.
Next day morning I went to Saidapet at 10 o?clock, desperate to finish this ordeal and board my train at 10pm. This time I directly went to the divisional manager and produced the debit voucher as a proof that I had already paid the telephone bill. She took one long look at the voucher and at the records in her computer and told me that as long as the computer did not show the payment, they could not process the surrender request.
Thoroughly dejected, I rose from seat with the heavy bag consisting of the instrument and the directories weighing me further down. I was prepared to lose the deposit I had paid on the phone and vowed that I would never again deal with BSNL and ICICI Infinity.
At that moment, there was a reversal of fortunes. The Divisional Manager suddenly asked me, ?Wait a minute. Has your telephone number been changed recently?? A ray of hope! I nodded in the affirmative and she quickly glanced at the records of my old number. The payment was found there. She then told me that they could take the surrender request.
I thanked God silently and went back to the clerk who handled the surrenders. She took the application from me and gave me a confirmation note. I then gave the phone instrument and the directories to her. She did not accept them.
?You have to surrender this in your exchange. Not here.?
?But your representative told me to submit them here.?
?That?s wrong. You have to go to your Exchange and submit it there.?
So with the sagging load I rode back to Thiruvanmiyur exchange. The lady behind the desk there told me that I had to surrender the piece to the BSNL Store.
?But they told me in Saidapet that I have to do it here? I was getting restless.
?That?s wrong. You have to go to the BSNL Store near Thiruvanmiyur bus depot.?
So my journey continued. I went to the store and they said they could not take the instrument before the line was disconnected. The G.R. Complex office had to send the Exchange a disconnection notice, following which the phone line would be disconnected. Only after disconnection, I could surrender the phone.
The entire process took a couple of days. My wife was coordinating it in my absence. However the ordeal wasn?t over with the store taking the instrument. They gave us a note that the instrument and the directories had been recovered and that BSNL could proceed with the other formalities.
It meant that we had to take the note back to the G.R. Complex office in Saidapet along with the original deposit bill and submit a written request for disbursement of the deposit amount with a forwarding address. Then it would take about a month or so for the deposit to arrive.
I am writing all these because I want to warn you that surrendering a BSNL landline connection is a tedious process and will require at least ten days. Plan accordingly.
If this is a wrong category, I apologize for the inconvenience.