Customer during period : 2001 - 2004
I became a BPL Mobile post paid customer in 2001. Initially I had no problems except say once in six months billing problems and network busy problems. One night I remember the service just went off for few hours in my area at least. Maybe they were upgrading or something. But overall it was ok, compared to the competition (Escotel alone).
Platinum Customer Privileges:
In time I became their Platinum customer. They send me some set of special discount vouchers etc. I tried to use the discount vouchres twice at local merchant establishments and embarrased myself completely ! Calling the so called Relationship Manager (assigned to handle my account) about this got me the usual reply that it was not BPL’s fault. The Merchant establishments were wrong in not honouring the vouchers is what he told me. In either case I get to make a fool of myself :))
Another Platinum privilege was that you get invited to some lunches/dinners I think. They called me for a lunch at the Taj once. They lunch is in the afternoon and they call up at 11 AM and the tone of the caller is as if they are doing me a big favour, otherwise I would never get to see the insides of the Taj.
Roaming:
Things were ok for the most part other than when I went roaming. I went to Madras once on southern regional roaming. From Madras I could only call Kerala(STD) and Madras local numbers. Calls to Calcutta and Bombay were not going through. Many STD calls to customer care and 4 days later I got the thing working as I boarded the train for my return trip home 4 days later :))) During this time of course they drove me nuts when every time they promised to rectify the problem in 30 min but never did. The next time I call to follow up on the issue a new person would answer the phone at the call center and I would have to explain everything all over again.
They tried every trick in the book to pass the buck to the roaming partner in Madras, to saying I was not dialing correctly, to saying since I had only Southern Regional Roaming calls can’t be made to North India etc.
I had similar experience in Vizag also where I couldn’t make calls to local Airtel Numbers there. The fun part was I was there to conduct a freinds wedding and almost everyone I needed to call was on Airtel. Which meant I could as well have carried a paper weight instead of a cell phone in my pocket.
Get Add on cards & headache begins:
But its later that I made a big mistake. I got 3 add on cards. Actually I needed only 2 but the BPL guy who came to meet me pushed the 3rd card to the maximum because he will get some benefit. Anyways I told him I will not require it. So he told me to just keep the card and it can be activated at anytime I choose if needed.
So I got the other two I needed activated, but suddenly this 3rd card appeared in my bill. I complained and they reversed the charges. Next month, the bill has charges for that card again + carry forward amount of the reversed charges for the last month. It also had late payment penalty because I didn’t pay the reversed amount. After a rather forceful complaint, they reversed the carried forward amount and late payment penalty.
But since then they started excess billing me by automatically bringing in non existant add on cards and services not asked for. So I got fed up and terminated the 2 add ons that I had gotten activated. Even after that every other month one or two of the add on cards rent and other services would show up in my consolidated bill with the parent connection that I was using. I found myself mailing and calling them every month after the bill came to get charges reversed. Each reversal meant there was the possibility of the reversed amount being carried forward in the next bill and I get to pay Late payment charges for the same :) Also they would charge me for Call Hold when I never put any calls on hold. But I had no way of proving this so when they said ’’No sir, you have put calls on hold’’, I had to accept it. Anyway this amounted to only about 10/- a month so I ignored it. But the consistent and seemingly intensional excess billing with the add on cards despite repeated complaints convinced me that if I had not asked for a detailed bill all the time these people at BPL Mobile had company policy to cheat. How else can you explain wrong billing when everytime a wrong bill is generated you can be sure the bill is never such that BPl Mobile looses any money. It is always that I am over charged. I am a software professional myself and I can understand faulty software, but I can’t understand a faulty software that is designed so that the company never looses money, only the customer does :)))
Anyway I got them to terminate my entire account with BPL Mobile with great difficultly as anyone who has terminated a post paid cellphone from a private firm will know. But even here they cheated me of the security deposit. I had asked for the connection to be terminated by the end of month of Oct billing cycle. But they didn’t and conveniently billed me for the Month of Nov as well.
Repeated mails and requests to refund the remaining amount were never answered. Then couple of months later my grandmother’s phone number started recieving calls saying I have unpaid bills with BPL Mobile. It was embarrasing my granny asking me if I have not paid bills. I wrote to them asking them to present accounts and send someone so accounts could be settled. They gave me a reply saying as per their records there are no dues with my account. This was in May 2005, after having terminated my connection in Nov 2004. In between I had written several times to their Customer Service Dept and Head of Customer Service asking them to look at the wrong billing and to settle accounts. But they choose not to respond.
Then I never heard from them till Dec 2005. Now they have sent me a Notice from an advocate saying I have defrauded the company of guess how much ??!!! Rs 280. by not paying dues on an add on card. And guess which one this card is ?? !! This is the 3rd add on card that I mentioned above that I never ever activated, let alone used.
So I called up Head Cust Service from my present Mob no and told him to mail me the accounts. He said he would but never did. So I mailed him with CC to Cust Care mail id that I am yet to recieve the mail. No response. So I tried calling him several times from my cellphone but this Head of Cust Serv never answered the call when he saw my cellphone number. So I called him up from another BPl number and he got duped. He answered and I asked him why he didn’t send me the mail. He says, he has sent the mail and he is not bullshiting.
Typical !!!
So guys if you are going BPL Mobile now being bought by Hutch I think, take care.