I stay near the Tin factory, Old Madras Road, Bangalore. Allow me share my extremely painful experience with Reliance. It all started when I wanted to purchase a high speed wireless internet connection.
So one fine day, I went to their website and registered myself. Promptly, the next morning I received a call from a person called Mk (from Delhi, I guess) enquiring for some details such as my address so that they could deliver the modem at my house. I was informed that somebody from the office would come to my place the next day and that I was to keep my documents and cash ready, which I did.
The following day, I kept receiving calls continuosly from more than a couple of different people from Reliance, disturbing me during peak office hours, eager to confirm the deal. To cut the story short, somebody did come to my residence later in the day and collected the documents and money.
He griped that the HR letter for residence address proof was not in a format that they wanted. I brushed aside his bickerings saying that I was not informed earlier of the required format and that if the UK visa office had no issues with the current format, why should Reliance see a problem with it. The guy consented hesitantly and gave me the device after I paid for it online. He went away assuring that somebody would contact me to activate the device and gave me his office number as well as his manger’s no.
I must say that this was the turning point of the whole story and I am kicking myself for being too naive. Anyways, I waited for a couple of days but no one contacted me about activating the connection. So I tried calling the office and as usual nobody picked up. I tried several times with the same outcome.
Frustrated by this, I directly called the manager and was so happy when he picked up the phone to answer me. He explained that my calls were not being answered because there was nobody at the office and gave me somebody else’s number, lets call him Al, and assured that if I contact him my problem would be sorted out. After repeatedly calling Al, he finally answered my call and informed me that my residence address proof was rejected since the the format was different from the one that Reliance accepted and also that my company was not ’listed’. One of the largest aircraft manufacturing companies in the world, not listed ! Ridiculous.
Anyway, having realized that I cannot argue with a fool, I agreed to mail him a scanned copy of my house rent agreement the following day. He called me up to acknowledge it, and like any other salesman trained to lie through their teeth, assured me that the device will be activated by the end of the day.So I went back home in the evening thinking that all will be well and that I will finally have my high speed connection to the internet. Again, what was I thinking ! Device still not activated.
Furiously, I jabbed at my phone to call Al. The phone rang but I guess he was too busy pouring sweet words into another stupid customer’s ears that he didn’t answer my call. I immediately tried calling the office and the manager. No reply again as usual. Its been more than 20 hrs, and I haven’t received a call back from Al or any other Reliance personnel or the guy who called from Delhi in the beginning despite me sending messages to them that I no longer wish to use their connection.
All that these guys are interested in doing is just selling the product and getting the money from you. After that, , if you have anything to ask, you will get a treatment that is not very different from that of an unwanted orphaned child begging on the side walk.
So buyers beware !
Review edit, 24 Oct., 2009
As I mentioned in the comments, I was able to finally get these guys to activate my connection. Its been nearly a week so I had a chance to find out about the speed and reliability of the connection. I must say I am quite impressed with it. I have been check ing the speed on speedtest.net and I am consistently getting around 1.2-1.4 Mbps (download) and 0.4-0.5 Mbps (upload) depending on the time of the day; peak hours-lower speeds.
The connection does get disconnected especially sometime during the night when I am downloading torrents. I would be fast asleep, so I don’t know the details ! But during browsing I have never ran into a disconnection issue.
Also, I have not tested this connection elsewhere in Bangalore-just at my home near the Tin factory bus stand, Old Madras road.
Hope you find this useful...happy browsing !