I started using mobile phone since 1998 and my first mobile was Nokia 5110 purchased from Sangeetha’s J.C Road outlet in Bangalore.Since then till today my 11th Mobile phone which I am using currently purchased from Sangeetha Mobile’s newly opened outlet in Kondapur, Hyderabad.
Now the above fact boils down to one simple fact “I am the loyal customer of Sangeetha”, absolutely not, at least this is what all the stake holders who operate Sangeetha Mobile think. In my wife’s last Birthday I decided to gift her a mobile phone and purchased one from Sangeetha Mobiles. The obvious choice was to walk into the nearest Sangeetha outlet and purchase the same. Before doing so, I didn’t even enquire in the market because I was very sure that they will not cheat their loyal customer. Bought the same along with FREE INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR ONE YEAR FROM SANGEETHA WHICH WAS OFFERED ALONG WITH THE MOBILE. Also at the time of purchase I was clearly told that incase of Loss or Theft, Sangeetha will take the complete ownership from filing the claim till the disbursement of money within the stipulated timeframe.
After buying the mobile phone like every happy customer we walked out from the outlet with much awaited smile on our face thinking that this will going to last till we possess the mobile phone but destiny has something else written for us. After three days while coming from a busy up Market Street someone snatched the mobile phone from my wife’s hand and fled away from the scene. We immediately went to the nearest police station to file an FIR and also went to the Telecom Service provider to block the sim card in order to avoid unauthorized access. The very next moment we walked into the same outlet from where we purchased the phone to inform them about the incident and also to handover the FIR copy as well as the receipt from the Telco operator satisfying that the sim card has been successfully blocked. We immediately filed for insurance claim and person handling the same from Sangeetha told us that this will take maximum 15 working days to get the refund and the payout would be 90% of the invoice value which we paid at the time of purchase. We had to nod our head and wait for another 15 days for the issue to get resolved and started anxiously waiting for the D-day.On the 16th day I went there to check the status but the response was completely different from what it was 2 weeks ago. They started telling that they don’t own any claims and it’s at the sole discretion of the insurer to decide whether the claim will be processed or not. Also I was asked to contact the insurer (Oriental Insurance) directly in order to get the latest update on the disbursement of the claim amount which was supposed to be done by the folks sitting at Sangeetha who at the last moment betrayed to render any help in this regard. I was only left with few landline nos. of Oriental Insurance Company which eventually turned out to be the customer care number and people sitting behind the phone don’t have any clue of the claim which according to Sangeetha was filed on the very same day when we submitted all the documents and completed the formalities required to process the claim amount.