The advertisement headline screams ’ Get More Than You Can Use’. That’s Tata Indicom Broadband (wired) for you. But, BEWARE. You would love to get more only if you can use it. Most of the time there is no connection. And whenever there is connection there are frequent automatic breakdowns (when you upload or download or surfing you realise). Calling their helpline does not help either. They listen to you patiently and even apologise for the inconvenience and promise you that your complaint is being sent as an urgent email to the concerned department. Nothing happens.
I was earlier subscribed to BSES PowerSurfer Broadband service and as long as BSES was handling it, the journey was relatively smooth. The trouble began when Reliance took over BSES and became Reliance Powersurfer Broadband. You simply couldn’t rely on it. There were constant breakdowns and the service was getting worse. Moreover our society cut off power supply to the Reliance Powersurfer Broadband hubs located in each wing due to non-payment of Electricity charges, which VSNL was promptly paying. So I and many others decided to switch over to Tata Indicom (VSNL).
The marketing executives of Tata Indicom promise you the sky. I was promised first class service and connectivity in about three days. They told me about the TATA philosophy of reliability and customer satisfaction. I was impressed. But, the connection took over 7 days (Paid upfront on 8th September 2007 and connectivity happened on 17th September 2007) to be properly configured due to teething problems. I had to remind and fire the executives nothing less than 25 times.
Now again since the past four days (27th Sept to 30th Sept) there is no connection. And I am being told it will be promptly attended to in 24 hours everytime I call their call centre. Phew, it’s more than 96 hours (at the time of writing) and still no sign of the connection. After constant haggling with the marketing executives I got hold of the technical person’s number. He gives me mediocre replies like some ’switch needs to be replaced’and it will be done in 3 hours. The switch never gets replaced. Then I fire the hell out of the marketing executive and he in turn puts me in conference with the engineer (around 10.30 a.m. on Saturday 29th sept) and speaks to me and the engineer says the switch will be replaced and the connection will be up by 12.30 p.m. It was a sigh of relief. Only to be short lived. The connection is still down. Again I call this technical person (in the evening around 4.00 p.m.) and he says the switch is replaced but there is some problem with the optical fibre and he is waiting for his optical fibre team to come on the scene. It’s 9.20 p.m. on Sunday (30th Sept) and the team is still on its way.
I feel the engineer was lying all the way. He never bothered to inform his seniors about the problem and customers like us have to face the brunt. Today (Sunday), I tried calling up the executives but nobody picks up the phone and I have lost hope and am planning to take them to the consumer court and seek compensation.
I request all such customers (pre-paid) to file a case in the consumer court as its illegal to take money before hand and not provide prompt service. Its a kind of cheating. All of us should unite and force them out of this service.
*UPDATE- (PLEASE NOTE)
*I am writing this today, 2nd October 2007 and must tell you I spoke to one Senior Marketing/retail Manager on Monday 1st October and he was polite and told me that he will look into it promptly. He did. And my conenction was up by 1.00 pm on 1st October 2007. Which means there was no fibre optic problem, the hub had a problem (minor to me) and they took their own sweet time to rectify it. It clearly shows:
a) The incompetency of the engineer to finish his task on time and to keep the customer shouting
b) It shows how inefficient their support staff is.
c) It shows there is no prompt communication between the service engineer and support staff.
They have assured me that I will never face such a problem in the future. But I simply cant believe them.