I wish I could use the choicest swear words for Vodafone, but this website probably wouldn’t allow me. We have 2 Vodafone connections in our family. One for my parents, another for myself. I took the 1st voda connection, it was hutch back then 9 years ago. there were few options back then in Kolkata, so it made sense.
However, 3 years ago, a hutch telecaller called up mother(she used the 1st connection) and sweet-talked her into migrating to post-paid. These telecallers are what I call the "1st line of cheating" that mobile companies have. they go by the principle of "iceberg", only 1/8th above water and visible, most of the conditions hidden.
They never told us that once you migrate from prepaid to postpaid, you cannot move back. And on top of that they gave us another "free" SIM card without asking, only to compound our troubles. I was using a Reliance mobile at the time, so had to buy another cheap mobile phone for that one.
Trouble is with postpaid you need to pay the rental even if you dont make enough phone calls. What these cheats didn’t tell us is that no postpaid plan covers everything. Ours was for local calls only, allowing for free local minutes upto a limit. everything else, SMS, STD calls, etc. meant extra charges over and above the rental. We changed the plan, only to find out that Caller ID would be charged extra. We subsequently went through 3 different plans, finding out to our dismay that none suited us. On top of that, billing was always an issue, either we paid rental without making too many calls/SMS, or we paid way too much. besides, these telecallers would call up half a dozen times in the day, with bogus offers, and another "free" postpaid SIM(consider the cheek).
I expressed my desire to shift back to prepaid, only to be told that it was not possible. The customer care was rude and always avoid customers with genuine issues. they are only interested in "murga" customers who can be fleeced to no end. TRAI changed a rule about prepaid and postpaid, which allowed migration. This finally was a way out of our woes, or so I thought. It wasn’t over yet.
It was difficult to run to Vodafone customer care every now and then, leaving work. As the connection was for my parents, the "smart" guys and chicks at Vodafone office always managed to keep my mother waiting and confused with all their high-fundu offers. Ultimately, I had to spend a whole day quarrelling with customer care and giving a written application before the process of migrating back to prepaid was kick-started, but not before a final round of harassment. The customer care people refused to take a handwritten application. So I had to call up vodafone care from our phone to make a formal migration request. to make it doubly sure, I typed an application in my laptop and requested them to get me a print-out. they refused, so I had to run to a nearby cyber-cafe and get a printed application. Just to play it safe from those cheats, I made 2 xerox copies of it.
The migration to prepaid was finally possible in a week, but with a twist. the seperate SIM provided for prepaid connection turned out to be faulty. So another visit for my mother( I took another day off just to avoid any more trouble), a new SIM, and it was finally possible.
Vodafone’s "revenge" was not over though. An automatic subscription for caller tunes had been activated, resulting in Rs. 30 being deducted every month. I had to send a seperate SMS to deactivate that service. Then I had to activate DND to prevent unsolicited calls. However, vodafone was a problem if we moved out of Kolkata on weekends. network quality outside Kolkata circle is terrible, and statewide roaming is just a nightmare, considering Vodafone has little presence in eastern India outside West Bengal and Sikkim.
Finally with the mobile no. portability launched, I decided to take on these cut-throats. I migrated to Airtel, and end of story. As for the other Vodafone connection, I have stashed away the SIM card, plan to migrate to Tata Docomo with that one