My father-in-law has an airtel prepaid card which suddenly stopped working 2 weeks ago. After several calls to the customer service representatives(9845098450), we were asked to go the customer service centre opposite Jayadeva hospital on Bannerghatta Road. At the service centre, we were told that the SIM needs to be replaced and were charged 50 rupees for a duplicate SIM. This required a new set of documents and signatures which was provided to the service rep who gave me the duplicate SIM. The duplicate SIM was expected to be activated in 4 hrs but did not work even after a day. Repeated calls to the service rep didnt yield any results and I was asked to contact the nodal centre as an escalation (9972534865). The lady, Trupti who is probably the nodal officer was very polite and seemed to be trying to resolve the issue. After 5 days, she called back saying that I need to go back to the customer service centre and get the old SIM activated.

At this time, I have no idea what is happening here. If the old SIM had no problem then why was I asked to pay for a new one. If the old SIM has a problem why is airtel unable to activate the new SIM.

old SIM = 89914 50004 01310 61639
new SIM = 89914 50003 00956 01918