Airtel disconnected services because of late payment of bill in December 2008. When they reactivated services after I paid the full amount due, the blackberry service did not work. I called them repeatedly. They could not resolve the problem, would promise that a technical person will call. Sometimes the tech person would call and tell me that the service is ‘active’! Once, when I called, they said that the records show ‘no usage’ of blackberry. Again the complaint was ‘noted’. Nothing was done.
Then around January, I called to tell them that since I had not availed the service, they should not bill me. They said, ‘okay’. I continued to receive the Bill for blackberry services @ 899 per month. I kept calling to tell them this is wrong and that I will not pay. They said ‘noted’ and ‘oaky’. In late January, I got my technical people to speak with them. The calls lasted for many hours on that day but even the online account could not be logged into in spite of many efforts by the airtel blackberry team. We asked them to discontinue the service as it was not working anyways. We received no confirmation. The bills kept coming. I used to pay the ‘phone’ bill component after deducting wrongful charge of INR 899 per month.
In spite of repeated calls by me no resolution was reached. Then, someone called and said we have waived your charge. I was pleasantly suprised. When I saw the next bill I saw that they had waived a INR 435 charge for ‘late payment’ of the blackberry bill! I called to confirm again and they said, ‘it shows usage’! I explained to them repeatedly that this was not possible. But they just said ‘they cannot help me’!
I sent a mail to the Nodal Officer (as advised by the Airtel website) on 23 May 2009. they promise to revert in 10 days. I received no response. On 6th June I received a final automated ‘final’ reminder. I responded to this with a courier re-explaining my full case. Today I received a reminder with a warning that they will have to initiate legal action. The outstanding amount in dispute is INR 4279 (approx). I have previously paid bills upto INR 50,000!
My technical experts in office are witness to the gross inefficiencies of this company. I kept my airtel connection active till the time that Airtel itself discontinued services only so that they would be able to call me.
Can you help me?
I am not afraid of meeting them in Court but I have a small baby and this harassment is something that I can do without!

Avaantika