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Hi,

Till now I had only read about this on the internet but yesterday it happened to me and has left me totally shocked. I have been a regular airtel customer from the time when the Call rates used to be 14-15 rs/minute and people used cell phones with antenna. We used to have an Airtel broadband connection in my old house. While moving to our new place, I got that connection disconnected and as told by the branch manager paid my dues of rs. 300. This was in july,2011. 6 months down the line, I was surprised to get a call from Airtel customer care and was told that I have an outstanding of 3000 rs. On giving him my account details the guy said that the connection is still active and they have no record of me closing it. I explained it to him properly and gave him the required documents. Within 4-5 days I again got a call and was told that the matter has been resloved.

But then after another 2 weeks the same thing happened again. Again I explained it to them and the guy on the other side said that he has no idea about the conversation I had just 2 weeks back. According to him I owed Airtel 3k. Once again the whole cycle repeated and things went quiet. 1 month into this the same thing repeated again and has been going on till date with me giving them the details each time and they say they will get back to me etc etc. But yesterday evening one moron/recovery agent called up my dad and sis on there phones and abused them in the most disgusting way possible. He has apparently also called my sister's friends and misbehaved. This has left me totally frustrated and shocked. Please tell me whats the next step that I can take? My dad is going to go the local SHO and register a complaint. He has the number from which he got the call. I told him to wait for sometime and let me ask you guys whats the best action plan here. I am not going to pay them a single penny and sincerely going to change all my cell phone numbers to Vodafone. We have always considered Airtel as a good service provider and almost everyone in my family has an airtel number, broadband connection and so on.

Please guide me as to whats the next step. Should I go lodge an FIR or first send a mail to airtel. I doubt those idiots will do anything and I have really lost faith in them.

Regards,
Mohit

This attitude is simply disgusting :Frustrati, even I am using airtel from last 12 years or so, But thank god, Didn't faced any issues till date.

Go ahead with a mail along with a rant on fb, followed by a FIR. Make sure they learn a lesson from this.

Sameer

Mohit,
One route is going through the complaint - run after Airtel route. Which I have done in the past and got it resolved too. Another route is getting outside help. A friend in the past had similar issues with respect to his old mobile connection of Airtel, which in his case was supposedly closed, till they came back after 2 years with a court summons!

He used the services of these guys as my friend had absolutely no time to run after Airtel. The problem was quickly resolved by these guys - my friend was very happy with their help/services.

Do you have the payment details of the last payment you made to them? If you do, then send all the relevant details with you dad to their office. There is no use talking to the customer care over phone. How had you applied for the disconnection? Was it by email or over phone? If it was by email then send a copy of that also, but if it was by phone then it will be difficult to prove that you asked for the termination unless you have the bill for the phone number that was used to make that call.

I faced a very similar situationa and I had to get it resolved by visiting their office. Customer care was hopeless. In my case I had ignored it to such an extent that they had sent me a court notice for payment of Rs.2000. Luckily in my case the termination request was made by email and I had copies of those emails along with their acknowledgement. So basically they realised that they didnt have a case against me and closed the matter then and there.

Ever since then all my correspondence with them happens over email and never over the phone.

Airtel's customer support used to be excellent when they had an inhouse call centre, but it has gone to dogs ever since it was outsourced.

I am Airtel customer for 7 years. This is what I have to go through for disconnecting my mobile connection due to relocation.

I have summarized the chronology of events for disconnecting my Airtel number: 994xx12985

1) May 13: Mail sent to Airtel for disconnection

2) May 16: Reminder mail sent to Airtel

3) May 17: Another Reminder mail sent to Airtel

4) May 17: Airtel Responds, unique service request number 43701474
(Please note the current unbilled amount as on 16-05-2012 is Rs.
xxx.90/-. The final bill will be generated on 20-05-2012.

5) Bill paid on time, using Autobebit from Citibank

6) Jun 20: Airtel generates a new bill (Bill No:790405954)

7) 23 Jun: Mail sent to Airtel to cancel the bill

8) 23 Jun: Airtel responds, Service Request number44340971. [Our team
will be contacting you by 03-07-2012, 09:30 AM]

9) Bill paid on time, using Autodebit from Citibank

10) July 9: Reminder Sent to Airtel to cancel bill and refund the amount

11) July 12: Reminder Sent to Airtel

12) July 15: Airtel Responds Unique Service Request number44734481
[Our team will be contacting you by 18-07-2012, 08:23 AM]

13) Jul 19: Reminder sent to Airtel

14) Jul 19: Airtel responds (Ours is a state of art billing system, no overcharging)

15) Jul 20: Mail to airtel on question why was there a June bill when as per 43701474, the final bill should have been raised on 20-May?

16) Jul 20: Mail from Airtel [Your number was suspended on 29-Jun. No pending charges to this account]

17) Jul 21: Mail to airtel questioning why Airtel did not suspend the connection in May? Why should I foot the June bill for the delay at their end?

18 ) Jul 21: Response from Airtel [Service Request number 4484739 and an apology]

19) Jul 23: Airtel sends the July bill [Bill number: 815458951]

I do not know when this Circus will end

send a complaint to their nodal officer.

Guys,
For the benefit of all, just wanted to provide you with recent update on how to approach airtel customer care and get your issues resolved:

1. First rule, never bother to call customer care for any issues like 121, 198 etc. Even if you call it is of no use. you will be given a complaint no. by customer care executive and the complaint no. will be closed immediately without being attended or being resolved.

2. The moment there is an issue, send a detailed post to https://www.facebook.com/bhartiairtelltd?fref=ts AND tweet the same issue/complaint to https://twitter.com/Airtel_Presence immediately following the FB post. These kind of activities are considered spam on the web (and Airtel gets annoyed with these kind of individual habits too, which i have experienced with the kind of replies they send like "we have already received your complaint on FB" etc.), but it is the most powerful strategy to deal with airtel.

The most complicated billing issues have been sorted out for me within 48 working hours by adopting to point no. 02 above. Not sure whether Airtel service has improved of late, but i never bother to call customer care anymore and document everything over FB and/or twitter and these guys call me back immediately showing positive interest to resolve the issue (irrespective of how critical the issue is :))

EDIT: i am an airtel broadband customer, have 2 postpaid number (1 for iPhone and another for iPad only for data usage) and Airtel DTH customer as well. The above strategy i mentioned is applicable to almost all services you use from airtel ;)

I had Airtel broadband at home when I was at Bangalore. I wanted to get the connection terminated when I relocated to Kerala. Airtel didn't want to cancel my connection and wanted me to shift the connection to a friend or a relative. Finally, I got it disconnected in Sept 24 2012 with great difficulty after running from pillar to post. I also cleared all the pending bills before the cancellation.

Last week I got a mail from Airtel. They said, there was an outstanding of Rs.924.24/- as per invoice dated 06/12/2012 on the terminated broadband account. And that I don't pay up by Dec 15th, Airtel will send a court notice.

I wrote to the customer care and they replied with the following.

First of all, I don't understand how can there be a invoice generated on 06/12 when the connection was terminated on 24/09. Secondly, is this the way to treat any customer?

Speaking to Airtel customer care is like listening to a broken record. No use what so ever. I am wondering how to get out of this mess once and for all.

I have posted in similar lines in the FB account of Airtel Presence.

Any Airtel user can you confirm if Caller ID/ CLIP facility is enabled by them by default. I got a new connection and using my own phone. Caller ID is not working. Iam not able to make out if issue is with Airtel or my phone.

Interesting customer experience with Airtel. Called them on Friday for a Broadband connection, was promised it will be done by Thursday next week (3-4 working days) after a feasibility check (for my 8Mbps requirement) was completed. Since then I received several phone calls from different people of different departments some of them quite annoying since they asked the same questions - name, address, landmark :Frustrati but all had my contact number!

But as they say all's well that ends well (hope i'm not saying this too early!) - got the connection today, tested and activated all done in 3 days including Sunday :thumbs up
Need to get the BSNL connection closed, till it's around it'll be the Plan B but isn't reliable.

In Airtel Broadband, what is the difference between a standalone plan and a voice+DSL connection ?

Are there 2 types of connections available from Airtel broadband - with voice and without voice ?

The reason I'm asking is that when I ask Airtel Customer Care to activate a particular broadband plan listed on their website, they deny it claiming that it is a standalone plan whereas I have a voice+DSL connection. :Frustrati

Rohan

Please make sure you have the cancellation papers intact - scan it and save it on digital format please.

After couple of months, they (BSNL) will most probably come back to you stating some dues / "instrument NOT returned yet" non-sense.

Reviving an old thread.

Recently I upgraded my Broadband plan from 8mbps to 16mbps.
Ever since I did that the connection has been very unstable.

Keeps dropping every 20 min to 1 hr for about 1-2 minutes.
This is a major issue when one is connected via VPN as all your applications get disconnected.

The Airtel local technician has been changing the switcher box, tried replacing the modem etc.. but yet to find the root cause.

Wanted to know if anyone else faced this and found any solution.

I had a similar issue, albeit, in New Delhi. After upgrading from 8 Mbps to 16 Mbps, the connection became unstable. I suffered for 6 months. The local technician tried changing wires, playing with settings on the router, playing with settings on the backend but I dont remember him changing the switcher box.

Anyway, 6 months later the local tech changed to a different one and I was about to lose my patience. His conclusion was that the infrastructure in my area is just not meant for 16 Mbps speeds.

He suggested the best solution was to give an earful to the customer care and ask for disconnection. They would not let go of an old customer (more than 5 years) and that I should ask for a better plan (more data) on 8 Mbps.

I did that and I have been happy for 6 months now.

I have been using Airtel Broadbad connection since many years and was a satisfied customer till now.

But since the last 1 week, I am experiencing frequent disconnections. The Airtel technician visited twice, but was not able to find any fault. Somehow, by fluke he was able to make it work both times. But the problem came back on both occasions.

Now he has declared the problem as internal wiring issue and Airtel customer care has asked me to get it rectified through an electrician.

I stay in a 20 storey apartment which has concealed wiring.

Has anyone faced a similar issue - what is the way out ?

I am thinking of surrendering the broadband connection and moving to 4G dongle - any thoughts ?

Rohan