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Yes, they proved it! All they are after is money - and once they have our money, they don’t care whether their product works and they don’t care about their customers. And all the stories I’ve heard just prove this point!

Well, back to my story - Today is Tuesday and R was supposed to come and resolve this issue. Well, he didn’t (what more can we expect from him!).

I called him up and he again gave me the same old story that I needed to go somewhere else to get this fixed because according to him, this is a ‘Hardware problem.’ I asked him if he had ever checked my laptop and data card to know for sure that it’s a hardware problem. He accepted that he had not checked my data card and that he was too busy the other day. Of course, when they want money, they are never too busy.

On top of that, he says he’s doing all this because of ‘company policy!.’ Wow! Did you know Airtel actually has a company policy to ignore their customers and sell them faulty products. I bet you never knew that
Anyways, I didn’t expect any better from R, so I called his Manager.  The manager was shocked to hear what R had said and assured us that he will get back to us in 15 minutes.

He did call after 15 mins and I told him the whole story again - we bought the card a month ago, it has never worked, we came to the Airtel Office twice and were assured someone would come and fix it, but no one turned up.

Then the manager asked if someone was able to connect to the internet - I said yes, we can connect, not through the Mobility Manager, but from the Network Settings. But that still does not make a difference because none of the webpages open! Then, the manager says if it connects then there is no issue. Well excuse me, I bought the Data Card not just to connect to the Internet but also to be able to view websites, download stuff and send and receive emails. If none of that is happening, then I’m sorry, your card does not work.

The manager asked me to SMS my address so that he can send R over to check the card. I sent the SMS and also called him up to confirm that he had got it. It’s been more than 6 hours now and no sign of R or any other Airtel guy.

They are just going out of their way to show that Airtel does not care about their customers. I’m going to go for one more phone call tomorrow to see if they have an excuse for why didn’t come today. No more assurances necessary now - because it just shows that R has absolutely no confidence in himself or in the Airtel Data Card. If this was something they could fix, wouldn’t they be here by now?

Well, I’ve already contacted my friends in the leading dailys and they are ready to publish this blog. I’m also sending this blog out to my subscribers who will then forward it to their own subscribers. I hope this will help warn prospective Data Card buyers and hopefully I am the last customer that Airtel scams.

Rangoo

http://www.askrangoo.com

So I went to the Airtel Office in Begumpet to try to get some kind of response from them. I told them that the Airtel Data Card has not worked for even a day and I want my money back. Naturally, they asked me to go to some other desk. They said that they only sell the card and they cannot help us. Finally, when I refused to budge, a helpful guy (I guess the only helpful employee in the whole Airtel office) came and called up the guy who was supposed to come and check our Data Card.

That guy (will call him R) was extremely rude on the phone even to his own colleague. He maintained that problems with the data card was not his problem and we should go elsewhere to get it corrected. But, we persisted that he has to check the card and since the card hasn’t worked from Day ONE, it’s their responsibility to ensure that either the data card gets replaced or they give us a refund.

Of course R never came to check the data card, even though we waited at the Airtel Office for almost 2 hours. Instead he sent someone who looked like an intern. This guy was able to make the card work on a HP laptop, but even he accepted that the data card did not work on our IBM laptop.

After that the helpful guy and the intern called up R a number of times to ask him to come and check the data card. Of course R never came and he even refused to pick up his phone at times.

Finally, we were assured that R will come to our place on Tuesday to get the data card checked. They were able to see that even though the card gets connected, the speed still shows as 0 and the webpages take ages and ages to connect.

I am able to use my Tata Data Card on the same laptop so that proves that the problem is with the Airtel Data Card and it’s Airtel that has to fix it.

Anyways, I’ve taken R’s phone no and also his manager’s no. and will keep you guys posted on if and when he comes to check my data card.

Rangoo
http://www.askrangoo.com

P.S. After my first post, I’ve heard from FIVE frustrated Airtel Data Card customers - the story is the same - the data card does not work, the customer support does not care. Don’t worry guys, I’ll keep you posted. If they don’t respond, this blog goes to the newspapers!

This is a review of not just the Airtel Data Card but also of the Airtel Customer Support.

I purchased an Airtel Data Card on February 24, 2007. It cost me Rs. 4,999 plus Rs. 999 for the first month of unlimited internet access. First, I was asked to wait for a day for my sim card to get activated. I waited for three days and still no luck. I kept calling the customer service again and again and they finally activated it.

Next, I realised that the data card was still not connecting to the Internet. It is supposed to provide 244 kbps of speed while connecting to the internet, but all it provides on my laptop is 0 kbps! Even when it does get connected, it takes nearly 30 minutes to open a simple webpage and that too after I refresh it again and again.

When Airtel offered unlimited internet access what they did not tell me was that it was going to be an unlimited waste of my time because none of the webpages load.

I’ve contacted the Airtel customer support repeatedly and they have no clue why this is happening. The technicians here must be the dumbest ones Airtel has ever hired, because they spent a whole day just staring at my laptop and didn’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything - call the customer support, email them, submit a complaint, go to the service center - BUT NOTHING TILL NOW!

It’s been exactly a month since I purchased the Airtel Data Card and the Airtel Customer Support has not been able to resolve this issue yet.

If I had known about the faulty data card and the non-existent customer support that Airtel provides, I would have never gone for this data card. Incidentally, after I started getting this problem with the data card, I did a Google Search to see if anyone else was going through the same experience. And guess what, there are a lot of people who are frustrated with Airtel’s Data Card and Airtel’s Customer Support for the data card. Just check Venu’s Blog if you want to read their horror stories. (BTW, Venu also has a very good review of the Airtel Data Card on his blog - do check it out).

Reading all those stories (and some of them have been going back and forth with the customer support for nearly an year now), I don’t think Airtel plans to do anything about their faulty data cards. All they are interested in is our money. Once we pay them, they don’t care if the product they have sold works or not. And their strategy is to keep on postponing the issue till the customer gets tired of contacting them and gets so frustrated that they don’t even want their money back.

Hopefully, this review will help prospective data card buyers be aware of Airtel’s practices and not buy them. But for those like me who have been scammed by Airtel, please feel free to post your Airtel Customer Support horror stories here.

And I will keep you posted if Airtel does anything to resolve this issue (ha ha, high hopes - but I am trying to be optimistic).

Rangoo
http://www.askrangoo.com

P.S. A special thanks to Venu for his blog and his informative reviews.