My Answer to Your Comments

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I’ve received so many emails from all of you regarding your own experiences with the Airtel Data Card and I’ve also received comments on different blogs. Here’s a comment that I want to share with you and the reply I posted to this comment.
“You have had a bad experience with Airtel. Someone else has had a bad experience with Reliance. You tell us to not use Airtel. He tells us not to use Reliance. Add every other company on the surface of the Earth, and, if following your advice, it would be the end of consumerism and capitalism. Great, if you ask me.”

And he goes on to say what I need to do to get a response from Airtel. (Interestingly, one of his suggestions is not to use an Airtel Data Card because it is very outdated. He suggests that we buy another data card and then use an Airtel SIM to connect to the network. Hm…)

Read the whole comment here.

My answer to this comment:

Hi Pundabee,

You are right - every company might have some issues. I don’t think Reliance is any better and I have had my own experiences with them too. But the fact is, that had I known about the problems Airtel has, I would have never wasted my money in this data card.

I’ve already done everything you suggested, and presented my case in a calm and composed manner to the Airtel Customer Support. But of course that did not work.

I didn’t start my blog the first day I realised the card wasn’t working. I took my laptop and data card to the Airtel office and waited there for a whole day for those guys to fix it or at least figure out what the problem is. Didn’t work.

Then, I waited for a week to hear from them, called them again, went back to the office - this time with two laptops just in case they thought my laptop was faulty. The Airtel card did not work in either of the laptops.

Then, I waited for two more weeks - went to the office, this time with two laptops and one more data card - from Tata. The Tata one worked on both laptops, the Airtel one didn’t. Don’t you think that should have given them a clue? NO!

Finally, after I found out that the Airtel people didn’t know how their own product works and they refused to replace it for us, I started my blog.

As far as the warranty goes - I’ve been there thrice and my data card hasn’t been replaced yet. What does that say about their 24 hour replacement guarantee?

All I’m trying to do with my blog is to show people what they can expect if they buy an Airtel Data Card. If I had found this info before I purchased the data card, I would have never considered purchasing the Airtel Data Card. Unfortunately, I found this info 3 weeks after I got the data card and it was too late then.

And I am not the only person - after I started the blog there have been lots of people who wrote in to me and said they have had the same problem with Airtel - and some of them have been fighting for years. So it’s not like Airtel is going to smile and give me a replacement right away (and yes, they also have a NO REFUND policy - I guess they would rather have unsatisfied customers than no customers).

Maybe the Airtel Customer Support in other countries is way better than it is in India, but that doesn’t help me because I am in India and I am stuck with this horrible experience with Airtel. You are right in saying that we shouldn’t take decisions based on other people’s opinions - but if we don’t share our experiences companies like Airtel and Reliance will get away with anything and keep on scamming more people. Sorry, I’m not going to accept that.

These companies got away with this kind of a behavior for so long because they thought no one was going to complain. Each scammed customer would try for sometime, get no results and then think that they are the only ones unfortunate to get a faulty product and just leave it. But now, with the power of the Internet, we can share our thoughts and opinions and warn others about such companies and this is what I am doing. And hopefully, companies like Airtel and Reliance will wake up and realise that they can retain more customers if they start selling better products and offer reliable customer support.

Rangoo
http://www.reviewsuseek.com