They make obscene profits and the all the while claim that they pay the highest taxes in the world. If the market conditions were so difficult, who has forced them the stay out around here and sell their pathetic services? A fair weather indication of their turnover is the news that the mobile tarrifs have increased to over 1.30 lakh crore. If the estimated numbers of millions of Indians joining the mobile bandwagon is true, this is a serious party and money. I would still need a confirmation and no one knows the real picture barring perhaps the telecom operators themselves.

They have fudged the numbers, dodged the taxes and take all of us a big ride. Thats the reality of big businesses all over the world.

TRAI is best known as a regulator that cannot enforce it’s own recommendations. Therefore, it brings forth new regulations to replace the ones it had brought earlier. It believes them to be set in stone and believes that they are timeless. It is with this fallacy, TRAI has remained in existence.

Rediff reports about TRAI recommendations. They may portend the future of the things to come.

Despite their brilliant advertising claims, Vodafone India has made a mess of it’s customer care. Why doesn’t it translate into effective delivery at the ground level?

I had made a payment for my mobile phone elsewhere; outside from the home circle. I was assured that the billing system would be updated. As luck would have it, the system didnot update the payment and I started getting messages and calls from female “recovery agents” to pay my dues. Surprisingly, they have a knack of calling in at such odd hours; they start off without even extending basic courtesies. I insisted that I had paid for the amount and I directed them to enquire from their Vodafone Store where I had paid the cash. They did not make any effort to trace the amount but instead chose to lay the entire blame on me.

All said and done, they barred my outgoing calls and I had to make the payments under duress. Although, the phone was working again after much cajoling; they took an entire day to get it “activated”.

My credit limit is more than sufficient and they made me run around like a scared rabbit. What is clear from the entire episode is that despite their claims, they did not bother to check their backend (literally and figuratively) and rectify the issue. It could have been very simple to call up the dud on the other line (through proper channel in their parlance) and find out the billing details as well as the payment made. Although, in the routine cases it sounds audacious because they have to take care of “millions of customers” but the fact is that they cannot afford to loose loyal ones. I have remained with Hutch for over 3 years now only because of their talk plans. So far, I have not had much of the issues with their billing per se but this one off incident has shaken my faith in the company. So much so, that its more of a hurt than anger that’s bothering me.

There are many other stories like these replicated day in day out across the country. With an ineffective regulator and lack of awareness, most of these nitwits are having a free run.

This is the problem with having oligopolies. The customer isnt the king any longer.

UPDATE: I have been updating on the forums as well. So far, no reply from the company.