Part II- Another Open letter to Anil Ambani

Dear Anil Ambani,

Again I am back on this blog, this time with a different version of getting cheated.

One of those two awful connections, I gave it up after a series of mails to you & your minions. The other one having number 9380946699 I retained and upgraded it to a lifetime activation, and it was used sparingly.

The last time I used this mobile was in March 2009. At that time it had a balance of about Rs.70/=. Afterwards, the handset got misplaced in my residence when some renovation work was going on. As I am using two other connections, Airtel & Aircel regularly, I did not bother much. A few days ago, I could locate my mobile and charged the battery.

When I tried to make a call, I got a reply that I am having insufficient balance. When I checked up with *333, I was told that I am having a negative balance of Rs.18/=, the reason offered was I have subscribed for some non-sense scheme called Symbiotic Masala Jokes. To my horror, I was told that the dates of these debits have taken place during the time when my handset remained switched off .

When I lodged a complaint on July 01,2009(complaint no. 102709094), the customer care guy assured me he will reverse the wrongful debits in 48 hours. Today, after 48 hours, I just received a message that "As per my Service Request, my Requested Pack has been deactivated".

When I again tried to speak to some responsible person at customer service, I was made to hold the line for more than 15 minutes, while the guys were probably debating who should take on the call of this irate & vociferous customer. Ultimately, whoever took his sweet time to answer me, simply told me that I should have made a representation within three days of such a wrongful debit and now nothing can be done.

Dear Anil Ambani, are you reading this? Then please answer my queries below.

1. When your system will not allow anybody to make a call if he is having a zero balance in his account, how will it allow debiting the account for " Requested Packs" so as to take the balance into the negative territory?

2. When my handset remained switched off all the time, who permitted debiting my prepaid account for some nonsense jokes that I never asked for?

I know I am not the only one to have been defrauded in this manner. A search of the Internet revealed that there is another subscriber having number 9379658331 who has suffered a similar fate and there should be many others who have suffered such wrong debits for unasked for "services", but have not thought of reaching out to the humanity through the web.

Just a word of caution Anil Ambani. I know you guys deserve an equivalent of an OSCAR for coming out with newer methods in cheating customers. Since I am not in a position to offer any such award, I have simply decided to gift you back my handset if you are not going to set this matter right.

After all what use is it for me now. If I try to top up my connection, Rs.18 will go away for the negative balance that you have so artfully created, while Rs. 70/= of my hard earned money is already gone. Again, there is no guarantee that you will not repeat the same trick in another form to siphon out my money. Now your handset with the Reliance name imprinted on one side and embossed on the other has just become a useless piece of shit. What better option do I have than to dump it on you?

I expect a positive reply from you or any of your minions at Mumbai within a week. If you don' want this issue to be settled, I will go ahead with filing more such blogs on your dirty tricks and dirtier jokes that are played on the consumers by the reliance mobile. After all I have already lost enough and I have nothing further to lose in this game.

Anil, as usual, I am mailing you the contents and also the link to this blog. See, I prefer to be pretty transparent and straight forward in my dealings, so that you get a first hand account directly from me. Have a great time.

Mail Id

Dear All,
Consequent to my blog entries on Reliance Mobile, I have received several communications asking for the mail id of Shri Anil Ambani. As some posters have left only their comments and not mail ids, I could not reply them personally. Therefore for the benefit and future requirements ( I am sure there will be many such suckers like me) of all victims and would-be victims, I am furnishing the mail id of the Great. It is anil.ambani@relianceada.com

Hope this info is useful to many of you. Good Luck!

What is this "on-net" talk time?

In my earlier post "Truce Reached", I had mentioned that Reliance offered me on-net talk time of Rs.1000/= value. Though I had asked them to specify it in writing, since no such scheme for Rs. 1000/- value was displayed in their web-site, at that time they had given me only verbal explanations about this offer.

From their web-site you will find out that two schemes are available under this so called on-net talk time for 30 days and 45 days. In both the schemes, you can make calls to any mobile or landline and different rates are prescribed for inter circle/intra circle/ RIM to RIM etc.

Upon my persistent email, their customer care executive has atlast replied me in writing.According to his email, what has been offered to me is something very strange and peculiar and not covered under any of these schemes. Under their offer, I can make calls to any RIM-inter circle or intra circle. That too for a period of three months. Thereafter, all incoming calls can be received till the end of the first year.

Now I am convinced that they have devised this peculiar plan only to avoid further embarrassment, while appearing to appease me.

Message to Anil Ambani

Good job Mr Anil Ambani. If your people can create peculiar talk-plans to give away to complainants like me, what prevented them from restoring the original plan to which I subscribed to. Probably your greed for making more money from the gullible people, does not permit them to redress genuine grievances in a fair manner. Don't heave a sigh of relief. I will make this blog more popular so that it is read by a lot of netizens. This I promise, Anil.

Truce Reached

At last, the truce was reached by the end of last month. But I had to adopt a few ideas to threaten them with humiliation. Just have a look at how the matter proceeded further.

For my mail of 17.02.2007, reproduced in my previous post, the corporate centre of reliance customer care was kind enough to inform me on 22.02.2007 that my number under dispute has been deleted from the system and therefore nothing could be done.
"We wish to confirm that above number has been deleted from the system records. So we are unable to process your request to retain same number."

This added fuel to the fire that was already raging inside me and I replied back the following:
Thanks for your reply, which in any way does not attempt to solve my problem nor does it attempt to help me in any manner. To me it just sounds like another version of the same reply given by your customer care people form Chennai.

If your idea is to really help me out of this problem, then I would suggest that you better think of a way for restoring what you have deleted from your system(the promotional offer), in respect of the number 9380946677. After all, the system itself is owned/operated only by your company and not by some external force beyond your control. My usage pattern of both the mobiles should give you sufficient indication that I have been wronged for no fault of mine.

Anything else other than such a restoration may at best be just another corporate correspondence or lip service and definitely not customer-care."

Two hours after my above mail, I got a call from reliance explaining the reason for the deletion--90 days had passed since the expiry of my last recharge and therefore the system had deleted my number automatically. This was followed by an email on the above lines.

Out of desperation I replied the following:

"Nice to receive your mail. As usual you have tried t0 wax eloquently in your reply.

My request was not for retention of a number, but a complaint on what I consider as certain unfair practices that your company adopts.

I am happy that as a customercare official, you had waited for the 90th day to be over so that you could reply me that the system has deleted my number and nothing further can be done.

The second number of mine was never under any dispute/complaint.

Anyway, I have already decided to gift my handsets freely to anybody and through another mail I have enquired the Chairman of your company if he would be interested in accepting free reliance mobile handsets from me.

In case he himself does not want to own a free reliance mobile , I will contact you. You can find out for me from your office, if at least any of you guys are interested in owning a free reliance mobile handset.

I followed it up immediately with another letter to anil ambani asking him to accept my offer of free reliance handsets, and I even told him that I will bear the cost of packing and forwarding them. Probably this was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back.

Next morning, they made me an offer. As per our telephonic conversation, we would offer the following as one time good will gesture. We request you to purchase Get Started Kit (GSK) and activate a new number on your existing blank phone. We will extend one year validity and credit Rs. 1000 On-net talktime (Local & Intra circle).

After quite some deliberations, I decided to accept this offer and gave my confirmation to reliance. Effective form 26.02.2007, I acquired a new number at a cost of Rs.99/= and true to their offer, they have now credited that number with a value of Rs.1000/= and a validity of one year.

How the calls are going to be charged is yet another matter, since no such scheme is available in their published list of various prepaid schemes.

So friends, one thing is clear. It is their system and they can do anything with it in any manner they like. If you can create sufficient nuisance and publicity damage, they may listen to you and try to extend some sops. Otherwise, you end up as a silent victim.

Before I conclude this post, I express my deep sense of gratitude to all of you for offering your valuable suggestions and gave me the necessary moral support which enabled me to bring this matter to a conclusion. Thank you all friends.

How Reliance Infocomm Cheats Consumers: I am a Victim of Reliance Infocomm

Further Developments

Thank you all friends for your kind and encouraging replies. Special thanks to Shalini & Chlorophyta for giving me tips to proceed in the right direction to continue my fight

Last night, after a serious browsing, I could locate the mail id of Mr Anil Ambani himself and forwarded a set of email correspondence that I had with their local office. Today my in-box contained a mail form their corporate centre-customercare seeking my co-operation in furnishing additional details. I have replied them as below:
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Thank you very much for your mail. Frankly, I don't understand what you have meant by my issue number. If you are referring to the number for the Reliance mobile connections, they are 9380946677 and 9380946699. Both these lines have been switched off by me as I felt there is no point in charging the batteries daily and wasting my time. My live contact numbers are 9282101366 & 9884243022. However I would prefer to receive your response through my email id only.

In case you want to get yourself acquainted with the full details of my grievance against your company, you can visit the following link : http://reliancemobilevictimsblog.blogspot.com/. Besides, feel free to call for the emails exchanged between me and Ms Venkateswari.Arumugam & Mr Pathi.Lakshman, both belonging to your organisation.

My stand on the issue is
1. I did a subsequent recharge on the mobile only to enable me to make calls to mobiles other than reliance and I have not submitted any specific request for a life time validity.
2. There is no need for me to opt for a life time prepaid, by paying additional amounts, and there by losing your offer of a two year incoming free with 2000 minutes of free calls to Reliance mobiles( that too within a week of accepting your offer).
3. Even during the end of Dec.2006, when I checked up with your reliance webworld office, I was only informed that my number has been blocked due to non receipt of application and address-proof
4. Whoever devised a scheme to convert this recharge into a life time prepaid should be a crook, who does not care about the customers.
5. It is absolutely unfair and a highly restrictive practice on the part of Reliance to now claim that the earlier offer stands closed and therefore nothing can be done in my case.
6. Under the circumstances, I have no intention of making any further monthly payment to a scheme which I did not opt for, to stay connected through Reliance.
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Once again I thank you all , friends. Further developments if any, I shall inform you.

I am a Victim of Reliance Infocomm

I am creating this blogspot to bring to the knowledge of the whole world that Reliance Infocomm, a CDMA mobile service provider in India regularly cheats the consumers in one way or another to boost its profit.

Now to the details of how I was duped:

During Sep/Oct 2006, this company made an offer of a prepaid cdma handset model No. RD2710 of LG electronics for a price of Rs.1700/- with two years incoming free and 2000 minutes of free calls to any other Reliance Mobile.

On 14 Oct 2006 I purchased two of these handsets through one of their dealers in Chennai, India where I reside, for use within my family. At that time, as per the mandatory requirements, I submitted my photo and proof of residence.

After a week, the connections were de-activated under the pretext that my forms and photos did not reach their headquarters. I took up this matter with their dealer who requested me to provide another set of documents and photos and I complied with the same. Simultaneously, I asked the dealer to charge up my account with Rs.100/= so that I can make calls to mobiles other than Reliance.

It took them two more weeks to send somebody to make a personal visit to my place to cross check my particulars. I patiently waited for the lines to be activated, but only one of them was activated and the other was blocked. This time when I took up the matter with Reliance Web World, instead of the dealer, I was coolly told that my line was blocked because they have not received the proof of address!!! For a third time I submitted the required documents.

During all this drama, three months had lapsed. During Dec.2006, I made a complaint through their web-site, but no reply came. By Jan.2007, I located the mail id of their customer care officer and sent my complaint. I am now being informed that my status has now changed from being "blocked" to "inactive". The reason: My additional charging up has converted my account to a life-time prepaid and therefore I have to make monthly payments to use my handset. The earlier offer of two year incoming free has been withdrawn!!! All this comedy as unfolded for a person who never had a chance to use the handset after he bought it. If you are interested, I will furnish you copies of my email correspondence with them.

If Reliance Infocomm thinks that I am a damn fool willing to surrender the two years incoming free offer and pay them Rs.100/- every month, they are sadly mistaken. Now I have decided to cut down my losses and therefore I am not going to make any further payment to Reliance to use my mobile. I am creating this blog to inform the whole world about this unscrupulous marketing tactics of Reliance Infocomm.

Free Handsets

If any of you feel that this company has not taken me for a ride, you are welcome to air your views and I am willing to offer my handsets to you free of cost, as they are of no further use to me.

On the contrary if you feel that I am a genuine victim of Reliance Infocomm, then spread this message to others so that the awareness is created among the people of India about the fraud created on consumers. If you happen to know the contact address of Mr Anil Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Infocomm, pass on the following message to him.

Message to Mr Anil Ambani : Anil, such unscrupulous schemes will one day bring down your empire. Already you are in the news today for your attempts to spy on your business rival. If you do not care much about ethics in business, then please take my offer of the free handsets and sell it to some other gullible customer so that you can add more to your profits.