The Imbeciles

What is a couple of pages worth bad publicity to a big telecom company? Well, from their demeanor, nothing much I guess. So, let me spew….

The precise date that was a harbinger of the nightmare was 27-July, related to my home cell phone. Yeah, that far back. That afternoon, I got a call from Idea Call Center, have you paid your bill sir…. Umm, yes, actually I did. Cheque number XXXX27, dated 25-July. I have dropped a cheque in the same drop box that I have been dropping for past 10 months, so you should get it.

A few days later, again there was a call asking if I have paid the bill. And then a few days later, the outgoing service was simply cancelled. No more warnings or questions! After multiple calls, I found out that Idea still hadn’t got my cheque and were asking me again and again if I have paid…the tone of disbelief going up every time!

So someone had lost the cheque, but there was no admission of that. And for Idea’s error, my outgoing was withheld. In all this rigmarole, the bill for August arrived, with charges carried forward from July, late payment fees for non-payment of July bill and also August bill with an extra topping of barred outgoing calls. That was when I became angry. So, I called the call center number…. The first thing it announced was how good Idea solutions were in billing. Really – I screamed. Then, I was put on hold for all of 45 minutes…and frustrated of hearing the background music I hung up. Then I tried logging the complaint on the website. So, pat came a standard reply, please pay the bill and then we can talk. So, I paid, taking a moral stand that since Idea lost my cheque, I won’t pay the late payment fees.

I thought that all my worries were over…but then when September bill came, something was fishy…. It appeared as if I had been given a discount for all the hassle I had to go through in July and August. I dared not ask, for I had lost the patience to be on phone with the call center and wait for tens of minutes. And then Idea decided to drop the bomb. Without any warning, the outgoing stopped! Why? Apparently, I had written a bad cheque. Huh?

Well, as the story goes, Idea mysteriously found the cheque that they claimed was lost, deposited it in the bank and since there was a stop payment put on that cheque, they treated it as bounced. No one bothered to check the history as to why that may have happened. No one bothered to call me to update that the cheque was returned by the bank. It’s as if they were waiting for the cheque to be found. And not only was I charged late payment fees once again, but also bad-cheque fees.

It took umpteen efforts from my side – lot of clamoring, posturing, use of words like dissatisfied customer, just cancel my services etc. before the imbeciles understood why I was unhappy. Two shady looking guys from collection department came over to help me settle it. I am not running away from making payments, I told them, but you seriously need to get the systems working properly. Yes, they both assured…and then Idea just couldn’t help but wait for a final climax.

Once again, there were late payment charges on the bill. It appears the shady looking guys who assured me this is the last of my problems, and had waived certain amount on the bill, did not really correct the problem in the system. This time though I would have none of it…I put my literary skills to good use and wrote a letter to higher ups in Idea. Negative words like distress, disrespect, discontinue peppered the letter. No confidence was exhibited that Idea would care about solving the problem. That had an impact and the excess charges were reversed. But by then, they had lost it.

So, now as a customer, I have been trying to understand: How is it that

* No customer care executive at the call center is not available for the first 15-20 minutes when I call?
* Looking at my usage pattern, Idea is ready to take risk with a cash-cow customer?
* No one understands what the problem is when it is explained for the first time?
* I should suffer if the customer care and billing systems do not interface with each other?
* They expect me to hold every time for more than 15 minutes if I call the call center?
* I always have to deal with the person in the call center who does not have authority to take decisions?
* The manager is never available on the floor?
* The promise – my manager will certainly call you tomorrow before 12 PM (not noon, PM!) – is never kept?
* Idea is such a moron and I still do business with them?

I actually know the answer to that last question. Too many people know that Idea number for it to be disconnected at the drop of the hat. But this forced me to finally walkover to the BSNL office to get a landline. So, once the transition period is over, Idea will miss my bill. Either that or I will wait for the number portability. Now that’s an !dea that could change my life. But for the record, they were the ones who started it….