TATAs and their pathetic Indicom – TATA Indicom

This is a true story of a hapless customer treated like dirt by a company (read TATA Indicom) which has ambitious plans of taking on the Reliance and Bhartis of telecom but no systems to carry it through. I still think it’s perfectly all right to dream big but don’t just be the Mungerilals who just dream big, be the Sam Waltons who dream big and have even bigger and stronger systems in place to back their dreams to reality.

It all started about a month and a half back when I was posted in the interiors of the country for a project. The need for a mobile internet connection arose and what else, with a brilliant Kajol trying to sell you a TATA Indicom connection, I was ‘pull’ed by buying one. But I did not buy it from the place where I was posted – Munger in Bihar. I bought it from a certified shop of TATA Indicom in Delhi.

The connection got activated in Delhi within a day in Delhi but I was not able to download much from the connection. Next day I landed in Patna and tried the connection. The black beauty –“A USB Modem” failed to connect and the error message popped “Error 721: Could not connect to the remote computer”. Next day when I reached Munger, I called up customer care of Indicom and tried to see what the reason for this weird message was. I was told to wait as the customer care executive (from now on CCE) wanted to verify my details and then she started speaking about various settings which I should check. On promptly doing that, there was no success. I was told that a complaint would be lodged and within 12 working hours my complaint would be resolved by a service engineer.

I was happy about the system of 12 working hours. But I soon came to know that if the complaint was not attended to or not resolved in those 12 hours then the complaint would lapse and again you would have to lodge a complaint for the same error and in another 12 hours it would get resolved. Such a system would’ve been made by a person with an IQ not exceeding 1 digit for sure. Even that i’m not too sure.

Another amazing process which is engrained in this company’s philosophy – “Treat thy customer as a waiting time machine, keep passing the buck to the other department and wash your hands off”. I must have abused the poor girls a lot all this time with my blood pressure shooting up all the time.

No net connectivity with a damn demanding project in site. I was in for a rude shock from the company. Next thing I come to know in my regular chats with the company CCEs is that my connection has been BARRED as the verification of my address was NEGATIVE.

Hmmm ….I wondered how this was possible. I had given my permanent address where I lived along with my parents for the last 14 years or so. I asked them the address mentioned in their system. To my horror, it was a typo error all on their end that created an address which was not in Delhi. Although I had documentary proof that I had provided it right to them.

After getting that corrected by going to a TVH in Noida on my next visit to Delhi, nothing changed. Again contacted the CCE and she said a Service Engineer would call me. I said fine. He called to my surprise. He asked me to get the SIM changed at my cost and things would be fine.

On my visit to Mumbai 2 days later, I got the SIM changed and the Tata Authorized Dealer TVH, Dadar guys changed it and supposedly got my number loaded on to it. But till the time I was there at the TVH I did not get activated. On being reassured that since the number was of Delhi, it would take a bit of time and you can go home till then. I was happy that finally my problem would get solved. Nothing happened, the problem remained.

I again called up the CCE and this time I was told that as the SIM was changed, now their must be a problem with the Modem. I said buggers, tell me what to do. They said, a Service Engineer would visit you in Munger in Bihar and get it changed. I said fine but would it be feasible for him to visit this place as this place doesn’t have even a TATA dealership, only franchisee shops. I was told not to worry; they would send someone from Patna or Jamshedpur. Nobody turned up and I got calls from people from Chandigarh, Chennai, Jamshedpur all TATA service center guys asking me what had happened. All the while I explained and explained nothing happened.

Cutting a longer story short, now I got a call from a collection center saying your card was barred as the credit limit has exceeded. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH….. I didn’t even get a tiny chance to use the card and the credit limit had exceeded. The lady talked to me saying pay up please as you have used the card and I exploded like an Al Qaeda suicide bomber. She put the phone down.

A small note on this credit limit thing :I have a plan of 1500 rental with a free usage of 5 GB and subsequent usage charge of Rs 2 / MB. The credit limit was 700 which later got hiked to 2500 but this 2500 is not above the 5GB limit. This actually means that I can only download around 1250 MB (1250MB *2 per MB = 2500)  within my free usage limit till my credit limit gets exhaiusted and within a month I have to payup when I should not actually be doing so. A complete mockery of promises made in the market. I’ve ended up hating Kajol for the convincing face she makes up to sell the Black beauty to all of us tech savvy Indians.

I had enough, I again lodged a complaint and then went straight to a True Value Hub of theirs in Gurgaon and to my surprise a guy called Vivek listened to my frustrations very patiently and was the best CCE that I had spoken to till now. He did all he could and now the amount of bill is completely reversed and even told me that the Mumbai guys cannot change the SIM from Delhi and it was surprising to him to find out this lack of information with the TATA owned dealership. He told me to write a letter to Customer care manager to back his email to him.

Now finally the card according to him has been activated and once I go to Delhi it will switch on there.

I’m still waiting for that to happen otherwise ill have to continue this story

 

Moral of the story is:

DONOT BUY ANY TATA INDICOM PRODUCTS. THIS IS NOT A ONE OFF CASE

WHEN THE SYSTEMS ARE SCREWED IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE

Buy any other brand but don’t but Tata Indicom. Or else you’ll end up writing such stories