AIRTEL – BIG TIME SWINDLERS

It started that fateful day when I googled on my phone. Next morning, I woke up to this message from Airtel – “thank you for subscribing to BIZZARRE Club. You can download 1 FREE content and one more FREE content from Play n Win everyday for the next 7 days. Enjoy”. I wondered whatever this thing was. Didn’t have the time to bother about that since I had to get to work fast.

In the next two hours, I received a number of SMSs from Airtel – “thanks for downloading {content name} from Airtel. You have been charged {Rs.15 to Rs.99} Filmy Buzz and Pics *321*69#.” By the time I could contact the customer support, I had been charged more than Rs 400 for supposedly downloading content. God knows when I downloaded something I didn’t know anything about!

Dialed 123. After “press 1 to recharge, 2 for something…,”somewhere toward the end there was press {something} to contact customer support. I politely asked the concerned person to explain this predicament. He did not have a convincing answer and asked me to wait till he connected me to a senior officer. In the meantime, I got the message “thanks for contacting Airtel. Your request reference number is {XYZ}Simply Life! Dial to get instant info…” (All I wanted was my money back, not unsolicited services, damn it.) And, the person assured me that he’d look into the matter.

After a while I received this SMS “dear customer, we wish to inform you that the balance depletion concern on your Airtel Mobile has been resolved. Thank you.” I was not refunded with any amount. I do not know what their notion of “resolved” is. I called them up again to express my displeasure. I told the person straight “look, first of all I’m not interested in any pack whose name itself is so stupid. The message you sent about “resolving the issue”, what the hell is it trying to convey? And, there is NO content downloaded to my phone. You can scan my phone to find out if any such thing is available. This is daylight robbery you are doing.” That person said “sorry ma’am, we cannot refund any money. All I can do is re-send the content”.


By evening the ‘thank you for downloading…’ SMSs stopped, thankfully. After a few days this gibberish SMS started “You have been renewed for BIZZARRE Pack Subscription service from Airtel. You have been charged Rs.XY. Filmy Buzz and Bollywood Pics *321*69#. Filmy buzz&amp". Bollywood, for a person who has just above-zero Movie Quotient and has no intention of improving on it? What the HELL!! Don’t they understand English? How many times should I tell those morons that I am not interested in any ridiculous pack?


AIRTEL only knows to CHEAT and say “Thank you”. To hell with Airtel, big time SWINDLERS. Guess, this is how they pay their ‘superstar’ brand ambassadors who endorse these BILKERS in preposterous ads. (I find some of these stars really really very very STUPID. Nothing more than dumb show pieces)

Here I am venting out my anger. AIRTEL, YOU ARE SOOOOOO BIZARRE.

The only reason I’m continuing with the services from this company is – I need to retain the current phone number at least for some more days.



PostScript: I still get the renewal SMSs after every few days :( :( and often get these messages – “thank you for using browsing services on Airtel Live. You have been charged {Rs.0.3 to Rs.6} for browsing {XY}KBs” when I dare not access web on phone :( :(

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