Monday, September 24, 2012

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Monday, September 3, 2012

Sunday, September 2, 2012

TATA DoCoMo! - Battle II

After two months of quiet once again I was forced to fight for my rights as a consumer against the might of TATA DoCoMo: the offspring of Industrial giants of two nations. This time it was in connection with misleading and wrong information given in their Online Recharge website

Battle II began on August 20th when I recharged my number with Rs 500 3G Smartlife Plan. In their online recharge website it was mentioned that the benefit for the recharge is "500 MB with 60000 Local, National & Roaming seconds valid for 30 Days". However when I didn't get the benefit of Roaming Seconds, I called their customer care service and after much 'verification' I got the reply that 'as per our system, benefit of Roaming Seconds is not available' on that particular recharge. So I sent a mail to customer care reps and didn't get any reply. However on the third time, I got the acknowledgement and the resolution date was fixed as August 31st.


(Screenshot of online recharge section - Click to Zoom)


On August 30th they called me and I had to explain the details of the complaint twice to two different customer care reps. After 4 calls within a period of 5 hours, they agreed that the information given in their website was indeed wrong and refunded me the amount (Rs 500).

The email I sent to DoCoMo is given below:

Hi,

I am a prepaid customer and my phone number is 96XXXXXXXX. Although the number is of Kerala circle, am currently roaming and in the state of Uttarakhand

Attached to this mail are:
  • Screenshot of TATA Docomo Website-Online recharge, and
  • A print out of the Online recharge page (http://www.tatadocomo.com/online-recharge.aspx)

Like i said before, i recharged my phone with 3G Smartlife plan-Rs 500 from your website. The payment mode was "pay by account balance". Although in your website (as evident from the attachments 1 & 2) it is clearly mentioned that the benefit for the recharge is "500 MB with 60000 Local, National & Roaming seconds valid for 30 Days. Post bundled data 10p/10kb will be charged", I am not getting the benefit of roaming seconds. When I called customer care rep today, he informed that roaming seconds are not available on this recharge even though in your site its given.


In this regard, i would like to invite your attention to some legal provisions:
As per Section 2(r)(1)(vi) of The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 the practice of making any statement, whether orally or in writing or by visible representation which makes a false or misleading representation concern­ing the need for, or the usefulness of, any goods or services amounts to unfair trade practice and as such punishable under the law. 

I did the recharge on utmost good faith on the basis of information received from your end. There was no indication as to the restrictive nature of the scheme. I intend to take the legal remedy available to me unless you resolve the issue at the earliest. 

Regards
Ranjith