How Tata Docomo Cheated Me: My Story

We’ve heard about telecom companies taking their customers for a ride, but I just had an experience of a lifetime, thanks to the unscrupulous sales execs of Tata Docomo that peddle post-paid subscriptions, misguiding the unsuspecting customers.

True, no matter what your plans are, they have “a plan” for you – a plan which you would not be able to see beforehand and by the time you “get it”, it would be too late.

Which is precisely why I decided to share my story with the world and save others from the “plans” of Tata Docomo.

So What’s My Story?

I was a happy BSNL pre-paid customer until the Tata Docomo sales guy repeatedly approached me to try their post-paid subscription last month.  Upon my agreement, he collected all the necessary documents to create a log in and advised me to send a request to BSNL for porting out to Tata Docomo.

He told me that my request would be approved in seven days and he would get back to me with a micro SIM card (for my iPhone4). Not only did he delay in giving me the SIM card until the last hour, he also offered me a normal SIM card which was broken with the help of some SIM cutter. When I asked him why he didn’t offer me a proper micro SIM card, he said Tata Docomo doesn’t offer micro SIM cards and the phone would work fine with it. With only three hours left for my BSNL connection to be deactivated, I had no choice but to accept it although I felt really cheated.

How unprofessional! But, perhaps, that was just the beginning!

The Fine Print

To be precise, I took the new connection on the 13^th of June, 2013 and the sales guy told me I would get a bill for only 17 days (i.e by the end of the ongoing month).

I subscribed to their Diet 299 Plan (http://www.tatadocomo.com/diet-plans.aspx) which clearly states they would be offering 100 MB data usage for free. I was happy knowing that this much of data would suffice my needs for the rest of the month.

However, on the 16^th of June, I got a text message that said my bill of Rs. 259 should be paid. Surprised, I called up the customer care to figure out…

1. Why they billed me for two days when I had been told otherwise
2. How they billed me a staggering 259 rupees for merely two days usage

Turns out they had a secret motive in their mind:

The customer care exec said the billing cycle of my subscription is from the 14^th to 15^th of every month. Hence, the bill.I was told that my free data usage for two days was 6.6 MB (they split 100 MB into 30 days and then calculated my free data usage limit for two days)

As per their calculation, my data usage for the two days was 27 MB, which essentially means I would be charged exorbitantly (i.e. 207 rupees) for the remaining 19 MB data. With other charges such as monthly rentals and usage charges for two days, the bill of 258.56 rupees is now officially browbeating me.

The customer service guy apologized to me saying that the sales guy should have explained this to me prior to getting me signed up for this plan. But sadly, he didn’t and now I’m being expected to shell out money for something of their fault.

The Sales Guy is Unreachable

I’ve been trying to reach to the sales guy so he could explain why he preferred to not explain the plan to me properly and why he lied to me about the micro SIM card. But he has not been responding to my calls so far.

I’ve written to the Appellate Authority of Bhubaneswar regarding this and contemplating on seeking the consumer forum in this regard, should they fail to mitigate my concerns.

I decided to write this post exclusively for the unsuspecting customers like me who can easily be taken for a ride by Tata Docomo sales guys.

Update: The Tata Docomo officials told me they‘re looking into the issues at the moment and it will take a week before they could resolve my issue fully.

Dear Mr. Sahoo,

Thank you for writing to us.

This is with reference to your email dated 18-JUN-2013; regarding unprofessional behaviour and wrong commitment given for your TATA DOCOMO number 9437022213.

We regret the inconvenience caused to you and would try our best to avoid a repeat of such incidence.

As per the telephonic conversation on 9437022213, please be informed that a service request has been raised with docket number 367474815 registered on 18-JUN-2013 for the given reason to be resolved by24-JUN-2013 12:20hrs.

Kindly make a note of this docket number for your future correspondence. Please be assured that the matter will be taken up on priority.

We appreciate your patience.

As you can see, the case is open wide currently. I will update this post as and when I see any development in this case.

Thanks for your time to hear my story and I hope you’re going to be watchful the next time someone from the Tata Docomo approached you for a post-paid subscription.