Pissed Off!

There was a time, not too long ago, when I used to scoff at people carrying cellphones. Then it became a necessary accessory for me too, so I stopped smirking at cellphone-wearers. Then to discover people carrying multiple mobiles, and I laughed out loudly - as if being on one leash wasn’t bad enough, these were the true gluttons for punishment, the hardcore masochists, it appeared.

And then I found my gsm-mobile bills going through the roof, and got beguiled by the Reliance Infocomm (now re-christened as Reliance Communications ADAG) offers and talk plans. And thus, I became a multi-mobile masochist too! Make no mistake though, my combined mobile bill was less than what my gsm-mobile bill had become by then, so the RelInfo price plans worked for me. Over time, my gsm-phone stayed off most of the time, which also spared me a lot of grief from the tele-marketing menace. And here’s another experiential factoid from about 2-years of usage - I practically get no tele-marketing calls on my RelInfo number! Whereas, if I happen to keep my gsm-mobile on for even a few hours, the calling into that number begins!

So what am I pissed off about?

Some days ago, I received an SMS from RelComm to the effect that something called MyTunes had been activated on my number, and that this would cost me 30-rupees per month. I didn’t even know what MyTunes was, let alone ask to be subscribed to it, so got a little peeved about the whole thing, and then got even more peeved that the message didn’t tell me anything about how I could opt-out. I dialed my number to find out - and some crappy RelComm jingle is what I heard in place of the familiar ring-ring! Somebody else called me a little later and promptly hung-up - “I thought I’d reached a wrong number” he said, when I called him back! The irritation was growing.

Experimented a bit, sent a reply to the number from which the message had come - pat came a reply, telling me how I could listen to other tunes, change the tune to one I wanted, but still not a word on opting out! Now here’s where I need to give RelInfo another compliment - I’d never needed to use their help-line…. the down-side, which I experienced now was that I didn’t even know it! In an attempt to still go the self-service route, I then tried the RelComm website; and that wasn’t such a good idea - the site is rather poorly designed when it comes to locating anything specific. And remarkably, it doesn’t provide a site-search. Small tendrils of smoke began to appear around my ears.

A chance conversation with a pre-paid RelComm user got me the helpdesk number. And the warning that it was difficult to get through. “Be prepared for a long wait,” is what I was told. To my pleasant surprise, I got through without much trouble, and the executive figured out exactly what I was saying without my having to repeat it. And provided me with the deeply hidden and esoteric technique to unsubscribe - send the message unsub to 111 123 (memory going to the dogs!). I couldn’t believe it, so I repeated it to him, and then made him repeat it back to me. He still said the same thing, so I promised to get back to him if it didn’t work - that should tell you how skeptical I was!

Hung up on the helpful helpdesk executive and immediately proceeded to send the message as instructed. And hey presto, nothing! I did get a msg-ack that my message had been delivered to 111 123, but that was it. See! I knew it! And then, many hours after this, I got a message informing me that I’d successfully unsubscribed from the service and inviting me to try it again. Gave mental thanks to the unknown support executive, and jabbed the delete button slightly harder than was required.

And then. They did the whole thing all over again!! I got the message about being subscribed to MyTunes a couple of days later all over again. And both this and the earlier message also mentioned something about how 15-rupees was being charged to my bill immediately and the balance later! This time I knew exactly what to do, so promptly sent the unsub message to 111 with the same results….. the confirmation, hours later, that I’d successfully unsubscribed. I’m curious to find out whether I’ve been charged.

Anil-bhai, your company needs to learn something about customer-relations. Its terribly bad form to sign-up people for charged services, without their permission. And then if you do something like this, you need to let the customer know how he/she could opt out!

And while you’re at it, you also need to look into the annoying number of marketing text-msgs that are being sent out since around a month now. And provide us with some mechanism to be able to opt-out of that too. This kind of junk-text was/is even more in my gsm-mobile…. and then, a few days ago, I got a message on how to opt-out of that! It’s taken some days, but the flood seems to have stopped. Just send DND to 111 123 (substitute your service provider’s hotline number) and check whether it works for you.