Airtel HD installation problems

[rohitr]

Dear Friends,

Please avoid Airtel HD.

I have an existing Airtel DTH connection. 2 weeks back I called Airtel and requested HD. I paid for the same and was assured installation will be done in 48-72 hours.
There was no communication from Airtel for 4 days. When I called them I learnt my request got cancelled somehow (no reason given) so I had to request it again. Again I was assured installation in 2 days. But there was no cummnication from the installation.
I complained 4 times and escalated the issue. I called them practically everyday and everytime I was assured that installation will be done in a day.
This friday I was assured installation would be done in the next 2 hours !!! but today is saturday and still no response.
I requested to speak to a supervisior today and I was assured that I will be getting a call in 1 hr. No call has come even after 8 hrs.
I am seriously fed up. Its the worst customer service I have seen. I dont know what the problem is. Has anyone gone through this. I suppose there is some issue which they dont want to disclose and are keep making excuses.

Rohit

 

[gobble]

It may be the satellite problem of ISRO is keeping them away. All the Airtel technicians must be clambering around the shell of Insat-4B in outer space - with screwdriver, tester or hammer in hand .

Wait for one to lose his grip, slip and fall down to the ground, then pounce upon him ... :licklips:

 

[rohitr]

It may be the satellite problem of ISRO is keeping them away. All the Airtel technicians must be clambering around the shell of Insat-4B in outer space - with screwdriver, tester or hammer in hand .

Wait for one to lose his grip, slip and fall down to the ground, then pounce upon him ... :licklips:

Yeah I guess the only help if its ever going to be come is from UP ABOVE...

 

[sivakuru]

Reusing an existing thread to describe the harrowing experience I am having with
Airtel DTH for the last one week.

The nightmare started when I decided to go for a 2nd connection.

Here is the snipped version of the email I sent to couple of local Airtel heads
in hyderabad (removed the names and contact numbers as I think it is
against HFV rules):

Hi:

This email is just to narrate my on-going harrowing experience with Airtel DTH for the past one week.

Just to give you a background, I was a Dish TV customer since 2005 and after having not so good
experience with them decided to go for a change. I was suggested Tata Sky by many of my friends
and websites like saveondish, indiabroadband.net, team-bhp, hifivision, techenclave etc. I did not
go for Tata sky as the package pricing seemed to be a little bit on the higher side. I did not go for
Reliance Big TV as I kept hearing not so good reviews about it. I thought Airtel was a bargain due
to its not so high price and not so bad reviews and settled for my primary connection - a DVR in the
month of April.

I paid Rs 8500 for my DVR and one year subscription fees for south ultra pack. A person named A
( dealer ) called up and arranged for the installation. He was very prompt and followed up until the unit
got installed. After the installation, few hours later, my DVR started showing problems - some frequent
disconnects - blank screens - so I called A and he promptly sent some one to check the unit. They
came and said the unit was defective and A himself came all the way to give me a replacement.
I was mighty impressed with his service and decided that if I go for a second connection, it will be through
him.

Fast forward few months, in end of August, I decided to go for the 2nd connection and it is when the
nightmare starts. I called up A and he arranged for some engineers to come and do the installation.
They came installed the box and I paid Rs 1800 for the 2nd connection (box). I was told that it comes with
1 month free subscription and I will be getting the same package on the 2nd connection as well.

Few hours after they left, both my connections stopped working. I called up A and he said, he will
rectify the problem but asked time until the next day afternoon. I said OK I will wait. Next day again there
was no reception. I called up 12150 and they said, I have a negative balance (-1800) because of which I
am not receiving any channel.

I called up A again and he admitted that they had transferred the money (1800) to a different account
and said it would be rectified. The wait again continued.

Inbetween I wanted to check my account status online and tried to login to my account which I created
after going my primary connection. Inspite of repeated attempts, I could not login, with the password I was
given. I then tried to retrieve my password using the forgot password option. The system could not retrieve
my details (via Login ID and via Customer ID). I then sent an email to airtel and some one called me couple
of days after and I told them about my login problem. They said they will reset my password and will send an
email and SMS to my mobile. I waited again for the so said email and SMS - no response. After waiting for a
day, I called up Airtel customer care again and this time a guy answered the phone, was very promising and
said he would reset and send the password details immediately. I again waited for few hours and no email and
no SMS. So I called up customer care again and this time I wanted to talk to a more responsible/senior person
and so I insisted on speaking to a some one at the managerial level. Some lady spoke to me, I repeated the
problem again. She said their website was down and she did not know when it would be back up again but said
she would make sure the password is reset and details sent. I am yet to receive the details. Frustrated I
thought I will try for registering again - which initially did not succeed but after a few days, I re-registered.

Coming back to my original problem, after few calls to A, he had some one transfer Rs 70 (and not 1800)
to my account, the channels started appearing for few hours and I also kept getting automated messages
that my account will terminate in couple of days because of negative balance.

So I called up A again, he said he will rectify in 10 minutes. Fine, I said I will wait. Nothing happened
and for some time my secondary connection started working and the first connection stopped working.
So I called him up again, he said another 10 minutes and it would work again. In the process, they did
transfer 1800 to my account, so the balance became negative -15.

I again started getting messgaes that my account will remain active only for the next 2 days. I was told
that the first month subscription on the 2nd connection is free. So if my understanding is correct, the
balance should be around 170 odd for the first month after which I will be recharging on a monthly
basis.

Anyways at this point, my repeated attempts to reach A goes vain. He simply does not want to
take my call. He promised one month subscription free but did not want to stand by his commitment.
I initially thought that he was away from the phone and could not take it but one of my tries was actually
picked up by his collegue (C) and he told that A is available but was on a tea break.
I asked C to request A to give me a call back but I am yet to receive any call from
him. I am not worried about paying Rs 170 to recharge my second connection but it is the attitude of
these dealers that puts me off.

The only soul that tried to help in the process was some one called S who works for A. I had
spoken to him couple of times during the ordeal, so I called him up. He said, he will do his best and
after some time I now see a balance of Rs 64 in my account.

Anyways, I am not sure if it is going to help to keep my account active for a whole month on the
south ultra package. I had enough with them and am ready to pay starting now itself for my
2nd connection.

That said, many of the channels are not coming on my primary connection since yesterday evening
but the entire south ultra pack is coming on the secondary connection. I really dont know what is
happening with my account. When I call Airtel customer care, I get a message that my balance is
Rs 64 and is valid until Nov 13. I really dont know which package I am in for my primary and secondary
connections. It has become a big mess now.

To top it all, I called the 1800 toll number, tried to reach a customer care representative (via options
existing customer, customer id, technical assistance - press 9 to connect to customer care executive)
At this point it tries to connect and comes out with a message that the number does not exist. After
repeated attempts I gave up and I tried the tolled number (020) and I was able to connect to a customer
care executive on the very first attempt.

Having invested Rs 10000 on both the connections, it is not wise on my part to move to another subscriber
at this point but would you think I will recommend Airtel DTH to somebody in future?.

If you read the email, you will see that Airtel DTH has problems right from defective units to irresponsible
dealers to disconnected customer service to what not. In this age of internet etc, if Airtel gets this kind
of negative feedbacks dont you think it will fall flat on its face in no time?.

As we speak, there is still a pending complaint # 3776096 which I dont know when it would get resolved
and would get resolved in the right fashion in the right time. You guys are also customers elsewhere in
your life and you must understand the frustration you would go through if you were in a similar situation.

My ordeal though continues and I am still repenting on having done the biggest blunder of my life, not
once, but twice for having gone to Airtel primary and secondary connections.

Well, I dont know what is your designation and if you would be in a position to rectify any of the problems
I mentioned above but if you really want your company to beat the competition, here are some pointers
for you to start working on.

Like I said earlier, I will continue with Airtel DTH for another year, after which I dont think I will ever turn
towards Airtel DTH ever in my life.

Few complaint numbers are
1) 3735939
2) 3765108
3) 3776096

 

[Jigneshg]

@ sivakuru

Feel sorry for u after reading ur experience. Instead I wud suggest u to contact the Nodal officer in ur Area. Here is the contact info

Andhra Pradesh
Priendu Narayan Chakraverty
040-40024449
[email protected]

U can check from here

Digital TV from Airtel

 

[sivakuru]

Thank you Jignesh. I will contact the nodal officer.

Meanwhile, some more horrifying incidents that has happened:

I had opened complaint # 3776096 yesterday morning (around 10 am) that some channels in my primary connection were not coming. I got a call around 11:30 am asking me if my problem was resolved. I asked them back what was the problem reported and what did they do to resolve my problem. They said they have not done anything but wanted to check if my problem was resolved. This is as funny as it can get. I asked them to do something to rectify and call me back.

I got a call few minutes after that. Some one said that they will go home to fix the problem and some one did turn up. They went, saw the connections and said they will return back with some instrument as they needed to further diagonise the problem/signal. They did not turn yet.

Meanwhile I got a message on my mobile that the problem has been rectified and I have to SMS SAT if problem is resolved and UNSAT if it is not resolved.

I called up home to see if anything has changed. Guess what - both my connections are not working.

After some time, I again got a SMS that said, the problem # 3776096 is resolved and call 9177754325 if problem is not resolved. I tried to call 9177754325 several times and no one is picking up the phone. Why give a number when no one is going to answer?.

I tried their toll number 020-40181400 as their toll free number 18001028080 will not work if you try to get to a representative (it will give you all automated messages and the moment you indicate that you want to talk to a representative, it will disconnect saying the number does not exist - this is as pathetic as it can get). Anyways I got hold of a representative and asked him the status of 3776096, he said it is resolved and closed. I asked him what they did to resolve as they must have some log of what they did. He said there are no details but status is closed. I told him the problem has aggravated as both connections are not working. He has now opened one more complaint # 3782768 that complaint # 3776096 was not resolved. This is the 4th complaint # that I am keeping track of. I dont know how many more complaints that they will open before my problem is resolved.

I dont know if anyone in Airtel DTH is really working.

Anyone want to Airtel DTH, think multiple times and go for it at your own risk. I have never seen a private organization being so pathetic in my life.

EDIT:

Make the number of compaints 5. Some one called me just now and said my
complaint number is 3787180.

Looks like all Airtel DTH customer service is doing is to generate complaint
numbers - one after the other.

Will Airtel DTH stop generating complaint numbers for me and instead start working
on my problem?.

This is getting way too frustrating - a nightmare experience which I can never forget
in my life.

 

[Jigneshg]

Frustrating experience, never seen such an attitude from CC do not call the CC now they will keep on giving new complaint ID's. Better contact Nodal officer and blast at him as CC are not helping u. One more thing these dealers are the biggest loosers, they just want to sell their boxes and when it comes to service they do all kinds of stupid things.

 

[sivakuru]

Well after going through hell for about 10 days, finally both my connections are
working - atleast for now. Having gone through the worst of the experiences,
I do not have any confidence that life will be peechy dandy with Airtel DTH moving
forward. Airtel DTH is just as good as my experience with BSNL Broadband. Both are
fine as long as you dont face any problems and dont need to contact customer care.
The episode with BSNL is for a different day and time.

My boss gave me some local Airtel higher up contacts and after dealing with them,
they were able to straighten things up. The last problem was due to a faulty LNB.
Due to which both connections failed to work. So the last couple of weeks have
exposed the ugly face of Airtel DTH and that the backbone (Customer care etc)
is not designed and cohesive. Right from unethical dealers to disconnected customer
care to not working toll free numbers to faulty units to what not. You name it and
you find it not working with Airtel DTH. Anyways like I said earlier, with little bit of
luck, I managed to get in touch with one of the Airtel DTH higher up and hence I
could resolve the issue (again - for now). I cant imagine a similar situation for a
common man.

Some friends and forum members suggested to contact the Nodal officer. I tried
calling that number only once but that went ringing, so I forwarded the email (snippets
of which are seen in this thread) and you do get a automated email back immediately.
Thats it. After 4 days, some one contacted my home yesterday just to check if
everything was working fine. So if you expect that by contacting the nodal officer
some one will coming running to help you - dont - you will only end up getting disappointed.

On top of everything, I got the below email this morning:

=================================================

Dear Mr. Sivakuru,

Thank you for writing to Airtel digital TV.

This is with reference to your e-mail regarding Signal Loss Issue.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience faced by you.
We would like to inform you that your complaint has been resolved and also confirmed with Ms. Malti on phone dated-12-Sep-10.

Your Nodal Complaint No. is 85498368

It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer & we look forward to a long and fruitful association with you.

Assuring you the best of our services,

Regards,
Nodal Officer
Airtel digital TV



PS: Incase you require any further assistance, please:
- Email us at [email protected]
- Or call us at 18001028080 (toll free)/ 020- 40181400 (tolled)

======================================================

The email tries to discount the problem saying that there was a "signal
loss issue". Signal loss - my foot.

I replied back with the below response:

==================================================

Dear Nodal Officer:

This is to inform you that the problem was just not signal loss issue.
The problem was much bigger than that. If only you had cared to
spend few minutes of your time to read through this email, you
would have known the different problems.

Please dont try to discount and under play by saying that it was
a signal loss issue.

And please remove the reference to your toll free 18001028080
from your list. It is basically useless. If you care to read through
the email, you will know the problem I faced and written about
the so called "toll free" service Airtel DTH is providing.

By sending the below email without trying to understand the problem,
you have just re-iterated that the Nodal service is just as good as
your customer service and the other slew of problematic services that
Airtel DTH provides.

Sivakuru


================================================

The email address is a list I guess - which is sent to several people I think - so I get
back the undeliverable message:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: RE: FW: My ongoing harrowing experience with Airtel DTH
Sent: 9/13/2010 11:25 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

<AM>@Airtel.in on 9/13/2010 11:25 AM
The e-mail system was unable to deliver the message, but did not report a specific reason. Check the address and try again. If it still fails, contact your system administrator.
<ndls36.bharti.com #5.0.0 X-Notes; Error delivering to <AM>/CSD/DTH/Airte l; Router: Database disk quota exceeded >

================================================

Please note that I deliberately changed the name to <AM> in the above message
as I dont want the names in a public forum.


Anyways, if you think why I am taking so much of pain in writing all this down,
its because Airtel DTH seems to keep an watch on these forums. I got a call
yesterday from some body from Airtel DTH after reading this blog - I explained
everything again and he promised that the problems will not repeat again and
he will look into the issue. So I am glad to know that the higher ups do keep
a regular tab on forums like HFV - kudos to HFV for that. This was the only
saving grace in this entire drama.

 

[abhijeetsk]

This is getting way too frustrating - a nightmare experience which I can never forget
in my life.

guess somethings never ever change with Airtel - whatever be the Airtel company u deal with. I have had a near identical experience with Airtel mobile in Mumbai for the past 2 months. They closed down my complaint without even addressing it because they could not reach me - and the reason they could not reach me was the very basis of the complaint - network not reachable!
the only answer ever is SWITCH!
useless airtel

 

[heynownow]

Airtel Digital TV is run by a bunch of inbred idiots. I have had huge problems with them, when I tries to reactivate a connection with my credit card. the bloody cheats/haramis debited the payment but never activated teh services. It was only after 10 days of incessant abuses from my side did something happen. Now way am I going to upgrade my box to Artel HD.

 

[heynownow]

And one they send me a legal notice, for which I had to drag my posterior to court, for a screwup they themselves were responsible. This was for postpaid mobile. So apart from a prepaid connection I use as a 2nd phone, I dont have and have vowed never to opt for ANY service from that nefarious, hubris-filled company with illusions of grandeur.

 

[madbullram]

@Hey: Watch your words, this is a public forum

 

[heynownow]

Sorry...moderated the post

 

[slayer_tiger]

It may be the satellite problem of ISRO is keeping them away. All the Airtel technicians must be clambering around the shell of Insat-4B in outer space - with screwdriver, tester or hammer in hand .

Wait for one to lose his grip, slip and fall down to the ground, then pounce upon him ... :licklips:

LOL...:clapping::clapping::clapping::lol::lol::clapping::clapping:hyeah:

 

[slayer_tiger]

guess somethings never ever change with Airtel - whatever be the Airtel company u deal with. I have had a near identical experience with Airtel mobile in Mumbai for the past 2 months. They closed down my complaint without even addressing it because they could not reach me - and the reason they could not reach me was the very basis of the complaint - network not reachable!
the only answer ever is SWITCH!
useless airtel

LOL>> WOW... i think BHARTI MITTAL should read this.. he will surely have laugh.hyeah:hyeah:

 

[sivakuru]

In all fairness, I need to make sure I make the recent email from Airtel DTH
nodal officer available on this thread.

===========================================================

Dear Sir,

Thank you for writing to Airtel Digital TV.

This is with reference to your mail regarding unpleasant customer service.

We focus considerable effort on training our staff to ensure high Levels of service and we shall further strengthen our initiatives in this direction based on your feedback.

We earnestly hope that the Negative experience you had, will not come in the way of your availing our facility.

We regret once again for the unpleasant experience and assure you that every effort is being made to ensure that such lapses do not recur.

All our customers are important to us and your feedback will aid us in introspection and improvements in our processes ultimately leading to customer delight.

We would also like to inform you that we tried to contact you on 91-XXXXXXXXXXX but failed to get any response. If still issue persists, then kindly revert us with alternate number to assist you.

Your Nodal Complaint No. is 86397762.

It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer & we look forward to a long and fruitful association with you.

Assuring you the best of our services.

Regards,
Nodal Officer
Airtel digital TV

PS: Incase you require any further assistance, please:
- Email us at [email protected]
- Or call us at 18001028080 (toll free)/ 020- 40181400 (tolled)

========================================================

Note, I replaced my mobile number with XXX. I keep carrying my mobile everywhere I go,
so I fail to understand how I could not be reached on my mobile. Anyways, it is a Airtel connection
again, so you never know

 

[Jigneshg]

In all fairness, I need to make sure I make the recent email from Airtel DTH
nodal officer available on this thread.

===========================================================

Dear Sir,

Thank you for writing to Airtel Digital TV.

This is with reference to your mail regarding unpleasant customer service.

We focus considerable effort on training our staff to ensure high Levels of service and we shall further strengthen our initiatives in this direction based on your feedback.

We earnestly hope that the Negative experience you had, will not come in the way of your availing our facility.

We regret once again for the unpleasant experience and assure you that every effort is being made to ensure that such lapses do not recur.

All our customers are important to us and your feedback will aid us in introspection and improvements in our processes ultimately leading to customer delight.

We would also like to inform you that we tried to contact you on 91-XXXXXXXXXXX but failed to get any response. If still issue persists, then kindly revert us with alternate number to assist you.

Your Nodal Complaint No. is 86397762.

It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer & we look forward to a long and fruitful association with you.

Assuring you the best of our services.

Regards,
Nodal Officer
Airtel digital TV

PS: Incase you require any further assistance, please:
- Email us at [email protected]
- Or call us at 18001028080 (toll free)/ 020- 40181400 (tolled)

========================================================

Note, I replaced my mobile number with XXX. I keep carrying my mobile everywhere I go,
so I fail to understand how I could not be reached on my mobile. Anyways, it is a Airtel connection
again, so you never know

lol. Try giving an alternate number to see if they call u back
Next time they wud say we already called on ur Mobile hyeah: