Romesh (Manager) 19 June 2012

Clear violation of trai norms, cheating by telecom service p

I wish to report Unethical practices being followed by many telecom companies.I will explain how I got into uncovering the scam. I am a Reliance customer and used to get notifications after every call indicating how long my call was , how much a...mount is debited for the call and how much is left. Suddenly one day these notifications stopped. When I lodged a complaint, the customer care said that it will be corrected in 2 days, but refused to lodge any complaint.After 2 days when my complaint persisted, I called the customer care. They said that such things are not entertained by customer care. I grew suspicious and inquired about the balance. I was told that Rs. 30 had been debited from my account for some fun pack. (I had NOT applied for any kind of service). I asked to lodge a complaint but they refused to lodge my complaint.

When I asked if they had proof of my permission to subscribe me to the stupid fun pack, they could NOT trace ANY request for activation of any service from my side either.Finally they hung up without completing the call.

I investigated the scam further and through unofficial sources learned that Reliance and Other Telecom companies earn millions by this scam. Since the amount is small (Rs. 5, 10, 30) the users don’t care to fight all the way to the top or most of the times don’t even notice that some money is missing from their account. A single telecom company earned about Rs. 30,00,000 (Estimated) in a single district in 2 weeks alone (in 2009 May). Since I dont have proof of the numbers and of the scam I cannot go ahead with legal proceedings.

Also there is clear violation of TRAI norms for registering users for VAS (https://www.trai.gov.in/Writereaddata/Userfiles/File/Measuresto%20protectconsumerinterest/Direction_vas_fina4-7-2011.Pdf). I have contacted TRAI, but to no avail. I dont know if raising a greviance in the pgportal (https://www.pgportal.gov.in/Grievance.aspx) will have any impact. (Adding insult to injury, Reliance Communications has posted a link to this greviance portal on its website).

I am posting on this forum to ask for legal options.

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Kumar Doab (FIN) 19 June 2012

Issue a notice to company and local BM ( which you can also send) under proper acknowledgment, narrating the complaint, representations made by you including phone numbers, name of CCE, refusal to issue complaint number/unique docket number to your complaint, and demand reply in writing, to beg apology in writing, and mention amount of compensation. Afterwards you can lodge complaint with consumer forum.

You can expose the scam in media, economic offenses wing, TRAI.

If majority of the affected customers unite a lot can happen.