Mobile woes: They made threatening calls to me!

Everyone loves to hate their mobile service providers. On January 4, we carried A Ganesh Nadar's account of his cellphone connection going from bad to worse while on tour and asked readers to share similar experiences with us. Here, Sunil Antony from Bengaluru tells his story:

I want to tell you of my experience with Spice Telecom, Karnataka (now Idea) . I was a customer of Spice for the last 10 years and one fine day, when I returned from a foreign business tour, I received a bill for a staggering amount. When I asked for details of the calls, they informed me that the billing cycle date had not been reached and hence they could provide it. But they wanted me to pay the amount ,otherwise they would cut off my connection -- which they did. In spite of being with Spice for 10 years and having an ECS payment mode.

Subsequently, after a lot of calls/ visits to the call centre/ office they reconnected it for a few hours and then disconnected. This went on for quite a few days. Finally, when my billing cycle date was reached, I received the detailed bill, in which I saw there were amounts mentioned against international service providers without any outgoing call details. After I approached them through the nodal officer/ appelate authority (since they did not respond through the call centre/ offices) they asked me to pay the amount which was clear. After they received the clarification from the international service provider I could pay the balance, which I agreed to and paid up. I went through such a bad experience and harassment after being with Spice for 10 years, that I gave up my Spice connection and took a new one.

After making the part payment, a few days later I received threatening calls from some agency calling on behalf of Spice, asking me to pay the difference amount. When this was taken up with Spice, they said that due to technical reasons the international service provider could not provide the outgoing numbers, and that I needed to pay the difference. This in spite of showing them the detailed bill in which the same international service providers had mentioned the genunine outgoing numbers of the calls I had made.

I want to file a lawsuit for harassment against Spice Telecom (Idea) and for failing to settle an issue for the last one year. I also want a no-dues certificate from them.

Have you had a nasty cellphone service experience? Share your mobile woes with us. Write in to us at getahead@rediff.co.in (subject line: 'Mobile woes') and we'll feature your story, right here on rediff.com

And here is what reader Krishnan B Menon had to say:

My grouse is against Airtel services in Kerala -- I was using their facility. Their standard operating procedure is as follows.

If you call any Airtel number which is under the CUG (Closed User Group) scheme, or if you are under a scheme where a certain number of calls to other Airtel numbers are free, the first time you dial the number, it will ring twice and then you will hear a pre-recorded message. The message says, 'The number you are trying to reach is busy. To leave a voice SMS, please dial xxx followed by the number. Charges will be xxx per message.'

In case you cut the line and call again, you are connected immediately. It seems this is a gimmick to fill the coffers of the company, as the SMS / voicemail messages are charged! Upon asking the people I have tried to contact, they always inform me that their line was not busy!