| Name of Complainant | |
| Date of Complaint | January 24, 2019 |
| Name(s) of companies complained against | Vodafone |
| Category of complaint | Utilities |
| Permanent link of complaint | Right click to copy link |
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I have recharged my Vodafone number for Rs399 on 14th Jan 2019 at 7:51 AM. As per the plan description, the call charges and 8400 SMSes is free for 84 days. No where it was written that if I contact Vodafone customer care (9830098300), my balance will be deducted irrespective of the activation of this plan.
Soon after the new plan activation, I started getting SMSes after each call that my call limit has expired. I was in panic and I called the customer care number 9830098300 and reported that issue but the lady picked the call assuring that as it doesn’t affect any of my service and therefore I can ignore that. I said OK. The call was not more than a minute as I can remember. However, while calling to the customer care a auto generated message was saying that I will be charged 50 paisa if the call exceeds beyond 3 minutes. My actual problem stars just after the call. I cannot send any message to anybody. Then again I decided to call to the custome care as I didn’t have any other choice whithout knowing that there is a trap implemented by Vodafone so nicely just to loot ordinary customers like me!
My vodafone account balance was showing -50paisa. I called to the customer care number 9830098300 again and the lady picked, was very rude in nature. I asked for the reason when and why my balance got deducted. First of all, she kept me waiting for a while saying that due to some technical reason, its taking time to fetch my details. After that she told me that as I called to the customer care, it charged me 50 paise! But I again asked her to check if I exceeded 3 minutes while discussing. She repeatedly refused to furnish that details and asked me to download Vodafone app to check that kind of information and to recharge with sufficient balance so that the bar is withdrawn. Then I asked her to raise a complaint against that deduction but she refused to raise that too. Then I asked her to connect me to her lead as I was not satisfied of her illogical explanation. Believe me or not, she kept me wating for 32 minutes in the call and I finally had to disconnect the call as to catch my business. Now I am getting Rs -2.00 in my account balance after that.
I wrote a complaint to Vodafone asking for the information on when and what circumstance my initial 50 paise was deducted and my account went negative but the unprofessional Vodafone team cannot produce proper justification. Even today I got a reply as stated below –
‘Further, request you to revert to us with the documented screenshot where you have found that the call charges to the customer care is free under the recharge benefit of Rs.399/- so that we may verify the concern.’ I replied saying that why you have not stated along with the plan that my account balance would be deducted if I dare to call the Vodafone customer care number for any cause. And still awaiting for a reply.
It seems to be very ridiculous to me that even if I have an issue I need to pay to address that issue through the customer care. They have nicely designed a trap to loot 130 crores of Indian in this way. Now, if I recharge Rs2.00 just to activate my SMS service, it might be another 100 crores of Indian who might be following the same trap. Now count the money Vodafone receives through the trap.
Despite of my money invested to consume a service, I am not allowed to utilize that service due to some illogical way of the service providers like Vodafone has thought of. I am, hereby, complaining against this fraudulent behavior of Vodafone to cheat the customers. I want the authority to take a strong step against this fraudulent services introduced by Vodafone and compensate as the promised service plan gets hampered.
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