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Indian corporate giants Tata have a presence in the telecom sector in the domestic market and they are now urging the telecom industry to give a commitment to the Government that it would complete 100 per cent address verification of the subscriber base.

This comes after the recent Mumbai bomb blast. Tata Teleservices delivered a letter to various telecom bodies and companies saying: “Industry has no choice except to commit to the Government that it will do everything necessary to complete 100 per cent address verification for the subscriber base, pre-paid and postpaid.”

However, this is not a view shared by other telecom players in the country who say that it would be way too expensive and complicated to achieve. Tata Group had in the past asked the telecom operators in the country to come out with a feasible solution to iron out differences on subscriber identification.

No matter how many rules the Indian government has setup for the telecom players; it has been relatively easier for the consumer in the Indian market to get a mobile connection. They just need some documents that can easily be forged and few companies take the pain to manually verify the addresses of the subscribers.

Please ensure your billing things with Tata,  Their sales person confirms you that complaints will be resolved with in 2-3 hours but once you put up complaints they say clearly that it will be done by next 24 hours and till morning nothing can be done. What I feel they are working on Sify architecture of Cable operator and other things in-between. So be ready for disconnections.  I got installed a connection and it start from day 1  1) their people came with cable, and good point is they were not having Drill machine, Hammer, Screw Driver, and good part is they were telling me that I have to arrange for the these things if I need connection.  I must say thanks to god, they have not asked me for pole or wire to put on :)  2) After installation -- with 2-3 breakdowns with in one month, they sent me a bill where they charged rental in advance. When I checked with customer care that this is post paid connection, they said its a company policy, and you have to pay it in advance rental. and more over if you won’t pay it in advance then you connection will be disconnected with in 3 days.  3) I got a call from their Hyderabad outbound call center, but problem is still same, he was telling me that you have signed in terms and condition and clause number is 20 -- some thing, but when I checked there were only 15 clauses -- again a wrong information.  If any one need names I can provide them here.  4) Its been more than 15 days when I lodged a complain where they have to show me document where I signed for advance rental, I got just one email that complain t is closed but not reply or contact.  4) Now I have applied for disconnection not sure how long they will take to refund money -- I hope around 1 year  So please be alert with them. a wrong billing , and very bad customer service. 

Thanks

I had booked an Internet connection from Tata Indicom on 17-feb-06 through their agent Mr Amit Kumar (9191219013)  , and he promised me that it would be installed within 1week maximum, and he took a cheque of Rs441 from me as advance, which got cleared on 21-feb.  I waited for a week when no one from Tata indicom turned up, i tried calling Mr Amit Kumar on his cell , however I was in for another surprise, as he didnt pick up the phone from my number, and first he told me that he was busy in a meeting and would call back in 10min, however he didnt, and when i tried calling him up, he would simply disconnect it or switch off his cellphone, i tried calling him atleast 250-300 times in 3days but he didnt answer the phone , then i tried calling his supervisor,and he told me that Tata indicom is yet to set up their server in my area !!and it will take 2-3days more, however i waited for another week and no one from tata indicom bothered to inform me of the status of my connection.  I even sent them a email and called their customer care but i was told that they dont have any information about it.More then 3weeks have passed and i am still waiting to hear from them, and I am not the only on, they took advance from over 50-60 houses in my area and never turned up again.The customers are just being taken for a ride and they have no regards for our money,feelings.  I booked a complaint on their no. 5500121 and waited 3days for a response but no one replied back,Strangely i was told by the customer care that though my connection was booked on 17th Feb , Tata Indicom did a feasibility study only after getting my money and found out that my area was fit for cabelling.  when i called Mr Amith on March 10 again ,after hours of calling, he finally picked up the phone and told me not to call him up again and started abusing me, and warned me of dire consequenses if i ever called him again.  So this is how TATA INDICOM DUPES CONSUMERS.They are doing great disservice to the customers.  I would like to raise this issue through your forum, and i sincerly hope that Tata Indicom wakes up and does shows some regard for consumers feelings.As a student this episode has resulted in not only wastage of my precious time, studies, and also money and caused a lot of frustration. 

UPDATE : Finally the internet connection was installed on 27-march after so much delay and I was told by the person who installed it , that ’’ Sir It works fine with most websites , however it has a problem with Yahoo mail and some other websites’’ , and it turned out that yahoo, hdfc,icici,rediffmail, would take 4-5mins to open up, and calling the customer support was of no help as all they did was tell me that the internet was working fine and it was a problem with the websites !!!!, suddenly on 4-april the internet stoppped working , i called 55500121 and was surprised to find that they had a wait time of over 12min, wasted over 15 min waiting for someone to answer my phone, and when someone picked up they didnt know what to do, and said theyll arrange for someone to visit my home and get it checked , however i waited 4 days and noone turned up, on 8april i called up again and was SHOCKED TO find what i was told by TATA indicom, i was told that I had USED all my 20Hrs in just 3-4days , whereas the truth was that I had not used it for more then 5-6 hrs, when i tried to explain that , the customer service was not only rude but of NO HELP AT ALL.

The only funny part is that the Customer Care Reps Speake in PURE HINDI !!!!! which is quite hard to understand at times. 

So Friends BEWARE OF TATA INDICOM and their Dubious Sales Reps as they are always trying to ROB you of Your Hardearned money.

Tata Indicom isn’t really serious about its business. I live in a costly area in a metropolitan city. My application for a net connection was rejected twice!!! They said they are unable to provide the connection. Period. No reasons or alternatives. ’If we are able to provide a connection in the future, we’ll inform you’. This attitude beats me!! They spend a lot on their campaigns. Wonder where they get the money from!!!To apply for a connection, there are too many formalities. Like Address proof.... now why do they need an address proof??? They anyway have to come and see the house before they give the connection. And they’ll have a security deposit in case we flee!!!

I wish I could recommend this product to people out there. But Indicom never gave me a chance!!!

I have been a subscriber of Tata Indicom’s (TI) broadband service for more than a year.Browsing on TI’s connection means bracing for a string of disconnections and lousy customer service. It is a constant test of your patience. TI’s service has the following highlights:False Promises:  TI promised me a 512 Kbps connection, but I never get speeds above 450 kbps (90%).   Frequent Disconnections:  They installed a dedicated cables to my site, and this is the biggest drawback. The cable is flimsy and always breaks. Getting a disconnection repaired is a major headache requiring many phone calls. And disconnection is quite frequent - from many times in a day to atleast once a day. There has not been a single day so far when I could browse without the line dropping.    Customer Service (or Lack thereof)  Previously, reporting a problem used to be a straight affair. You called up the local office and tell them. They knew who you are and where you are, so the call took less than 45 sec.  But all that changed, once some penny pinching financial executive in the company discovered the synergy between the call centers Tata has and the customer service requirements of all Tata businesses. So now, you call up someone in the call center (usual waiting time 1 min, during which you have to put up with their TV ad jingle, or sometimes a message that the ’’call is being recorded for training purposes’’), then a service representative answers, you have to provide all identification like username, they’ll take about a minute to verify the address and the person in whose name the connection is registered. Then you describe the problem, and again wait as they give you troubleshooting instructions as if you are a first time caller, after you tell them that all those have been tried out, they confirm your phone number and give you a complaint registration number. The entire exercise takes about 5 mins atleast, and if you try to speed up the call by telling all information before it is asked, you risk confusing the person at the other end and end up with an even longer call. And recently, they rub it in even further by asking you if you have heard about their dial up services.  I had put down all these issues in an email to their customer service department, and did not even get an acknowledgement.    Cutting Corners  Not happy with the cost cutting with the call center routine, one fine day, two months back, I received a sweet note (along with the bill) from the the head of Customer service stating that hard copy of the bills will no longer be sent, instead emails will be sent to the Tata Indicom provided email address. Apparently, they were of the belief that receiving a hard copy of the bill at their home is somehow inconvenient to the customer. The sweet note was laced with similar sarcastic observations.  Now, it would be understandable if such a letter came from the penny pincher in the finance department, but, really, is the head of customer service to be thinking about ways to cut costs? Isn’t she (yes, it’s a she) in the wrong department? And doesn’t that explain the pathetic customer service?  So who changes email address everytime the ISP is changed? And anyone who has been to the Tata email portal will tell you that it is way too flash enriched and broadband optimised. An average page has alteast two flash ads, and there is no way you can turn off their loading. The interface has flash buttons et al. And yes, Tata benefits everytime you check email at their portal since the meter is ticking. And the average email check will cost you about 500 KB in data transfer! No doubt they want to send bills to their email address only!No one would expect this sort of street smart behaviour from a TATA organisation - Reliance, ICICI etc maybe, but never a TATA. But I guess things have changed. 

So why am I still a customer? Redundancy, my friend. It is the backup line, that never fails to fail.

Well, we get to hear about horror stories; ISP’s routinely trying to palm of customers for slow speeds or capping on the usage. This one is in the league of it’s own. And it pains even more when it comes from the house of Tata’s. 

Well, to cut a long story short, this person works with a respectable computer company. He wanted to have a connection of his own to work. Since he lives in a place where there is no other service provider, he chose to trust his money in Tata’s brand name. However, despite repeated calls and efforts, he couldn’t trace the “executive” for his connection.

In his words and I recount it here. Emphasis is mine.  I know that I can claim for compensation. But you know the situation in our country. Even if I do file a claim it’ll only keep on dragging until God knows when. And that’ll be more frustrating than this. I am doing my very best to disuade people from opting for Tata. In fact,there were a few people asking me about this issue after they saw my post on your BB blog. And its only that I need net at my place urgently and there are no other providers that I am going for them.  So, service providers take advantage of monopoly. Well, is there any way to rap their knucles or flog them?  In another mail, this harassed customer related his tale as such:  After getting another assurance from their Territory Sales Manager, I waited for three days. But as in the past it turned out that these people are fast with assurances than their work. I called this guy up on Sunday morning and I was told that I’ll get a call from him in 5 mts with an update. After two hours of waiting I decided to call this fellow up and but to no avail. It seems that they have a policy of not responding to the customers calls, if they don’t have anything to say.  After being fed up with all this, I went to the cable operator who’s supposed to do the installation and told him that these people are putting all the blame on you. Hearing this, he also got agitated and requested me to talk to the Tata Indicom fellows in front of him. We tried but even his call wasn’t taken. Finally he told me that whatever these people had been telling me were all lies. He was told about my connection 10 days ago but he wasn’t able to provide me with one because the DSL port through which the connections are provided, were not sufficient enough to complete the requests of the 5-6 pending connections which he had with him. He told me that these guys had asked him to market for them,inspite of knowing the fact that they might not be able to keep their word or time limit to the customers.  I thank you readers for the time and patience you put in to spend here. I chose to do this post because we need a public platform to highlight the mess behind the hoopla. Why are theseservice providers trying to take us for granted?  In the same vein, I am pissed off from BSNL, but have to stick on to them because I really don’t have a choice.  Don’t miss the sub text. Even though this person can be compensated in the court of law, no one ventures to step in for legal remedies. Consumer courts cases can drag on for months to years even though it is legally mandated that the cases need be disposed off in a particular time frame. In any case, what do these companies have to loose? 

A customer? There is enough captive base for them.