Indicom: The Saga Ends

Who will pay you Rs 450 as interest amount on a principal of Rs 500 in a period of six months? The answer is not Grameen Bank or any charity fund, it's Tata-Indicom. Yes guys that's true, surpassing the benevolence of any financial institute till date, Tata-Indicom, a telecom biggie in India, has done this favor to me. I have not calculated the interest rate for this case but that's definitely way above the market standards; especially when the global economy is in under slowdown.

Well, that's the one side of the story, unfortunately, the other side of the story is not that bright. It started last year, Oct '07, when two payment transactions were made against my Tata-Indicom PC wireless data card account - one was from the Electronic Clearance System (ECS) and the other one which I made online, on the due date, to avoid late payment fee. Next month, I had to close down my connection which resulted in a negative balance in favor of me. The connection was disconnected without any issue but the balance was not met. I called up their Customer-Care (CC) and the guy over the phone told me that it is under progress and I will get my money ASAP ( as per the norms, account is balanced within 60 days of closure). I don't know why, I was having an ominous feeling somewhere deep in my heart. I believe, that's because of the impression which Indicom's CC has made during my stint as their customer in last 18 months. To be very precise and honest, my experience with Indicom's CC had been very unsatisfactory, thanks to many horrible sessions which I had to go through. There was no dearth of issues, whether it's billing or connection related and on top of that, the incompetent CC department was never able to solve any issue quickly; and yes how can I forget that irritating piece of promotional audio which would loop through non-stop while you hold on the line to reach your CC exec or the supervisor, the messiah. The CC exec would generally ask for your mobile number, after many failed attempts, and tell you that you will be called up within eight hours and provided with an update on the issue; but rest assured, you will never get any call back. That's their signature for care and that's their USP, Unique Screwing Point.

Coming back to my balance amount, the amount was not a big one but still that's my money, in spite of being sceptical about the Indicom's processes, I somehow assured myself that my money will come back soon, extending my expectation by a month more than their proclaimed 60 days. As expected, time zapped like anything and 60 days were over and I didn't even got a call from my ex-vendor. This had no element of surprise but scare, I was petrified to call up the CC number and hold the line for minutes listening to the same promotional audio, talking to few more not-so-competent CC execs and then again getting through that vicious cycle of call back and no follow-up. Later after few calls with the CC I assured myself that my scare was not justified, as this was just the tip of an ice-berg, just a beginning and I should be capable of handling more of these; I must acclimatise accordingly. Soon, I was following up this issue on a weekly basis and every time the CC exec would tell me that they are working on this issue and the work is in progress, and in every call he/she used to assure me that by next week I shall be receiving my cheque at my doorstep. This continued for months, the issue stated in the month of November and was still lingering till April of next year, isn't that ridiculous. I used to wonder, during this period, Indicom must have calculated its quarterly results twice and hopefully they were accounting my money, a paltry sum, in the liability column of their balance sheet. I felt, all this mess was, probably, just because of some process that's in a dead-loop or some financial guy who was working dead-slow to pass my bill. One day, during my weekly check-up one of the CC exec appalled me, he told me that the cheque was sent to me last week and it got returned from my side, I asked about the courier service provider name, its number and reason for return; he was having answers to none of them, moreover, I also checked my office despatch section( I had given my office address for all communications) and found nothing such, at all; I don't know why this story sounded ominous to me. Was that CC exec trying to sell his malign half-baked story? Was he testing my limits? I didn't had answers to any of these questions but I did had a rancorous feeling. It was more than five months of dilly-dallying and now I was being served with ignominious and foolish acts. Now the idea of suing Tata-Indicom was being seriously mooted, I really meant that, so in this regard I was trying to get some information. One day, I came across this website - www.consumercourt.netfirms.com ( folks please take your time and visit this website, might come handy) and made my mind to go through the legal proceedings; but due to some reasons I procrastinated this step for few days more. But in the meantime, I was calling CC not to reach the execs but supervisors now, almost on all alternate days, probably I wanted to avoid the legal path for few more days, to give a final try to pursue them to get this thing through. During this whole process I learnt that shouting and cursing them is definitely not the way to pursue, in these situations, what works better is mild insults; insult not to them but to the process which they follow, to the unjust thing which was happening due to not-so-responsible acts of them. And guess what, it started showing some positive results, one of the supervisor even kept her promise to call back, that was wonderful, positive and motivating. This persuasion went for few more days and finally on one auspicious day I was enthralled to get a cheque from Indicom. Finally the saga ended.

The whole chapter reminds me of the popular animated series of Dragonballz. It had myriad episodes in which the protagonist, Goku, fights one the antagonist, Freeza, it took around 20 episodes for Goku to kill Freeza, with many twists and turns and Ekta Kapoor's serial like escalating drama. But finally the truth prevails and perseverance pays off. Similarly, in this case, truth and perseverance worked out for me and my Rs 500 was back to me with a good interest.