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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Attn : Mr. Anil Ambani

Exactly a week ago, I came across an ad somewhere- The Happy 2006 offer from Reliance. It promised customers Free Talk time worth Rs. 2006 (Valid for 2 months) + 2006 SMSes free. My old cell was already in its last stage and I succumbed to the temptation and went in for this offer, despite well-intentioned warnings from friends.

Everything was OK till the evening of 17th February. I tried to download a Ring tone and gave up because it got stuck midway. I cancelled the download cos I had to make a call. Later that night my balance was Rs. 1990. The next day I went out of town for a picnic. I left my ‘new’ cell at home. In the evening I tried to call up my mother, and was shocked to learn that my balance had come down to 66 Paise. Innumerable calls to Reliance Customer Service didn’t yield any results. They were uncooperative and most of the time sounded like ill-programmed robots, rattling off their Quality Policy. Earlier on, they were not able to get the details, as their system was either hung (hanged- to quote Reliance Customer Service) or getting upgraded. When I asked them to escalate the issue, I was told that the superiors had left for an emergency meeting. A few more calls later, I was told that the amount was deducted because I had been downloading Ring tones. I was then promised that the matter would be ‘escalated’ and the issue would be resolved in a few hours incase the error had occurred on their side. I visited the Reliance Infocomm website and dashed off a few mails to the Chairman, and yet the issue hasn’t been resolved.

At present the matter has been referred to the Technical Team, who has not been able to figure out that one cannot, even if one wanted to, download 284 rickshaw errr.. ring tones overnight. Either something is wrong with the handset- LG6230, or there is a problem with their software.This should go down as the most expensive ring tone in history, (and one that never got downloaded at all) I’m sure I could have watched Bryan Adams perform live for the same amount.

I haven’t been able to make any outgoing calls or send a single SMS from my cell since 18th February, and it’s driving me crazy.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Suggest a suitable title for this one...

You are late. You finally manage to hail an auto rickshaw. You contain your irritation while he misses the right-turn and lets the whole world drive past his vehicle. You urge him to drive faster and guide him through short cuts. At last you reach your destination. Fare despair! You shell out a 50-rupee note. He grins and declares that he has no change. You shake off the irresistible urge to wring his neck till he turns blue but time is running out on you. So you dig into your purse/ wallet looking for the exact amount. (You could give any excavating archaeologist a complex) You finally find a tenner. All you need now is some loose change. You look for a five-rupee coin to expedite the process. No such luck! You manage to scrounge up some 50- paise, one- rupee/ 2- rupee coins and if you are really running out on your luck and time, some 25-paise coins. You add up the coins to the required sum, you still fall short of a rupee. Exasperated, you dig inside your coin purse and pockets wasting precious moments in the process, to find that elusive rupee…Your fingers finally strike gold…err…metal. You heave a sigh of ephemeral relief. The metal that you managed unearth is a five-rupee coin! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!
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