How to take on ISPs when they fail to provide acceptable services

TATA Indicom (VSNL), Sify, Airtel, BSNL, MTNL, Reliance… all have a long way to go in providing good services to the consumer in India. All need to be made accountable for what and how they do things – and that, my friends, will only happen if you are INFORMED, AWARE and WILLING to induce, even force that change.

Learn from some precedence cases involving the following, see:

Mr. Ankur Raheja: http://www.sifycase.org

Mr. Ajoy Eric Lal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFpWy0ZoC2M (Part I of the show, so read on!)

Other than that, you must watch the currently unfolding story on CNN-IBN. It’ll give you ideas on how to deal with your fraudulent ISP. You know, just as we know, that we are being ripped off as customers on a daily basis:

a.) No appropriate credits for downtimes.

b.) No credits/ reimbursements for drops in services levels.

c.) We get slower speeds than we actually pay for.

d.) We suffer fluctuating bandwidth (poor quality bandwidth).

e.) Adding insult to injury, we even pay for the calls to lodge our complaints.

Such are the absurdities in the life of an average Indian consumer!!

Good that a mass medium like CNN-IBN has taken this issue on. A show called “All about the money” is being aired [again] this next Saturday, 13.10.2007 at 18:30 hrs. (6:30 PM). You will get to see the “Part II” of the unfolding story. This is about my personal fiasco with my ISP (VSNL/ TATA-indicom) that concerns thousands and many more, all over India. Again, “Part I” is on YouTube already, link above!

In the meanwhile please go and write your problems/ issues to CNN-IBN at the following link (enter all of it there):

http://features.ibnlive.com/show/all-about-money.html

Many customers who have volume-based and/ or time-based accounts are very often dumbfounded by additions to their bills, even when they were not on the net (most cases, even away from home!). As I hear, this is like the mobile phone companies who charge their customers for calls that they never ever made. The latter know exactly which numbers you dial often and just add a few more calls at varying times. With the hundreds of calls one makes, who is ever to know, unless you do some detailed sleuth work [together with a customer who is a Notary] and contact the media. The issues with all of them are manifold and rather frustrating… all the more reason not to give up and move to another provider. It might just be – as the saying goes: “From the frying pan into the fire!”

Here are the painstaking 10 steps:

1. Document all happenings very carefully (situation, calls, time & money spent).

2. Write to the “Nodal Officers”, see website: http://www.trai.gov.in

3. Write to senior management at your ISP via courier (they ignore eMails). Keep all copies and receipts.

4. Parallel to the steps 2 & 3, do complain to TRAI. Again send letters via courier only.

5. Involve registered consumer groups/ organizations like http://www.consumer-voice.org.

6. When and if you do write eMails, always inform the press (make friends with them), copy/ blind-copy others.

7. Write your stories/ experiences on forums (like these) or http://www.broadbandforum.in and on blogs.

8. Be critical as you move along. In India we are not critical enough and that gives the ISPs the freedom to do what they want.

9. Escalate, escalate… keep the ISP and TRAI busy (unfortunately yourself too).

10. Take the ISP (and TRAI) to consumer court(s)/ ombudsmen and then publish the outcome of the case.

Guys, in this country nothing comes easy. Had Gandhi-ji not marched with his dandi for thousands of miles, we’d still be part of the British Empire… sometimes I think, we might even have been better off.