Friday, September 03, 2004

The Power of Technology:Protesting the e-way!

The recent change of tariff plans for Pre-Paid users among various serive providers like Hutch, Airtel, Reliance, and BSNL, have made the consumers to think twice which offer to go far. The consumer has become the king again.

But there is a slight catch behind all this and especially Hutchinson India one of leading service provider was deducting users currencies without the consent of the subscribers. The deductions too where not the same across all the subscribers, it was varying from Rs50-Rs4. Whatever was being done was not being done in the right manner. One of my friend Kallim found out that they had deducted Rs50 from his currency. So he spoke to the Customer care and Mr Guru Prasad the person with whom my friend spoke replied back saying that this is being done for all as migration charges and nothing can be done about that. So my friend asks him how can any one deduct the currency from my account with out my consent? so he says nothing can be done about that. So my friend replied back saying atleast i tarnish the brand image of Hutch.

So my friend Wrote this wonderful mail and asked everyone to foward to all the people out there. The mail was also being CCed to all the Hutchinson's group mail accounts worldwide for each mail being forwarded.

Here is the content of the mail.
Subject: Hutch is stealing Money. Be Carefull.

Dear All,

How do u feel if bank steels money from your account. Well, its ridiculous right. Hutch network is doing something similar. They are steeling money from the pre paid cards and when asked they are telling its migration. Lets take this and say more about this.

1. if they are changing the tariff, why must they deduct money, They are doing that for there own benefits.
2. If they are charging they are supposed to take an acknowledgement from the subscriber.
3. There network is one of worst as of now.
4. I had to wait for one hour to get connected to the customer care. [You judge the kind of service the provide].

You all may have the though of changing the subscriber, the worst thing is you will have to change your number and your contact will have trouble contacting you. I guess you all realize the importance of your number.

I spoke to the customer care team lead Guru Prasad (Bangalore Hutch care cutomer care), who says its cut now and nothing can be done about that. Dear friends I guess we can forward this to all our friends and stop people from subscribing to Hutch in India.

Its not the amount which matters, it's the business ethics they carry.

Lets make a difference. Lets bring down the proud service provider.

You can reach me on +91 9886288785.

This mail is marked to almost all hutch care centers in the CC column, Forward this mail with CC fields as is, let them know what we can do.

Cheers and Regards,
Kalimulla Shariff,
Sr Software Engineer.
kalimulla.shariff@readiminds.com

So finally i guess the mail made an impact on the Hutch guys and called up kallim to address his grievances. And finally they aggreed and reimbursed the money which was deducted from his account.

Hutch,India proved that they care for their millions of subscribers and reimbursed their money.
Kallim has got a huge response from many people.

This is the power of both technology and people, imagine without internet,e-mail..., we couldn't have made such an impact in short a short duration and achieved our e-protest successfully. So make use of technology in a right way.

Here are few extracts from some of the Kallim's forwards and some responses....

Forwards:

1)"I was so pissed off that HUTCH stole money from me that I wanted to do something like this. But someone already did. Just spread the message. Let them know that the customer is NOT an idiot! Never ask your friends to go for HUTCH, ever!

Regards,
Bharath,
Infosys Technologies Ltd"

2)"Hi All,
Please fwd this mail to all the pple tat you know. Lets show these HUTCH pple that they should not mess with our hard earned money.They steal our money and spend it on a DOG !!!
Regards,
Parth Verma,
Infosys Technologies Ltd"

Response:

1)"Dear Kalimulla Shariff
I am marking a copy of this mail to TRAI. and I am giving your reference and telephone number so that TRAI can if required consult you to ascertain the facts of the case so that we customers are not taken for a ride in future!!
Regards
Jayashankar P G ,
ManagerIFCI Ltd,
Chennai Regional Office."

Hope u too will make use of the technology in a right way. Technology has also given me this oppurtunity to express my thoughts, through Blogging.


1 comment:

Rags said...

hey dude!,
Rememer the hate mails we sent out when sonia was about to become our PM? that worked too...
i c u'v been blogging a lot.... ur blog looks big nad u r getting better @ it. it reminds me i'v'nt blogged 4 ages