Vodafone Outgoing Facility Barred Even After Bill Payment

I am Vodafone India subscriber from Maharashtra Circle and my Vodafone number is 98xxxxxx43.

This issue is regarding outgoing calls and SMS service getting barred even though bill payment was already done and inefficiencies of so called "Happy to Help" Customer Care. 

The case history is as under.

Earlier Vodafone used to generate my bill on 19th of every month and my bill payment due date used to be somewhere around 5th of every month. And that was happening since year 2005, when I subscribed for Vodafone post paid. 

Suddenly from September 2011, without any specific request from my end and without intimating me to that effect, Vodafone on its own changed my bill generation date to 9th of every month and my new bill payment due date is 27th of every month. 

Because of this it skipped from my mind that bill payment due date has lapsed. So instead of paying the bill on 27th, I paid that on 29th morning. Since it was paid through My Vodafone website, it got instantly updated in their system and I got the confirmation SMS from them on 29th September 2011 at 10:45 am. 

My phone was active as usual till almost 2:30 pm and then they barred my outgoing call and SMS facilities, despite of the fact that bill payment was already done and it was reflecting in their system. 

To get my services restored, I called their helpline on 111 (that was the only number I was able to dial) at about 03:00 pm and the customer care executive confirmed that bill payment is updated in the system and he took the request for restoring the services. The time promised was a maximum of 2 hours. 

Since my services were not restored, I again called on 111 at 04:00 pm and this time, the customer care executive took the request on high priority basis, again with a maximum resolution time of 2 hours.

My services were still not activated and at about 08:45 pm, I called 111 and lodged a formal complaint with complaint number 1080747564. The maximum resolution time for this complaint is ridiculously 48 hours. 

Now the time is 01:00 pm on 30th September and still my outgoing services are not restored. They don't even understand the importance and severity of the type of complaint. Unable to dial is a type of being handicapped now a days. This is the type of service that Vodafone offers to the customer like me, who have a track record of clean payment history for more than 6 years. They do not value their loyal customers and straight away restrict the outgoing services with a slightest of delay in payment, without considering the past payment history. And certainly, Vodafone is not Happy to Help. 

This according to me is a case of wilful denial of service by the service provider. TRAI should look into this. 

The first thing that I am going to do after my services get restored is to put the porting request. One more reason to port is poor 3G connectivity in Nagpur. More on that in a separate post.

I have previous bad experience with Airtel as well. I have never used any Airtel product in my lifetime, be it a Mobile, DTH or Broadband. Still Airtel first started to send e-bills on my email ID for the numbers which I never belonged. Then they started sending me reminders for non-payment of bill amount. Then they went to the extent of sending me legal notices on my email ID for recovery. I had informed Airtel Customer Care in the beginning itself that those numbers were not mine and had asked them to correct the email ID in their system. They haven't done anything and I am still getting mails from them. 

Now with these bad experiences with Vodafone and Airtel, only obvious choice remains for me is Idea Cellular. So any Idea Sales guys reading this post, please get in touch with me using the "Contact Us" form above. I am ready to port. 


Update at 10:15 am on 1st October: Still my services are not restored and nobody from Vodafone has yet even got in touch with me. It has been 2 days since my mobile is barred from outgoing calls and SMS. 


Update at 02:00 pm on 1st October: Finally my services got restored after 48 hours and first thing I did was that I gave the portability request.