I am an Airtel customer, using their unlimited pack of Rs. 448 for 82 days. It comes with benefits like unlimited local and STD calls to any number in India, and 1.4GB per day data for the validity period. Now everything was going fine, and I was using the service satisfactorily.
Then one fine day my Water Purifier needed filter change. For that I needed to contact the customer care of Pureit. It has the number starting with 1860. Now when I dialed the number I got a recorded message that I do not have the balance in account to complete the call. I was SURPRISED!!! I have a unlimited validaty plan with local and STD calls from Airtel and it is saying that I do not have the balance.
I dialed again and again and it played the same message everytime.
I was fumed.. I called the Airtel customer care. They told me that the number starting with 1860 are not included in my plan. When I asked for the reason they just mentioned that these are commercial numbers and to make call to these numbers I need to recharge with appropriate balance. It includes all plans including the one providing unlimited local and STD calls to anywhere in India.
I was like what the hell. Airtel is cheating me. Then I contacted the online support through email and on twitter. Everywhere I got the same response. The twitter handle of Airtel presence mentioned that these numbers are purchased by businesses, which route the call to their call centers. And for this I need to pay as per local call charges in my plan. When I mentioned that my plan already includes all local calls, they just said that Airtel does not allow free calls to these numbers. Here is the screen shot of the dicussion -
Is anyone of you also faced these issues? Please let me know and contact your service provider to stop such practices. Do not make fool of us.
