𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞

This is another experience I had couple of years ago. Although in this case I wasn't losing money, but losing my temper.

For my oldies I am still subscribed to a satellite Dish TV service.

Couple of years back I started getting calls from the company 'informing' me of the fantastic services being offered by the company. When I pick up the call, they used to play recorded message about some service. I used to hang up immediately.

Initially it did not bother me much. But I wondered why am I getting calls when I have activated DND service for all except Banking and Finance. But them I realized DND is as useless as United Nations (erstwhile UNO) is, when it comes to resolving inter-country issues. (Israeli Defense minister Moshe Dayan has once said, 'UNO is an umbrella, which is taken away when the rain starts.') Apparently it doesn't apply to those companies where it is registered for a service.

But daily four or five calls were received, time was not a problem for them since it was all programmed activity. I thought may be I can block the number and be done with it. So I did... or so I thought.

Next day I again got a call. On close observation, I realize it is not from the same number, last two digits were different. I blocked that one too. Same day evening I got another call, again last two digits were different. I realized that these rascals have a series of 100 numbers booked for that purpose. How do I block all them was a problem. Fortunately I found a blocker software which allowed me to block a series using wild cards. I blocked the series. There, finished the business... so I thought.

Next day I got a call from a different number. I picked it up assuming some other call. To my astonishment, the same company call. All earlier calls were originating from 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐢 center, this one was from 𝐌𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐢. In couple of days I found the range for these numbers and blocked them.

Couple of days later, I got a call from a private number (not one of those commercial, landline numbers, a mobile number). I was irked to here message from same company about some additional entertainment service being offered. Since this was a private and mobile number, strictly speaking this is a violation of TRAI rule and my privacy. But I wasn't in a mood to fight. So I just blocked that one. In next couple of days another couple of private mobile numbers called and I blocked them.

I was really pissed off when I started getting calls from the same company, this time from 𝐕𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐚. Now I lost my patience. I thought if I block this series, I may start getting calls from Hyderabad or say Gurgaon. I wrote a strongly worded email to the ombudsman and threatened to take it to the consumer court and drop the service to move to OTT platform.

Do they think the customer is their slave? How can they take liberty of calling him/her every now and then and try to sell their stupid services? Don't the customer have their own occupation, work? Such calls cause great disturbance in their schedule. Worst of all, there is no one talking to the customer, so we cannot yell at them to release the frustration caused by such incessant useless calling. I think should have the option to opt out of such useless calls. Shouldn't they provide us with an option in their app and or the website to opt out of these marketing calls?

Fortunately the ombudsman swung into action and promised to remove my number from the calling list... and then I am at peace. Hope it lasts. With the mobile company swinging into action again, I fear the TV companies may be following soon.

- oOo -