Am at home, sick with what appears to be a flu that I have been successfully keeping down for the past couple of days with lots of paracetamol. My sinuses are in revolt, and the left side of my head feels dead.
Today’s rant is about cellphone companies who are hell bent on alienating their customers with irritating “features” to their service.
For more than a year now, Airtel has been spamming me with useless information on my cell phone. It started innocently – maybe a message once a month talking about some new facet to their service. I could live with that.
But this has been increasingly steadily. These days, 2-3 spams from Airtel are the norm, but sometimes they outdo themselves.
Like the other day I was in a meeting, with bunches of people around, when suddenly almost *every* cellphone in the room beeped. Airtel spam. About what? About the fact that they now have a roaming arrangement with some country (I think it was Uzbekistan or something like that)!
That was *so* embarrassing for *everyone*.
Then they started sending these “informational” messages about bills having been issued, and what the amount was.
But the one I got today, while I was desperately trying to get some sleep, took the cake:
“This is to inform you that your bill is being processed and will become available on the 30th of this month”.
That was IT! I went postal.
I picked up the phone and called Airtel service (dial 800), and screamed. The poor sucker at the other end quickly put me onto his manager, who couldn’t take it either, and passed me up to an even higher authority.
I told that lady that in any country in the world, I could request that such useless and irritating information should not be sent to me, and the service provider would comply.
She innocently said “These messages are automated and…”
I didn’t let her finish, and screamed at her loud enough for Shubha to come running to see if I was OK.
Finally the Airtel person admitted that Airtel could indeed turn off such messages for my number, and that it would be done immediately.
Whether or not it will actually be done will be seen over the next few days, but people – if your mobile phone service provider is being an idiot like Airtel has been so far, call up the help desk and *HOWL*. You have a right not to receive such junk.
Do it *now*.