Unsolicited calls, Junk SMSes
May 11th, 2005 at 10:15am
You are concentrating on on your work, and suddenly your cell phone rings. You take the call, only to hear a pre-recorded message being played in Kannada!. Dhud. Its real painful.
I am not sure from where these folks get our mobile numbers from! Sometimes, when I get such calls, I ask them from where did they get my number. And most of the time, the response i get is, “From our database, Sir” ! Wow.. What an answer !!… Excuse me… “Who put the data in the database ?“……… “We don’t know Sir“…….
I get calls from almost all companies, mostly financial in nature. HDFC, ICICI, Citibank (the most painful – stay away from this group!), SBI, Credit card, Club membership, holiday packages etc. You name it! One should be very assertive while speaking to these people. My Standard response to these “Sorry. I am not interested. Thanks“. Hangup. Done in 10 Sec. But sometimes, its fun. One of the funny conversations that i had:
Sales Guy over Phone : “Am i talking to Mr. Shyam (some guy xyx)”
Me : “There is no one called shyam here.”
Sales guy : “May I know whom am i talking to?”
Me : “This is Arjun, Who am i talking to ?”
Sales guy : “Sir, which company do you work for?”
Me : “xyz …………………….”
Sales guy : “Sir, i am calling from SBI cards, Bangalore. Do you have a SBI Card?”
……………………………….now starts the fun…………………………….
Me : “No”
Sales guy : “Why don’t you take a SBI card, Sir ”
Me : “Hmm……….. I already have other cards “ ………. bla bla bla
Sales guy : “Its free…….” …………. more bullshit…
Me : “But I am in mangalore…………” ___Dhud! for the sales guy!.
Me : “Can you come down to Mangalore and explain me the details ?”.
Sales guy : “Sir, Are you coming to Bangalore in the near future?”
Me : “No. I wont”
Sales guy : “thank you sir”.
—hang up—————-lol———–
Poor fellow. Anyway, sometimes its fun/time-pass talking to these people :D lol
Even if its a wrong number, these people try to get some business!
The next category of nuisance is the Junk SMS, and in my case, Airtel is the king in this! We have totally two airtel mobile connections and a BSNL mobile connection in our family.
BSNL is virtually SPAM free. The BSNL folks are just too lazy to send junk SMS i guess :). Good for us! But Airtel is a pain. They constantly spam your mobile inbox with JUNK SMSes, ranging from contest to astrology to dialtones to music to pizza to jackpot to what not! Its very annoying.
I just couldn’t tolerate if further, called up their customer care, and logged a complaint recently. After that, the amount of Spam SMS is come down. But will have to wait and watch.
This one was the worst ever :
I have a Airtel Land line at home for my broadband access. Now, during one of the service calls, i had given my BSNL mobile number to them so that they could update me about the status of my service request. And guess what?., After some days, I started to get Junk SMSes from Airtel on my BSNL cell!! So, be careful! Again, in this case, I have raised a complaint. As of now, they have stopped the SMSes, but will have to wait for sometime to be really true. We never know. In future, they might again pick it up form the database and use it for their next campaign!
Entry Filed under: Life
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On 26th June 2006 at 13.39 hour, A call center lady called me from 91403984523 and said as she is calling from icici bankd and offering credit card. I said I am in chennai and asked who gave my phone number. She told me that her Supervisr collected from ICICI Bank. I asked her how can the bank can give my personal details to you? I requested her to give the name of her incharge and his/her phone number. Immediately she disconnected the line. Any one who get call from this phone number and beware of it. I am not sure they are really from icici or collecting details of individual for some thing.
Comment by Azad — June 26, 2006 #
Yes, the Airtel promotional calls are a real pain. I have a very young baby at home, and it’s incredibly annoying to have to rush to the phone only to hear a recorded message. I called them and logged a complaint (in Bangalore the number is 41112345) and they have said that they will not call again. But isn’t this illegal? If Airtel is doing it today, I’m sure everyone else will too, including BSNL, so isn’t there some legal line they’re crossing?
Comment by Sreevidya — July 21, 2006 #
That was a great one on the telecallers – I actually go out of my way and ask them if they are called “call girls!”. I know it sounds terrible but at times it become s bit too much. I think the best attitude to take them on is just tell them their bank has declared you a defaulter and trust me you wont get calls from that centre at least.
You experience with ICICI is very much what all of us think of them. I think Mr. Kamath should take a little more interest and not leave all the power in the hands of the two B***h! who run the Organization.
Comment by Ananth Shenoy — November 26, 2006 #
Hi ,
I was using Airtel Postpaid connection in KTK last year . What was happening that anytime ( at 9 am or at 7pm) i was called up from airtel and when i pickup the phone , a tape stats playing about Airtel schemes and all that .
Whei called customer care they told me that they will log a complaint and will stop this , but after several calls no compalint was logged and nothing happened .
I was working in shifts and was so frustrated that i Dropped that Airtel connection and touched my ears not to go for Airtel connection ! ! ! !
hmmm
Comment by Pradeep — August 15, 2007 #
Grouse against Airtel – I have been a user of the Airtel services from the day they launched in 1996. I have one of the first numbers and considered to be elite. Since then I have four mobiles – one for my wife and one each for my two sons and one prepaid for my mother. I also have two Airtel broadbands and two landlines.
About 15/20 days ago I found that I could not get through their customer care at all from my number which was the primary one. Each time I called 121 – everything would be hunky dory till it was time for an executive to comeon line and bang it would go into engaged mode. Complaigning made no diference as there was not one executive who would understand my problem. That is why I began loosing my cool and gave a blasting that even I got scared that I could blast anyone like this!! Anyway- I began getting smss’ informing me that my reference number was ******** and apoligised for the inconvenience. This began to become a daily feature and I kept getting a new reference number and this time I really lost my cool for which I am famous and let them have it. I started with the customer care executives asking them what customer care meant, then did they learn english or just picked it up along the way and if they did learn it, I bet them it was from a bare government school in Chandni Chowk! The sms business carried on and I began replying to them with just two words – fuck off. I then told them Ithe number of sets I held and the number the family held and how they were going to get it thrown at their head office in the presence of their MD, whose office I also called and informed them of what I intended to do.
Well to cut the story short my problem was finally resolved today but I must give you a few funnies : “A customer is one who is a buyer” and” care is when one services the buyer”.
I then asked them if they actually did care for their customers and they all said yes. That was great but the other department as they called it was responsible for the fiasco and they would revert – which they never did. Finally I received a call from a guy who spoke “shudh” hindi of which I could not understand a fuck. All I could make out was that my settings had beeb rectified and I would not have any problems. Then I called up customer care again and told them about the phone call and that it had not yet been resolve and I (it always happens with me) got a complete moron to take care of me or rather service me. He was so bad that he in fact asked me why did I need to call customer care!!!
Things as I said finally got settled when I asked the main office if their execs. were really educated or just picked up from the streets of old Delhi and their managers from the cheap broke companies. That really hurt and then well – you know.
Unless you give them hell – your work will never be done. I have learnt that.
Comment by ANANTH SHENOY — August 17, 2007 #