Radio Dum Dum: Malayalam Radio on the net!

Radio Dum Dum is the first Malayalam Radio Station on the net. It offers 24 hours entertainment for ‘The Mallus around the world’ as per their own claim. It is hosted and maintained by Digital Eight. It is a 2.50 MB download and is easy to install on Windows platforms. A Mac version would be available soon. Conventional online radios demand you to visit its website and listen to it from there. But Radio Dum Dum is just like your media player. You only need to double click the icon of Radio Dum Dum on your desktop once it is installed, with the Internet connection on. It reduces the bandwidth usage, machine processing and memory resource usage so that it is very fast. It will give you a whole new experience of hearing Malayalam on the Net!

Ready? Then download it from here.

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Newspaper reporting: Mathrubhumi following Manorama?

I was wondering how bad newspaper reporting was getting having seen this piece which came on The Mathrubhumi website. Totally uncalled for, whatever be the reasons.

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Idea Cellular Customer Care: An Idea can change your life; really!

Worst! It cannot get any worse than this!

These are the only words in my vocabulary to explain about the behaviour of a group of people to a layman. It is about the Customer Care (?) section of Idea Cellular Kerala.

All the issues started on the 27th of January this year. I could not listen to an SMS from Idea on the 26th at first. I saw it on the 27th. They gave me a toll-free number as part of 'some' Republic Day offer. As far as I know, a toll-free number means the caller wouldn't be charged if dialled to that number. With this little knowledge, I dialled the number. They gave me two options - I could listen to the President's Republic Day speech or participate in a contest. I listened to the speech at first. Later I switched to the contest. A female voice gave me 5 questions, one after the other with some options for the answers. All I needed was to type in the number for the option which seemed correct to me. I did and got all the 5 answers correct. I was bemused to hear the questions and the options for the answers! There were questions like 'On which day do we celebrate Republic Day?', 'Which country became Republic on 26th January?' etc. Now you know what all were the options!

The female voice congratulated me (for what?!) and the call was disconnected. I checked the balance and saw that I lost Rs 35 for dialling this toll-free number! I rechecked the meaning of toll-free in my Dictionary. It could not give an alternate definition. I checked and was shocked to see that my Dictionary was printed in 2002! God, did THEY change the meaning of this word after 2002?! So, I called up the Idea Customer Care and inquired the meaning of the word. They also gave me the same meaning. Thank God, my Dictionary is up-to-date! So I inquired how I lost Rs 35? The man who attended the call tried to defend his firm (loyal he is!!!) by giving goofy answers. Since he could not convince me how I lost my money, the call went on and on and on. After exchanging questions and sappy answers for about an hour and 15 minutes, I overheard somebody asking him to hang up. Our conversation was in English and the divination came in Malayalam. Suddenly I switched to Malayalam and asked who was the blighter trying to interfere. My Customer Care Executive told me that he was not allowed to reveal the names of colleagues. I told him that no Cust Care Executive anywhere in the world has the privilege of disconnecting the call also. He apologised to me for the misbehaviour of his colleague many times. I also told him that unless he revealed the name of this gadfly, I would complain mentioning the incident and indicating the date and time. He was trapped. He gave me the name of his collegue! (Withdrawing my previous comment; He ISN'T loyal!) I asked him to hand him the phone. He was reluctant to. I was required to repeat everything I told him previously. He handed over the phone to his colleague. (He is NOT loyal at all!) The colleague came and asked me the matter! I was baffled again! I was required to repeat the incident in words. He said, he was asking to hang up, not to the person who was speaking to me, but to some other person!!!! I told him that the previous person has already apologised for you! He also was trapped. He said sorry! I asked him "Why apologise? You said, you were talking to some other person and why do you need to say sorry now?" He was double trapped! He pleaded just the way he could. He was apologising even when I was firing off at him. Finally the apologies stopped and he was mum. I also cooled down and said okay, I wouldn't complain and hang up. I got an SMS that the complaint has been registered.

After two days, I got a message at 10 AM that I have won a free (!) dialer tone from Idea for participating in the contest. If I didn't need that I was required to SMS them 'NO', within two hours. Is this something like the terrosists giving deadlines to release the detainees?! I had more serious work to do in office, so I didn't bother to SMS. Later, I called them back to know about it. The person who attended the call told me that there was no charge for the tone and it is absolutely free and that I can cancel it at any time. I was satisfied. After sometime, came my dialer tone. It gave me (and my callers) the impression that it was recorded from a Radio set that was built in BC 1200. It was horrible! I called them back and shouted to deactivate this stupid tone. I came to know with a shock that Rs 10 was taken from my kitty for activating the tone and I needed to pay an extra Rs 7 for deactivating it. What alien rules!! I was bursting with anger and the executive who attended my call Mr Sarath was equal to the task. He asked me why didn't I SMS back within the deadline. I said I had other business. He shouted at me: "You have time to make your calls and have no time to SMS?" I was baffled again! I inquired him who he was to fix my priorities. The exchange went on for more than an hour and this tomfool finally disconnected the call. I was angry like hell. I called back and reported this to one of the supervisors Mr Rini who was present there. He only seemed to be supporting his subordinate.

The next day also, I came to know that Rs 30 was lost from my account as charges for the dialer tone! I called them and this time it was one Mr Anthony (first name I don't remember) who attended my call. He dittoed Mr Sarath's action. I decided I wouldn't let go of this incident easily. I called back and asked the executive to call his supervisor. He (Mr Abhishek Kurien) told me that his supervier was not there! I said "So, your supervisor Mr Roshan Gopal (he had given me the name) has not reported there at 9.10 PM on 2nd Feb 2006?" He also was trapped. He told me that he was there, but was attending a meeting. I realised that this was a collective effort from them and if I wanted to crack the nut, I needed to go beyond them to file the case.

I visited the website www.ideacellular.com and took the email addresses of all the people who were in charge of the Customer Care section of Kerala as well as other states. I chain mailed them about these incidents. Came a call from Idea after two hours and it was a lady in charge of the Service Delivery and Quality section. She told me that she was calling at the directive of one Mr Hari Moorthy whom I mailed (!) and promised me that they would study the case and contact me later. Later came a call telling me that my complaint was correct that I was unnecessarily charged for the toll-free number and the dialer tone. She also told me that she would cancel the dialer tone without any further payment. She also sent me my call and charge details by email.

By the evening, I got back all the money that was taken from my account! The only one who seemed to befit a place in the section seemed to be this lady. My sincere and honest thanks to her.

I realised the meaning of the Idea slogan from this incident. An Idea can change your life! Yes, they changed my life and gave me mysery for some days and finally extinguished the fire created by themselves to change my life back to normal. Is it hightime, they changed their shibboleth to "An Idea can cheat your life"

Here are my messages to Idea and their Reply:

===========================

Dear Hari Moorthy/ Rajat Mukarji/ Carson Dalton and others,

This is to inform you about a misbehaviour from the part of a Customer Care Executive of Idea Cellular.

I am a prepaid user and I had lodged two complaints against two schemes of Idea through which I lost money unwarrantably. The complaints were about a Republic Day offer and a free dialer tone. I had dialed one of your Toll Free numbers under a Republic Day scheme and lost Rs 35 unwarrantably. I also got a dialer tone after a few days and to cancel that I had to SMS back Idea with 'NO' within two hours. I was busy and how could have I sent you a message in the meantime?

I contacted your Customer Care Centre at Ernakulam, Kerala by the number 458, yesterday 1st February 2006 after about 8 PM. The Customer Care Officer who attended my call was Mr Sarath. I told him that I didn't have time to type in NO and SMS it back to Idea since I was busy with my work. He told me that I would have to pay Rs 7 towards cancelling the dialer tone. Otherwise they would take Rs 30 as fee for the FREE dialer tone. I tried to make him aware of my case and after some time, he misbehaved to me. He said I was wasting his time.

The following are excerpts from his talk to me:

"Why didn't you have time to send an SMS? It wouldn't take two hours. It is just the matter of a few minutes. You were able to make a call to the Republic Day offer and why didn't the same you have time afterwards?"

He behaved so badly that he went on to hang up the telephone without my consent. I know, no Call Centre would entertain such a behaviour. Please tell me, what has this particular man to do with my businesses? Who is he to fix my priorities? Who gave him permission to behave like this?

I lodged a complaint against him to the Supervisor Mr Rini who was present on the spot. I got the impression that he was only supporting Mr Sarath. I would like to let you people know that I don't intend to talk to any person in your firm personally. All I had to do was contact Idea to register one of my complaints. It has been done also. What if you people are behaving so poorly like this? This could be badged as a poor behaviour from the part of Idea since all the executives there represent the firm.

Summing it up; I must get back my lost money and the dialer tone should be cancelled without any further payment towards it. I also want you to avoid my number from SMS messages like these from Idea in the future. Please take immediate actions and let me know about the status of the issue. Otherwise I would be impelled to sue Idea on charges of cheating, belying facts and misbehaviour. I do not wish to take actions against you as I know it would affect the popularity of your firm and would create a black mark in the minds of your customers. The rest lies with you.

Hope to get a favourable reply from your part by a date not later than next Tuesday, 7th February 2006. I am sending the copies of this mail to the addresses of all those whose names have been listed on your website.

Thanks,

Sincerely,

================================

Reply from Idea

Dear Mr. Sreejith,

You are a valued customer and it is with great distress that we take note of your concern.

This is further to the tele-conversation we had dated 2nd February,06. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. We would like to clarify that the call charged Rs.34.95 is credited on 01/31/2006 15:30:56 and your balance became Rs.240.77 and Rs.10 charged for the song also credited on 2nd February,06 11.53. Also, we would like to inform you that the rental charged for dialertone Rs. 30( shown as negative amount below) will get credited today and dialer tone is cancelled ,as per your request without any additional charges. Please find the adjustment passed in your account.

This has been a rare instance of deviation from our set standard and we assure you such repetition will not occur in future. We are a customer friendly organisation and we regret that our actions have given you an erroneous perception of the quality of our services. We shall, through our continuous effort try to deliver the kind of service you expect from us.

We also would like to reiterate our commitment to you and would request you to not form any lasting impression of our services. If you need any further assistance, please feel free to get in touch with us.

We assure best of our attention

Thanking you.

Sincerely yours

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