Some Writing Work and Work in Progress

A Hoary Experience

I am a Pediatrician, as most readers who have seen my bio-block already know. As I write this on the afternoon of 11th April 2004, I am trying to rmember the terrible time I had yesterday evening. I am holding a cellular phone, and use a cellular service called BPL Mobile. I have the same telephone number since the inception of mobile services in my city, at which time I had taken myconnection - that is, 12 years ago.

Out of the two payment options, viz. "Pre-paid" and "Post-paid", I had always been under the latter option: I had kept a deposit with BPL, against which I used the cellular as I wanted. A bill was sent to me on the 11th of each month: this covered the period of the entire previous month; I usually paid regularly and was never overdue.

Then sometime in August 2003, I decided to switch to the "pre-paid" option; the reason was that someone told me my bills would reduce once I took a card whose usage I could actually control merely by talking less on the phone. My subscriber number stayed the SAME as before. The entire deposit was returned to me; this more than covered the cost of a "re-fill slip" that I had to purchase. So, I went ahead and switched over nicely as it were; and merrily went ahead with my life.

Over the next five to six months, I realised that the pre-paid option was far costlier than the post-paid one; by March, I had spent almost twice the money that I would have spent by continuing with my post-paid subscription. I was annoyed with myself. Nevertheless, I called back the service and asked them to revert me to the post-paid service.

They asked me to put in a small deposit and to continue using the pre-paid balance in the meantime: they said that they would take two working days to switch me to the post-paid service, at which time my remaining balance would be transferred to the post-paid account. Accordingly, this is what happened.

Everything was going on fine, till yesterday night: at about thirty minutes past ten, I picked up the cellular to call a friend, and discovered that my SIM card registration had been cancelled. At first I thought someone might have played a prank with my phone and might have either shaken my SIM card or something, so I switched off the instrument, opened its battery and SIM compartment, removed the battery and then the card, and after cleaning the slight dust inside the battery compartment, I replaced the two items and switched on the phone again. The problem, to my utter consternation, persisted!

I then called the BPL mobile service people to ask what had happened. Mind you, as I am a pediatrician, my customers are small babies, sometimes with a serious medical problem and the mobile telephone is a vital link between the parents and me at nights and on Sundays when my clinic is closed. I was more than concerned - in fact, I was scared that some parent somewhere might be trying to desperately reach me with a very sick child in their arms - and be unable to contact me. I was told by the call centre person that their "Client Verification Department" had sent someone to my clinic about 10 days ago, and not finding anyone there, the person who had come to verify my identity had put a 'X' against my name and given a "negative" comment to the company. The wheels of the Mobile Service had moved slowly but surely, and after a silence of nearly nine days, they finally disconnected my service at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday 10th April, 2004.

I explained my problem to her. I was told that nothing could be done now that the line was disconnected, and I should try and call back on Monday at 10:00 a.m. to try and restore the line. When I told the operator that Monday was too far off, and in the interim, my patients would be unable to contact me, who would take the responsibility. I was stone-walled with a standard statement," I understand sir, but I cannot do anything." I then demanded to speak to his senior. A lady came on the line (it was twenty minutes past eleven at night). She heard me out, apologised and promised me that she would, as a special case, reconnect me within two hours. I thanked her and put down the phone.

Late at night, or rather, early the next morning at 4:30 a.m., I got up to use the toilet. I remembered about my cellular, and picked it up to check if my service had been restored. It had not. I called the 24-hour help line and spoke to yet another assistance person. Upon reminding him that one of the senior execs had already promised me 5 hours ago that the connection would be restored by 1:30 a.m., he told me that that person was not available then, and would only be available the next day at nine. I was angry and fuming by then. I gave this man a piece of my mind. I then banged the phone down. I sat at my computer, went to the BPL Mobile web-site and wrote off a searing complaint to the web-manager.

At 10:00 a.m. today, I called up BPL mobile again. I was again led around and around a circle. I literally shouted at the girl. She finally promised me to look into the matter and restore the connection within a few hours. And she finally did, but not till I had threatened to go to the press and to a legal court with my complaint.

Thus ended my ordeal.

- ##Dr.Taher##



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