Frustrated with Hutch

My hutch connection was disconnected yesterday without prior notification on the basis of “verification”. I cannot make any outgoing calls and SMSs even though i have a balance of around 1800 Rs. Incoming calls do not show the caller ID. Now even though i have submitted the required documents (not that i didn’t submit them when i bought the connection, i did submit a photocopy of my Driver’s License!), my connection has not been activated. There are problems with the network too. Calls get dropped, network congestion. I cannot dial Hutch Care “111″ from my mobile. It always shows network busy. So if i need to talk to customer care, i need to dial “9811098110″ from my landline (which surprisingly works at one go!) and pay for it while i listen to “you and i” for an hour! And when the customer care guy picks up, he conviniently just hangs up without saying a word!

What kind of service is this? Im am extremely dissatisfied, and would NOT recommend hutch to anyone. I myself cannot shift cause i have an OLD number, otherwise i would have shifted to another provider.

In Short: Do yourself a favour and dont buy Hutch..

S

Could it be because of the recent "I'll buy Hutch" contest? Cuz AFAIK, Hutch did provide good service when I had it as my primary XSP

According to the latest guidelines issued by TRAI to the service providers,all the connections had to be verified before march 31,2007 and even those who had submitted the docs wud receive a call from the service provider to verify that the details in the docs were correct and the user knew with whose name he had booked the connection....
So i guess kalpik...they are first coming down on those who had not submitted the docs at the time of taking the connection...
This wud have been the case with many users,so it is taking some time for them to reactivate the connections...
As for the customer care service...i dont think ne1 will be satisfied with his/her mobile service provider in that matter!

Oh! Thatz a horrible experience kalpik. It's better to stick to Indian brands like Airtel. I am using it frm past 2 years and never had big issues with them. Recently I had some frustration due to their GPRS service, but all are sorted out now.
To ankurgupta... I guess it is march 31, 2007 and not 3007!

T

kalpik said:
My hutch connection was disconnected yesterday without prior notification on the basis of “verification”. I cannot make any outgoing calls and SMSs even though i have a balance of around 1800 Rs. Incoming calls do not show the caller ID. Now even though i have submitted the required documents (not that i didn’t submit them when i bought the connection, i did submit a photocopy of my Driver’s License!), my connection has not been activated. There are problems with the network too. Calls get dropped, network congestion. I cannot dial Hutch Care “111″ from my mobile. It always shows network busy. So if i need to talk to customer care, i need to dial “9811098110″ from my landline (which surprisingly works at one go!) and pay for it while i listen to “you and i” for an hour! And when the customer care guy picks up, he conviniently just hangs up without saying a word!

What kind of service is this? Im am extremely dissatisfied, and would NOT recommend hutch to anyone. I myself cannot shift cause i have an OLD number, otherwise i would have shifted to another provider.

In Short: Do yourself a favour and dont buy Hutch..

I had the same problem like you. I went to the hutch showroom. They did not help. So i got airtel now. It is ok for now.

their customer care number does not even work here in bangalore. if you have any problem you have to go to hutch shop.

@kalpik.. Same is the case wit airtel..

I m frm PUnjab.
Got many calls 3-4 months back frm Airtel Customer care that plz give us ur address nd we wud b cming for conformation that u hav given correct Details..

They even said that plz re-submit the ID's.

Didnt gav nd nobody came..

Using airtel happily. but customer care is a problem here too.

amitava82 said:
their customer care number does not even work here in bangalore. if you have any problem you have to go to hutch shop.

exactly! the only time they are accessible are at abt 12 midnight!!!!!

ankurgupta.me said:
According to the latest guidelines issued by TRAI to the service providers,all the connections had to be verified before march 31,2007 and even those who had submitted the docs wud receive a call from the service provider to verify that the details in the docs were correct and the user knew with whose name he had booked the connection....
So i guess kalpik...they are first coming down on those who had not submitted the docs at the time of taking the connection...
This wud have been the case with many users,so it is taking some time for them to reactivate the connections...
As for the customer care service...i dont think ne1 will be satisfied with his/her mobile service provider in that matter!

But i DID submit my documents while taking the connection! And even if they didnt have my documents, they should have requested me to submit those before disconnecting my connection! They didnt call, didnt even send an SMS.. And my phone still doesnt work.. Its been 3 days now..

same case with airtel

I was first with AirTel (pre and post paid) and then with Hutch (pre and post paid). I am currently still with Hutch and I can say this much, service is bad on the phone, whether Hutch or AirTel. However being a Hutch postpaid customer I find their billing quite transparent. That's a plus. But customer care, both are equally bad. The customer care lines are managed by call centre staff who don't understand the problem or give the wrong solution. Then you can't blame them. Their job is to try and sort out your problem if they can, give you a complaint number and forward your complaint to the correct department. If the correct department sleeps on it they (customer care) have to face the music from the irate customer. But then the irate customer too has no choice. The only way is to go to the head office or TeleShoppe in your city and sort things out. Only that has worked for me. And the information they give is accurate and service is fast.

hmm.. They STILL haven't activated my number! Im gonna go to the hutch shop and fight with them today.. Wish me luck!

Edit: In the meantime, i've written the following email to the delhi/NCR nodal ofiicer:

Dear Sir/Mam

I am a subscriber to hutch since more than 3 years with mobile number XXXXXXXXXX, registered under my name (Kalpik Nigam). My connection was disconnected late night on 19th Jan WITHOUT any prior notification. When i called up customer care, they told me my connection was temporarily barred for verification of my documents. I had already provided Hutch with a photocopy of my drivers license when i took this connection, so why this harassment? Anyway, on 20th Jan, i went to the Hutch shop at Sector 18 Noida, and re-submitted my photo ID proof, after sitting in the queue for about an hour. I was told there that my connection would be activated within 24 hours. When i asked why would it take so much time, when you could disconnect my phone without even telling me, why are you taking so much time to re-connect it? There was no answer, and the lady just smiled.. Anyway, now it has been around 40 hours since that, and my connection has NOT been activated as of yet. I have already made repeated complaints to the customer care (with complaint number XXXXXXXXX), but nothing has been done so far. Every time im told that my connection would be activated in 2 hours.

Why am i being harassed? If you didn't keep my documents safely (when i submitted them at the time of taking the connection), that is your problem not mine. And why is my connection not being activated? Why do i have to waste my time talking to customer care executives or going to hutch shops? Please activate my connection, or refund my balance on my prepaid card. I would be more than happy to switch to another service provider.

Regards,
Kalpik Nigam

^ now your conn will be activated !!!

These days emails tend to do more work thn phone calls!...seriously....

T

kalpik said:
hmm.. They STILL haven't activated my number! Im gonna go to the hutch shop and fight with them today.. Wish me luck!

Edit: In the meantime, i've written the following email to the delhi/NCR nodal ofiicer:

I had the similar incident like you.They said they lost all the documents i gave. For past 1 month i been running around to hutch showroom and other branches. They say they will activate within 24hours and they did not. They kept saying please wait and they did not. Mum said to get the connection we dont have landline so the hope we have is mobile phone. Then after a month i got airtel and lost 1000 to hutch.

Airtel is not good either. I applied for free sms after a month all my message started to take money and iam wasting nearly 30 rs per month without sending any sms. If i take 350 rs plan and i get only 180 rs. This really sucks.

Anyways after my studies iam leaving india for good.

Went to the hutch shop today.. same old crap.. "we will activate it within 24 hours".. I had a friend with me.. He shouted at the customer care guy and picked him up by the collar.. And voila!! My connection was instantly activated! Now only problem is, its still not showing any caller ID. So i guess ill ask my friend to visit them tomorrow

This shows: "laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahi maante"

Will ur friend be free next week i think i might need him to accompany me too.

Even in Delhi the Hutch customer care no is not working I want to stop the ad smses and there was some page on their Delhi site It was mentioned in the forum too. I searched but was unable to find it. If any one knows the address please tell me.

M

I keep on getting SMS's from these people asking to show the documents. But, I haven't shown them any documents. My no. is working so far. If they disconnect my no. I will seriously think of moving to Airtel, it's much cheaper than Hutch, only thing is most of my friends are on Hutch.

kalpik said:
I had a friend with me.. He shouted at the customer care guy and picked him up by the collar..

Kaunsi chaaki ka aata khata hain?

I Have seen POst paid connections are much better in terms of service of all the providers.

They do not treat prepaid customers with respect, however if u are have post case is entirly diffrent

K

There have been some experiences lately which have really really pissed me off with hutch. I'm a post paid subscriber with hutch. I've been using hutch since the day i got my first cell phone. And it's been 5-6 years now. And I'm using this particular connection for 7-8 months now.
I've taken 299 one india roaming plan. Now when its a roaming plan (i.e I'll be charged only one rupee while i'm anywhere in India), you gotta give roaming with it!! right?? But no!! you have to activate it and that's will be charged monthly!! Fine... but when you call them up to activate (while you are going outstation), they say that you have to make a deposit of Rs 1300/-!!!!!!! What am I supposed to do then??
Many of my friends have similar schemes who pay the bill of around Rs 300-400/-. I pay around Rs 2000 each month! Their credit limit has been increased to Rs 3000, but mine is still at 1000!!!!! doesn't it sound absurd??
Once they barred my outgoing calls.. when i asked them, they said that you havent paod the bill... i said i didn't recieve any bill and you should have at least inform me before discontinuing the calls.. they said someone miss. xyz called you in the morning and you said you wont pay the bill until you get the bill!! AND I DIDN'T GET ANY CALL FROM THEM!!!!!!!!
These are some of the bad experiences i've had with them. This is what they do to their loyal customers.... now what am i supposed to do? Switch to MTNL maybe......

A

hmm. interesting. I am using Hutch postpaid for past 2 years. I never made a deposit for roaming. it is always activated. Regarding disconnection, once I didn't pay my bill just to find out when they are gonna barr my outgoing calls. They barred the outgoing line after somewhere around 40 days from the due date.Before blocking outgoing calls, I was called, hmm twice every week asking when I am going to pay bill. Credit limit for me is somewhere around 4k.

I never had any issue apart from weak signals in some areas. I get excellent support, I browse the web using GPRS.

I think Hutch is probably taken over by either 'Reliance' or 'Vodafone',if it is taken by 'Reliance' then these problems will increase!

better lodge it here -> http:\\core.nic.in

rollcage said:
better lodge it here -> http:\\core.nic.in

its *core.nic.in/

K

Well whatever we are talking are annoyances and not exactly complaints... these are just due to the unclear declaration of their plans and all.... so you know it's not a very good idea to file a complaint until its really a complaint...

Have you subscribed to "Do Not Disturb"? Actually I experienced similar situation as yours where I did not get any SMS or calls. I did not face disconnection but a rude experience and was later told that it was due to DND.

This is how it happened to me. I got a call from some Jat type guy (you know that weird and rude accent) and he was like..."Apna naam aur address batao" (those were his exact opening words). I mean WTH man? I asked him who he was and what he was talking about. Then he told me that he was calling from Hutch and he needs to do verification. I said that I will not tell any random guy my details and then he threatened me that if I don't tell him details...I should be ready to face repercussions and my connection will be deactivated within 3 days.

I didn't tell him details and asked him to disconnect the connection but I did call Hutch Care immediately. The experience was terrible...the customer care executive was not friendly either and told me that they are giving so many advertisements...this and that. My details were also wrong in their database. Anyways, I went to a Hutch Teleshop next day and submitted the documents but I also wrote to their Nodal officer. Then I got calls from them asking for apologies and all. That it will never happen again...and they will even talk to the agency from which I got the call. After that I even got a call from that verification agency...the people who were threatening to disconnect the connection. They also apologized and said that they will look how their executives talk. It is all fine now...my address and name has been updated. Everything fine

Oh and btw...my connection is also 5 years old and it was purchased from a Hutch shop. Not the normal mobile shops and yet my details in their records was wrong. I guess this is why the whole verification drive is going on because people didn't work as expected sometime back.

M

I have subscribed to DND still get their messages on the same.

I have a Hutch prepaid and a postpaid connection. The DND seems to be works only in the postpaid, lol, why am I not surprised.
So to workaround this problem, I have saved the 2-3 numbers from which they usually call in my handset phonebook, and assigned "no tone" to them.
So they can DIE.
Nothing can be done about sms though.

Well I have a prepaid connection and DND works...no problems...

DND works fine in my friends prepaid...
and in case it doesnt u can always "blacklist" them... in s60 fones.. :))

DND works here too (prepaid).

Well DND doesnot work on Dolphin that well....
They sent a message to all subscribers that if you donot want to receive promotional messages then send DND to 2233...i snt it immediately but still i do receive the msgs though their frequency has decreased...
Hope TRAI takes some action otherwise i will certainly do...

It happened with me also but it was fine after a week or so. The best key have patience.

ya hutch's service s**ks!!!

-SUDE

K

Till now i've just received an sms from airtel telling me to submit my documents to them. Apart from that, i haven't heard anything from them on this topic so far. And everything is working as usual.

IMHO everyone who has not RE-verified their connections should do it immediately. No use getting hassled at a later time.
DoT turns heat on sub verification

@kalpik

Have you tried *core.nic.in/

@amitava82
thanx for correction

S

I have a Hutch related issue:
Basically about 3 years back my friend bought got a Hutch prepaid connection ... Next month he got a MTNL connection, and since I was looking for a Hutch one.. I just started using his sim.. and have been doing so ever since..
Now in light of the documentation that Hutch is pushing ppl before March 31, I wonder if I can use my documentation for 'verification'... because they may have my friend's name in their database...
Or is there some way to 'transfer' account from one person to another?
Or am I better off just gettting a new connection

Thanks
Kartik

Heh.. They'l need the documents of the person under whose name the connection is registered.. So that would be your friend's documents.. If that's too much trouble, get a new connection

@rollcage: My issue with hutch was resolved..

So you didnt file anything there .. man its free
what about your loss .. you can lodge for the frustration they caused you.

Why does every indian feel ... yaar ab to thik hai fir dekhenge!

Point noted.. Ill do it