Weird mistake by Airtel

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rohitks

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319
Location
Pune, India
ISP
Airtel
This is bit out of scope but still I post it here. In july I made payment to Airtel for my broadband bill. I was happy that I made payment.
After due date I started getting reminders and calls from recovery team.

I found that they have not received the payment. I raised ticket with them as well as my bank (credit card) as well as I started investigating.
After a while when I retraced my steps I found out the issue.

The payment went to my postpaid mobile because they sent me wrong link in the broadband bill.
Those making payments by clicking the link in email be careful. The link might be wrong or may take your payment elsewhere.
I am now in dispute with airtel. I am willing to take credit in my mobile bill and make another broadband payment but before that I want them to admit the mistake which they are not ready to do so far.
 
Be persistent and don’t back down.
 
Doubt they'd admit the mistake and since it's also your fault for not clearly seeing what you are paying for they are just gonna run away.
 
It's not my fault. I trust the link provided by service provider in all good faith.
It's like you have keyed in the correct number but internally the system has a tech snag that redirects it to some other number just for example.
All the link says is postpaid payment. I have airtel postpaid connection. All transaction happens by mobile number only. There I don't enter broadband id at all. It's their responsibility to separate mobile number by mobile connection and broadband connection.

For example your DTH recharge you do by mobile number. You rarely enter dth id isn't it. And it's airtel who wants me to enter my mobile number there not broadband id.

Look at the output. It's hard to tell if it's postpaid mobile or postpaid broadband. It's a mistake on part of airtel. They sent me this link in broadband bill but internally accepted the payment for mobile bill. A nasty goof up.

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I would accept it as my mistake as a human oversight error had I clicked the link in mobile bill (assuming it's broadband) and made the payment.
I have technically done everything correct as an end customer. However going forward I will be extra cautious with airtel.

I have written to the CEO. Let's see if he has any professionalism at all.
 
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Thanks for the screenshot. I know this is what it is, but as an end customer I may not know the difference. Broadband page looks different is clear only after comparison with wrongly displayed page! Otherwise how would I know??
I trust the link provided by the service provider. Sending a link to mobile payment inside broadband bill is a clear mistake of airtel. As an end customer I am not going to know the internal processes of service provider where they direct which link is beyond my scope.
It's not a blame game but the purpose of my post was mainly to make other users cautious of this goof up. I have sent the entire video screen recording right from email bill to clicking the link to wrong page, to airtel. Let's see what their response is!
Airtel must be having a software or automated system to generate pdf bill, compose email message, insert Pay-Now Button with hyperlink in body and in this process something has gone wrong and I expect them for their own integrity & accountability to fix this. I have left no option but to make another payment now which I will have to do anyhow.
 

I'm telling you because airtel gave me the same excuse when I had the same issue. The best they could was to remove any arrears in the bill.
 
I have finally written a critical mail to 121, Net@airtel & CEO on this matter. I am just waiting & curious to see if the next broadband bill has same mistake!!
They never responded to any of my mails. I got a reply from Net but that was kind of digressing from the main topic just to fool around and pretend that they are serious about my concern. Moreover I don't find calls coming from Net credible. They sit behind firewall! They simply are not reachable if you miss the call. If you miss a call and call back all it says is number does not exist. I wrote to appellate auth on this matter that Net executives are not reachable but he also never responded.

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It is probably not the case of wrong link but maybe old link. The link got updated recently and it wasn't provided to email subscription team in time.
I have also seen this shit happen with airtel black. They credit the amount on their own wish.
 
@rohitks the erroneous link may have occured due to a programmatic bug in the Billing system at Airtel. Telecom systems are highly automated they have to be when generating millions of bills and other records. I am sure the programmatic error will be corrected.

I am not trying to pour cold water over your outrage but TBH dude there's no harm done. They will hold your payment as a credit balance on your postpaid mobile connection while you will be asked to regularise your BB account bill. Yes, bit of on overhead and even a PITA experience but this will blow over. Your money aint going anywhere. Not to worry. Lessons to be had? Everybody should read the bill payment form fully and ascertain all details before making the payment. This is a given with any online payment. Airtel screwed up sure but let's face it..you made a silly error as well. As I said before its a minor issue. I am sure Airtel has learned its lesson as have you.
 
@Chip I still don't understand this, the prefilled form provided by airtel is correct. My number is automatically inserted on the form. So all I do is initiate the payment but it goes to another account. This is beyond my scope. It's like you enter correct mobile number but still payment goes to another connection. However going forward I will initiate payment by logging into the account not from within the bill.
I expect Airtel to investigate this so that other users don't face similar issue due to this snag. But they are not saying anything. I have left the excess as arrears and already initiated another payment to BB. This was done long back. I even cancelled my dispute with my CC bank when I figured this out. All this time Airtel officials were fooling around saying payment is stuck at the gateway!!!!
They are neither acknowledging nor responding or providing assurance that this will not happen again.
If i were a business owner here, I would have accepted the snag and provided an assurance to prevent such mishap in future. This is how credibility is established in business not by always being 100% correct but by assuring & ensuring prevention of issues in future.
I am just waiting for 12 Aug to see what is the link in my next bill. Regards.

@mikrotik if the link already inserted in the email auto updates when the same URL is hit on the net, it's a major technical mistake. The link is static but internally it pointed to my mobile ac on its own.
 
I am sure the error has been forwarded to the relevant team and they should it be able to fix this easily. As for apologies and assurances..we individuals are too smalll for these characters to ever think of such a gesture. Airtel in fact has gone the opposite way. IMHO its getting a bit over confident and dare I say has a touch of arrogance too. The market is now between Jio and Airtel. They are a duopoly with Vi still an iffy company insofar as its long term survival is concerned. The customer friendly Airtel of the past doesn't exist.
 
@rohitks You are arguing without any knowledge of how their systems function. Even I do not know. But I do know that this can happen with change at backend.
 
I know in an argument between a big corporate and a small individual the corporate always wins!
The feedback process as laid down by all quality standards (Ratings 1 to 10 and comments) is all fake.
when real feedback is given like this they keep silence.
 
Look, like any corporate heads roll when things go wrong. And they have to analyse a complaint according the nature of its severity and respond. I am not trying to say that your angst is not justified but please understand that errors can and do happen even with highly automated computer systems that providers have. Believe me bro, I have worked hands on some very complex & disparate but at the same time integrated software systems in the past. So, yes Airtel screwed up and beside the aggravation and inconvenience caused, no real loss monetary or othewise has been incurred by you or Airtel. Please get things into perspective and don't expect these guys to grovel at your feet over this.
 

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