Consumer Rights

Getting an internet connection in modern India should be very easy, and it should almost be like a commodity. The customer pays for a connection, and the company provides the connection, and it works with minimum down time. But what do you when the company provides you with a connection that is old, even though you asked for a 1 year connection ? And how do you get to know ? Well, the connection ends and you are told to pay up for the unpaid bills. Furthermore, officials of the company do not treat the customer with due convenience, and instead quote rules even though the fault is the company’s. Well, now we have consumer forums, and even though it may take time, the consumer forums do deliver satisfaction, and allow the consumers to get benefit. Consider this case (link to article):

CHANDIGARH: Finding Reliance Communication deficient in services, UT consumer forum directed it to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation for harassment along with Rs 2,500 as litigation costs to Tejbir Kaur of Sector 46. The forum also added that Reliance was duty bound to adjust Rs 9,345 and Rs 330 received by it.
According to the complaint, Kaur had purchased internet connection for a year from Reliance for Rs 9,375, but after two months she allegedly found out that hers was an old connection because of which it terminated. She was then reportedly given a new number with the assurance that the amount already paid by her would be transferred into the new account. She, however, alleged that it was not done, rather she received legal notices for non-payment of bills.

Typically, at such times, the company officials should respond in such a way that benefits the customer, but it did not seem to happen. This case is another example of how it is to the benefit of consumers of being more aware of their rights, and how when companies are not ready to improve their services, consumers can go to consumer forums for getting justice.

Posted on June 7th, 2009 under Cellular, Compensation, Complaint, Consumer, Consumer Court, Fraud, Grievance, Telecom. Tags: Case, Compensation, Consumer, Customer, Deficiency, Fine, Forum, Judgment, Quality, Reliance, Service, Telecom, Trial. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.