Jalaj P. Jha

“Good Morning Sir, This is ……… calling on behalf of ……… Bank. As you are an employee of ………, our bank is offering a free for lifetime ………credit card”

Sounds familiar? All the Banks want you take its Credit Card, as if Banks were not enough, all big retail chains also launched their co-branded credit cards. Even when you go for a credit card, they will still haunt you with their health/life insurance offerings. They only need your phone/mobile number once and that will stay for lifetime in their database and come back periodically and repeatedly with the offers. After all when all media for advertisements have gone dearer, it’s only the telecommunication that’s getting cheaper day by day. Additionally the conversion rates for this medium is higher than any other media thus making it the first choice to get customers.

But this medium is different from others in another important comparison point. You watch a TV commercial when you are watching TV, read an advertisement in newspaper when you are reading other news. Importantly you can choose to ignore the ads at your will. But a telemarketer does not see your convenience. He may ring at odd hours against your will and cause inconvenience and frustration.

To protect telecom customers from these unnecessary calls government started the Nation Do Not Call Registry which will centrally store the phone numbers of all the customers who do not want to be called for commercial promotions and offers. A customer can get his name added in this registry through his telecom company by sending SMS or email as facilitated by the company. Once the company receives the request it will upload the number to the registry. This may take a few days depending on the frequency at which the telecom company uploads the data.

The telemarketers, on the other hand, are required to register themselves with the registry as telemarketers, which gives them facility to get their telephone database filtered removing numbers registered for DND. There are expected to perform this exercise at least every 45 days. If a telemarketer calls a person who have been in DND registry for more than 45 days and the person on other end lodges a complaint, action is taken against the  telemarketer that may range from warning (on first incidence), high tariff (Rs500 per call) or disconnection of number.

Does this work? Yes it does! All you need to do is get started.

Contact the customer care of your telecom company and seek information on how to register for DND. Act on the information and register your number. Wait for a few days for the telecom company to upload your number to central registry. To check if your number is uploaded or not check this status page. If it’s still not uploaded, follow up with telecom company. When it’s uploaded, the status page will show date on which upload took place. Note this date and add 45 days to it after which if you still receive any call, action can be taken against the telemarketer on your complaint.

If you receive any call or sms after 45 days of DND upload, note the phone number, type of commercial message, date and time and lodge a complaint with your telecom customer care. Insist them to give you complaint number. Once a complaint is lodged your telecom company is expected to revert with the actions taken within 28-35 days.

How do you think will these telemarketers stop? With your initiative! Act now and register for DND!! Take action against telemarketers when they call even after 45 days after inclusion in National DNC registry and they will be bound to stop calling you or any other DND protected customer.

You know that what you are saying is false but still you can prove yourself true, that’s the magic of marketing and its favorite buzzword “* Conditions Apply”

I posted about Reliance Data Card – Free 10GB for 12 months offer by Vriti. This offer is visible as sponsored listing or ad Google search results for many of competing wireless broadband/internet providers and would have attracted a lot of people only to feel cheated later. Though this is a false offer but can be proved true when “* Conditions Apply”

I checked the official site for Reliance Netconnect for the tariffs and found two offers.

Choose any plan of your choice and get:

• Free rental for the first month

                          OR

• Monthly discount of Rs. 200/- for 12 months (worth Rs. 2400/-) on any monthly rental plan above Rs. 1000/-

The first offer for Free rental for first month is obvious and can save from Rs.299 to 1750 depending on plan you choose. Let’s check the second offer.

The minimum plan above Rs.1000 is Rs.1050 (rounded) which gives you free usage of 3GB during daytime and 10GB during night. If you go for this plan and choose to avail Rs.200 discount for 12 months you will end up paying Rs.850 (rounded) each month.

Now if you go through the tariff chart you will also find a plan for Rs.850 which provides 3GB of Free usage (daytime & night combined). So when you choose 1050 plan, you pay only 850 and get free usage of 10GB extra for night compared to 850 plan. This proves that “Free 10GB for 12 months” is true*

*Conditions Apply

1. You need to go for 1050 plan for which you pay Rs850 per month. Free 10GB is extra usage you get compared to 850 plan
2. Free 10GB has to be used during night time.

So when you go for a purchase next time insist on being told what all “conditions apply”. This buzzword is there to hide some facts from you until you demand to be told. Once you demand, you will be told just one of the hidden conditions hoping that you will be satisfied and will not ask for next one. Keep asking “Is that all?” and one hidden condition at a time will come forward since they can choose to keep away from telling truth but cannot tell a lie and hiding facts when you ask “Is that all?” would be telling a lie.

Just a few days back a Standard Chartered Bank representative met me in person with offer for Free* Credit Card and my “Is that all?” ended up with a shocking revelation that “If the card is not used once within 30 days of issuance, a penalty of Rs.250 will be imposed” How many of you knew that such a conditions exist? In effect this means that if you get a credit card the Bank wants you to use it. The more you use the more are chances that you miss payment on due date giving them chance to impose penalties which is actually their prospective source of income from the Free* card that they issued to you. Next time when you are called for Credit Card just ask them that you also need to open a Savings Bank account too so that you can avail facilities as auto-payment of credit card dues, you will be deviated and ultimately denied help in that matter.

Be cautious and always demand to be told the conditions that apply.

I noticed it late but as said “Better Late than Never”, at least I came to know about it.

On the Google home page Click on “I’m Feeling Lucky” button without entering any search term and you will get to see the colorful fireworks with message “Happy New Year” across the screen. On 31st and date before it similar action would result into a countdown “… days to go” getting displayed. Surely I missed watching it.

“India’s fastest data card @3.1mbps Free 10 GB for 12 months.” Isn’t this offer one that you would like to go for? I did like it and wanted to have it. I wish this offer really existed!!!! What’s embarrassing is that you would everywhere find an advertisement claiming to give this offer but when you follow the link, you will nowhere find a mention of the offer, but a very basic offer giving just “First month Free” will greet you. It’s no April but you are fooled!!

A fine print at the bottom reveals “Offer brought to you by Vriti Infocom, an online DSA of Reliance Communications”. So you cannot blame Reliance for fooling you. By the way can anyone tell me what DSA stands for? A google search for definition of DSA shows nearest match as “Disposal Sales Agency”!

Anyways thinking that the 10GB/12 months offer might get revealed when I fill the form, I filled the form and immediately came up the response “Thanks For Your Order!” Hey but I thought I’d press “Get Offer Now” button and not “Order Now”, in fact how can I order when I don’t know the price and anything!! The page further says “Our executives will get in touch with you shortly.” I hate getting marketing calls on mobile and office phone and I am surely not getting the call on those, as the numbers I filled in the form were as genuine as the original Advt that I followed. Let’s see if they contact on email id that I provided.

It suddenly occurred to me that may be the link that opens on clicking the ad is different from the link url mentioned at the bottom of the Ad. Why not try that url?

So I copied the url and pasted it in the browser address bar and before me was this page that was titled “IIT JEE AIEEE Help-IIT JEE AIEEE Faq-IIT JEE Study Material-AIEEE Study Material-AIEEE Test Papers-IIT Entrance Exam Help and Faq”

Now, on visiting connectindia.in I get a 404 page of goiit.com, this shows that this is not a big site after all. A quick search on the net showed that connectindia.in is no older than 1 year and shares the same server (ip 122.160.168.11) with goiit.com and more than 60 other sites and also could read complaints against the vendor. 

Lesson learnt: “Don’t go for a purchase of broadband, mobile connection or similar services from a vendor/agent before confirming the terms and conditions with actual service provider. Vendor can make any false promises that later will not be entertained”.