Reliance User Manual

(All the information that the company’s official manual doesn’t have)

Applying for connection: You call up Reliance at 30337777 or email them at broadband@relianceada.com and some sales rep. or agent will visit you with a card like thisYour browser may not support display of this image., provided it is physically convenient for Reliance to give you a connection. That is to say, if you lived in an area that did not have one of their towers nearby, you cannot get a connection.

Now there is no way of confirming yet, that the said representative really is from Reliance because his mobile number is hand written on the card and when you call the printed numbers on the card, you discover that you have called the security office (“yeh to sikrity office hai, yahaan par aur koi nahin hai”). But you decide to go ahead and take the plunge, after all the man is not asking you for any money. You fill up the forms he gives you, submit photo identity, proof of address and you are done. Of course, he may ask you to pay the installation charges of Rs. 500 in advance adding that you would get a month’s charges deducted from your bill if you did so. (Applies to flat rate plans). Don’t do it because it’s not true. It’s better to pay the installation charges with your first bill. The representative will then tear out the tiniest slip you might have come across, from the bottom of the forms that you filled, and give it to you. It would seem that at this point, Reliance would rather not give you any proof of your interaction with them.

In about fifteen days you get your connection installed and activated. One of the good things about this connection is that it detects TCP/IP addresses and DNS settings automatically, so that in case you have reinstalled Windows, you can just plug the jack in and you are good to go; no need to reconfigure your Internet settings. You will get a 12 digit user id and a password which you need to log in after a cold boot. The connection is fairly fast (75, 150, & 300kbps compared to the commonly available 64, 128 and 256 kbps speeds) and the flat rates are among the lowest in the market. The download speed will be throttled to about 1/8th of your connection speed which is standard practice among ISP’s in India, as far as I know.

Your nightmare begins the first time you have a problem and try to contact customer care. Believe me; it’s like banging your head against a wall. Pasted below are typical examples of the email exchange between Reliance Customer Care and me:

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008 12:27 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Subject: Bill/user i.d.: 273074978601

This is to inform you that i have not yet received bill dt.11th May but am getting calls from your end saying that the bill has been sent. Please clarify. Also, you have not yet resolved the issue of an extra bill being sent every time along with my bill, at my address, in my name, but bearing somebody else's mobile no.

—
mehboob

On 5/22/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Reliance Broadband Customer Care.

We tried to contact you over the phone but were unable to reach you.

With reference to your mail regarding bill not received and bill received for another connection kindly provide us the details for the both of the connection:

1. Name of the person who has subscribed for the services.
2. Complete address along with the PIN code.
3. Reliance Fixed Line Phone Number.
4. Customer Account Number.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Land line phones) except Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Bhavana Kokku

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

On 5/22/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:

For details contact your accounts department which is sending me the bills or your sales department personnel who forwarded my application for installation. You have my user id and all the other information is implicitly contained in it. As to your attempts to contact me; i do not believe it, as i have been in all of today, and both my mobile and reliance phone are working.

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Friday, May 23, 2008 01:21 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Cc: serviceassurancecell@relianceada.com (serviceassurancecell@relianceada.com); Rcomnodalofficer.Mumbai@relianceada.com (Rcomnodalofficer.Mumbai@relianceada.com)
Subject: Re: Reference to your mail

Further to your reply, the following has been the sequence of events leading to my association with you:

1) I was approached by your sales people.
2) A form provided by them was duly filled which included details of name, address, contact no., etc. and was submitted along with photo-id,
proof of residence, electricity bill.
3) Final activation Advice – FLP/ Smart Office was issued vide WO No.:RHA06BK111557–which again included all the above details and also the reliance landline telephone number–only then were your service and reliance landline activated and i was given a 12 digit user id.
4) On the basis of the above I was given an Account Number and
bills were issued to me.

It is not up to me to find out or provide details of the spurious bill. You have no business asking me to type out details which have been provided to you in duplicate. Whatever errors have occurred between your departments are for you to sort out immediately. I repeat, the 12 digit user id issued by you implicitly contains all the details you have been impolite, inconsiderate and deliberately obstructive enough to demand. As for the erroneous bill, how do i know who subscribed for it? Read the highlighted portion of the complaint again if you are not clear about it. I have given the Account No. of the spurious bill to your representatives Mr. Narendra Tiwari.(mob:9322713173), Mr. Navin Gurudev (mob: 09324491697),
Mr. Mani (9819131283).

On 5/26/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:
Dear Customer,

Greeting of the day!

In order to address your concern regarding billing issue, we request you to provide us the following information:

1) Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2) Your Subscriber ID or DN

3) Complete address along with the PIN code.

4) Other contact number.

We try to contact you over the phone, but we are unable to reach you.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile,Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) expect Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Chandan Pedamkar

Broadband Customer Care

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Monday, May 26, 2008 12:54 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Subject: Re: Reference to your mail

Refer to previous mails for required information

Dear Customer,

Greeting of the day!

In order to address your concern regarding billing issue, we request you to provide us the following information:

1) Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2) Your Subscriber ID or DN

3) Complete address along with the PIN code.

4) Other contact number.

We try to contact you over the phone, but we are unable to reach you.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile,Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) expect Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Chandan Pedamkar

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

Dear Vendor,

I cannot emphasize enough that this thread includes all the information that your sweet heart desires. Please go through all my mail once more.

Yours Cordially,
mehboob

It was only after this tortuous exchange that i was assured that the issue would be resolved.

__________________________X________X_________X______________________________________

Example 2

Dear Mr. Pandian,

Thank you for the tariff plans. I can tell you now that i wish to upgrade to Plan 999 of speed 300Kbps from my existing plan 400. How do i go about it? Will it require me to register again and change my User id: 273074978601?

Regards,

mehboob

On 5/31/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Reliance Broadband Customer Care.

In order to address your concern regarding Rate Plan change, we request you to provide us the following information:

1)Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2)Complete address along with the PIN code.

3)Reliance Fixed Line Phone Number.

4)Customer Account Number.

5)Other contact number.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers (Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Landline phones) except Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Vijay Koli

Broadband Customer Care.

Reliance Communications

The information….

On 5/31/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:

Dear Mr. Koli,

My User ID is 273074978601 and billing a/c no. is 100000107945783, henceforth to be referred to as blg. no.783 in all my correspondence with you. Please acknowledge this by entering this information in my Account Details which i am sure includes all the other details; so that i do not require anything more than my User ID to be recognized as your customer and identified in respect of details accordingly. Please instruct all your support executives to refer User Id details when replying to me so that i do not have to type out all the details for each and every one of them. I have requested this before, do i have to explain myself to every executive of yours?

Thanking you,
sincerely,

M. Z. Sadicote

On 5/31/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:
Sir,

Furthermore, do keep updating service request ids, recent requests and correspondence regarding problems, contact nos., etc.; and when i inform you that my outlook express is disabled, please do not just issue a new service request id but refer to the history of the problem (first complaint was registered as far back as in February), and take the necessary action. I will henceforth expect that all such relevant information is accessible to, and also referred to, by everybody in Broadband Customer Care, Reliance Communications, in all replies to me. If my association with you has to be a Kafkaesque ordeal, it is best we terminate it in a civilized manner.

Thanking you,
Sincerely,

M. Z. Sadicote

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:24 PM, mehboob sadicote wrote:
Sir,

Your reply has been unusually long in coming. I can only hope that it's because you are giving my problem due consideration–for the first time.

Regards,

M. Z. Sadicote

—
mehboob

Sir,

This thread began with a simple request for information on the procedure for upgrading to plan 999. If you are going to continue in the same vein, i shall be compelled to look for other options. The other issues mentioned here will also have to be resolved from your end if you care to keep me as your customer, which please note.

User id: 273074978601
M. Z. Sadicote

This is the reply I received after all of the above:

Dear Customer,

Greetings of the day!

We tried to contact you over the phone, but were unable to reach you.

In order to address your query, we request you to provide us the exact nature of problem.

We regret the inconvenience caused to you.

Looking forward to serve you in future.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

* *377 from any Reliance Fixed Line Phone
* 1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers (Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) except Vodafone.
* 022-3033 7777 from any phone
* Email: broadband@relianceada.com
* Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Indraini Kaila

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

The information….

To sum up, Reliance Broadband is a very good option as far as speed, connectivity and flat rates are concerned, but when you run into any trouble (and this is bound to happen with all Internet connections), cross your fingers and pray, as customer support exists only in name; and should you decide to engage them, first book an appointment with a therapist or you may end up in a strait-jacket.

Reliance User Manual

(All the information that the company’s official manual doesn’t have)

Applying for connection: You call up Reliance at 30337777 or email them at broadband@relianceada.com and some sales rep. or agent will visit you with a card like thisYour browser may not support display of this image., provided it is physically convenient for Reliance to give you a connection. That is to say, if you lived in an area that did not have one of their towers nearby, you cannot get a connection.

Now there is no way of confirming yet, that the said representative really is from Reliance because his mobile number is hand written on the card and when you call the printed numbers on the card, you discover that you have called the security office (“yeh to sikrity office hai, yahaan par aur koi nahin hai”). But you decide to go ahead and take the plunge, after all the man is not asking you for any money. You fill up the forms he gives you, submit photo identity, proof of address and you are done. Of course, he may ask you to pay the installation charges of Rs. 500 in advance adding that you would get a month’s charges deducted from your bill if you did so. (Applies to flat rate plans). Don’t do it because it’s not true. It’s better to pay the installation charges with your first bill. The representative will then tear out the tiniest slip you might have come across, from the bottom of the forms that you filled, and give it to you. It would seem that at this point, Reliance would rather not give you any proof of your interaction with them.

In about fifteen days you get your connection installed and activated. One of the good things about this connection is that it detects TCP/IP addresses and DNS settings automatically, so that in case you have reinstalled Windows, you can just plug the jack in and you are good to go; no need to reconfigure your Internet settings. You will get a 12 digit user id and a password which you need to log in after a cold boot. The connection is fairly fast (75, 150, & 300kbps compared to the commonly available 64, 128 and 256 kbps speeds) and the flat rates are among the lowest in the market. The download speed will be throttled to about 1/8th of your connection speed which is standard practice among ISP’s in India, as far as I know.

Your nightmare begins the first time you have a problem and try to contact customer care. Believe me; it’s like banging your head against a wall. Pasted below are typical examples of the email exchange between Reliance Customer Care and me:

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008 12:27 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Subject: Bill/user i.d.: 273074978601

This is to inform you that i have not yet received bill dt.11th May but am getting calls from your end saying that the bill has been sent. Please clarify. Also, you have not yet resolved the issue of an extra bill being sent every time along with my bill, at my address, in my name, but bearing somebody else’s mobile no.

—
mehboob

On 5/22/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Reliance Broadband Customer Care.

We tried to contact you over the phone but were unable to reach you.

With reference to your mail regarding bill not received and bill received for another connection kindly provide us the details for the both of the connection:

1. Name of the person who has subscribed for the services.
2. Complete address along with the PIN code.
3. Reliance Fixed Line Phone Number.
4. Customer Account Number.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Land line phones) except Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Bhavana Kokku

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

On 5/22/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:

For details contact your accounts department which is sending me the bills or your sales department personnel who forwarded my application for installation. You have my user id and all the other information is implicitly contained in it. As to your attempts to contact me; i do not believe it, as i have been in all of today, and both my mobile and reliance phone are working.

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Friday, May 23, 2008 01:21 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Cc: serviceassurancecell@relianceada.com (serviceassurancecell@relianceada.com); Rcomnodalofficer.Mumbai@relianceada.com (Rcomnodalofficer.Mumbai@relianceada.com)
Subject: Re: Reference to your mail

Further to your reply, the following has been the sequence of events leading to my association with you:

1) I was approached by your sales people.
2) A form provided by them was duly filled which included details of name, address, contact no., etc. and was submitted along with photo-id,
proof of residence, electricity bill.
3) Final activation Advice – FLP/ Smart Office was issued vide WO No.:RHA06BK111557–which again included all the above details and also the reliance landline telephone number–only then were your service and reliance landline activated and i was given a 12 digit user id.
4) On the basis of the above I was given an Account Number and
bills were issued to me.

It is not up to me to find out or provide details of the spurious bill. You have no business asking me to type out details which have been provided to you in duplicate. Whatever errors have occurred between your departments are for you to sort out immediately. I repeat, the 12 digit user id issued by you implicitly contains all the details you have been impolite, inconsiderate and deliberately obstructive enough to demand. As for the erroneous bill, how do i know who subscribed for it? Read the highlighted portion of the complaint again if you are not clear about it. I have given the Account No. of the spurious bill to your representatives Mr. Narendra Tiwari.(mob:9322713173), Mr. Navin Gurudev (mob: 09324491697),
Mr. Mani (9819131283).

On 5/26/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:
Dear Customer,

Greeting of the day!

In order to address your concern regarding billing issue, we request you to provide us the following information:

1) Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2) Your Subscriber ID or DN

3) Complete address along with the PIN code.

4) Other contact number.

We try to contact you over the phone, but we are unable to reach you.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile,Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) expect Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Chandan Pedamkar

Broadband Customer Care

—–Original Message—–
From: mehboob sadicote (mzsade@gmail.com)
Date: Monday, May 26, 2008 12:54 PM
To: broadband@relianceada.com (broadband@relianceada.com)
Subject: Re: Reference to your mail

Refer to previous mails for required information

Dear Customer,

Greeting of the day!

In order to address your concern regarding billing issue, we request you to provide us the following information:

1) Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2) Your Subscriber ID or DN

3) Complete address along with the PIN code.

4) Other contact number.

We try to contact you over the phone, but we are unable to reach you.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers ( Mobile,Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) expect Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Chandan Pedamkar

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

Dear Vendor,

I cannot emphasize enough that this thread includes all the information that your sweet heart desires. Please go through all my mail once more.

Yours Cordially,
mehboob

It was only after this tortuous exchange that i was assured that the issue would be resolved.

__________________________X________X_________X______________________________________

Example 2

Dear Mr. Pandian,

Thank you for the tariff plans. I can tell you now that i wish to upgrade to Plan 999 of speed 300Kbps from my existing plan 400. How do i go about it? Will it require me to register again and change my User id: 273074978601?

Regards,

mehboob

On 5/31/08, broadband@relianceada.com wrote:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Reliance Broadband Customer Care.

In order to address your concern regarding Rate Plan change, we request you to provide us the following information:

1)Name of the person who has subscribed for services.

2)Complete address along with the PIN code.

3)Reliance Fixed Line Phone Number.

4)Customer Account Number.

5)Other contact number.

We look forward to an opportunity to assist you again.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

*377 from any Reliance fixed line phone

1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers (Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Landline phones) except Vodafone.

022-3033 7777 from any phone

Email: broadband@relianceada.com

Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Vijay Koli

Broadband Customer Care.

Reliance Communications

The information….

On 5/31/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:

Dear Mr. Koli,

My User ID is 273074978601 and billing a/c no. is 100000107945783, henceforth to be referred to as blg. no.783 in all my correspondence with you. Please acknowledge this by entering this information in my Account Details which i am sure includes all the other details; so that i do not require anything more than my User ID to be recognized as your customer and identified in respect of details accordingly. Please instruct all your support executives to refer User Id details when replying to me so that i do not have to type out all the details for each and every one of them. I have requested this before, do i have to explain myself to every executive of yours?

Thanking you,
sincerely,

M. Z. Sadicote

On 5/31/08, mehboob sadicote wrote:
Sir,

Furthermore, do keep updating service request ids, recent requests and correspondence regarding problems, contact nos., etc.; and when i inform you that my outlook express is disabled, please do not just issue a new service request id but refer to the history of the problem (first complaint was registered as far back as in February), and take the necessary action. I will henceforth expect that all such relevant information is accessible to, and also referred to, by everybody in Broadband Customer Care, Reliance Communications, in all replies to me. If my association with you has to be a Kafkaesque ordeal, it is best we terminate it in a civilized manner.

Thanking you,
Sincerely,

M. Z. Sadicote

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:24 PM, mehboob sadicote wrote:
Sir,

Your reply has been unusually long in coming. I can only hope that it’s because you are giving my problem due consideration–for the first time.

Regards,

M. Z. Sadicote

—
mehboob

Sir,

This thread began with a simple request for information on the procedure for upgrading to plan 999. If you are going to continue in the same vein, i shall be compelled to look for other options. The other issues mentioned here will also have to be resolved from your end if you care to keep me as your customer, which please note.

User id: 273074978601
M. Z. Sadicote

This is the reply I received after all of the above:

Dear Customer,

Greetings of the day!

We tried to contact you over the phone, but were unable to reach you.

In order to address your query, we request you to provide us the exact nature of problem.

We regret the inconvenience caused to you.

Looking forward to serve you in future.

For additional product and service related information you may contact us through any of the following means:

Phone:

* *377 from any Reliance Fixed Line Phone
* 1800 3000 7777 and 1800 3000 7773 from all telecom service providers (Mobile, Fixed Wireless and Landline Phones) except Vodafone.
* 022-3033 7777 from any phone
* Email: broadband@relianceada.com
* Website: http://www.reliancecommunications.co.in

Yours sincerely,

Indraini Kaila

Broadband Customer Care

Reliance Communications

The information….

To sum up, Reliance Broadband is a very good option as far as speed, connectivity and flat rates are concerned, but when you run into any trouble (and this is bound to happen with all Internet connections), cross your fingers and pray, as customer support exists only in name; and should you decide to engage them, first book an appointment with a therapist or you may end up in a strait-jacket.

We don’t have good options. We have to continue till someone launches a better service.