Finally, they've done it. The Indian government has finally woken up to the fact that hundreds of mobile phone users all across the country are being tortured by an obnoxious community known fearfully as the Telemarketers. After years of hemming and hawing, the government imposed a gag order on telemarketers. Incidentally, I was recently declared to be worthy enough of such calls (some guy called me about an ICICI Loan the other day...I told him I would take it if it was interest-free and the time limit to pay back the loan was to be decided by me...whereupon there descended an ominous silence on phone lines while the marketer tried to work out what I meant)
I don't really think it's going to work so easily though. This is India after all. Loopholes are meant to be exploited. For instance, how will the hapless phone owner prove that he or she had actually opted not to take telemarketing calls? What proof will they have? An SMS? The marketer can simply send the SMS from another number and later declare that the number from which the SMS was sent did not belong to him. Even if this is not all that feasible, there are more indirect ways. When the phone is put on roaming for example, the network provider can always send a "Welcome to Punjab!" message with a postscript like "XYZ Bank would also like to welcome you and remind you that you can always borrow a loan from them for..." Yep, these guys are clever.
But what is really very annoying is how these people get hold of our numbers. Who on earth gave network companies the right to distribute our phone numbers to these companies? Mark you, these providers also have with them our residential and office addresses as well as our e-mail ids. So far providers don't seem to have divulged this information but how long will that last? Now that telemarketing is almost as good as banned, will we get annoying letters at home or office or god forbid, have our e-mail accounts filled to bursting with spam?
It's really quite scary how much access these service providers have to our personal lives. A month ago, the Tata Indicom Broadband connection at my Bangalore home crashed for the umpteenth time. When the personnel turned up (three goddamn days later, I'll come back to that), he asked me for the password so that once he repaired the connection, he can renew our account. I told him I would type the password myself and did so. Later on, as usual, I checked my account and realized it hadn't been renewed. I called up the Tata Indicom guy and from his office, he CHANGED MY PASSWORD so that he could could renew the account properly!
I was shocked when he told me that he could actually change somebody else's password so casually. And by the looks of it, that sort of access isn't just restricted to one or two people. Practically everyone who worked in that office knows how to do it. If any one at that office decides to break company policy and get some free internet access, all he has to do is a little bit of clicking and typing and there! He'll get into somebody else's account. How easy it is to commit a fraud. So far, the people at Tata Indicom, inspite of all the problems that they pose, don't seem to have tried anything that's so blatantly criminal but how long will that last? What if some new employee turns up who isn't so conscientious and has no qualms about misusing the company technology?
Apart from these dangers, there are such ridiculous hassles to go through while dealing with these companies. Efficiency of the private sector my foot, some of these private companies are so incompetent that I actually wish I was dealing with a Public Sector firm instead. Take Tata Indicom for example. As I mentioned above, these guys take three or four days to reply to a simple complaint about a downed connection when in theory, they should have taken not more than 24 hours. Every time I call up their Customer Service Centre to bitch about their connection, their answer is always the same "Our lines in your area have come down because a car crashed into one of the poles. We will have it up again shortly" Nowadays I've become so tired of that excuse that I don't even have the strength to ask them why so many cars every month have such a fatal obsession for Tata Indicom cables (which are supposed to be underground by the way). And every blue moon when they do turn up at our house, the connection magically goes up again only to crash the same evening. Incredible.
All I can say is that these incidents only convince that India's booming economy is a farce. Oh sure, our companies are growing at 350,000% every second and acquiring every half-wit foreign firm that comes their way but they are yet to learn how to behave professionally. No courtesy or respect for privacy. No concern about customer security. Not the slightest bit of thought for customer service and welfare. When will Indian companies think of these?
I don't really think it's going to work so easily though. This is India after all. Loopholes are meant to be exploited. For instance, how will the hapless phone owner prove that he or she had actually opted not to take telemarketing calls? What proof will they have? An SMS? The marketer can simply send the SMS from another number and later declare that the number from which the SMS was sent did not belong to him. Even if this is not all that feasible, there are more indirect ways. When the phone is put on roaming for example, the network provider can always send a "Welcome to Punjab!" message with a postscript like "XYZ Bank would also like to welcome you and remind you that you can always borrow a loan from them for..." Yep, these guys are clever.
But what is really very annoying is how these people get hold of our numbers. Who on earth gave network companies the right to distribute our phone numbers to these companies? Mark you, these providers also have with them our residential and office addresses as well as our e-mail ids. So far providers don't seem to have divulged this information but how long will that last? Now that telemarketing is almost as good as banned, will we get annoying letters at home or office or god forbid, have our e-mail accounts filled to bursting with spam?
It's really quite scary how much access these service providers have to our personal lives. A month ago, the Tata Indicom Broadband connection at my Bangalore home crashed for the umpteenth time. When the personnel turned up (three goddamn days later, I'll come back to that), he asked me for the password so that once he repaired the connection, he can renew our account. I told him I would type the password myself and did so. Later on, as usual, I checked my account and realized it hadn't been renewed. I called up the Tata Indicom guy and from his office, he CHANGED MY PASSWORD so that he could could renew the account properly!
I was shocked when he told me that he could actually change somebody else's password so casually. And by the looks of it, that sort of access isn't just restricted to one or two people. Practically everyone who worked in that office knows how to do it. If any one at that office decides to break company policy and get some free internet access, all he has to do is a little bit of clicking and typing and there! He'll get into somebody else's account. How easy it is to commit a fraud. So far, the people at Tata Indicom, inspite of all the problems that they pose, don't seem to have tried anything that's so blatantly criminal but how long will that last? What if some new employee turns up who isn't so conscientious and has no qualms about misusing the company technology?
Apart from these dangers, there are such ridiculous hassles to go through while dealing with these companies. Efficiency of the private sector my foot, some of these private companies are so incompetent that I actually wish I was dealing with a Public Sector firm instead. Take Tata Indicom for example. As I mentioned above, these guys take three or four days to reply to a simple complaint about a downed connection when in theory, they should have taken not more than 24 hours. Every time I call up their Customer Service Centre to bitch about their connection, their answer is always the same "Our lines in your area have come down because a car crashed into one of the poles. We will have it up again shortly" Nowadays I've become so tired of that excuse that I don't even have the strength to ask them why so many cars every month have such a fatal obsession for Tata Indicom cables (which are supposed to be underground by the way). And every blue moon when they do turn up at our house, the connection magically goes up again only to crash the same evening. Incredible.
All I can say is that these incidents only convince that India's booming economy is a farce. Oh sure, our companies are growing at 350,000% every second and acquiring every half-wit foreign firm that comes their way but they are yet to learn how to behave professionally. No courtesy or respect for privacy. No concern about customer security. Not the slightest bit of thought for customer service and welfare. When will Indian companies think of these?
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