Wednesday 9 December 2009

*Terms And Conditions Apply.

Heard that phrase many times, many places. On soaps that makes your skin softer within weeks, Terms and Conditiions Applyon beauty creams which promises to make you fair within 3 days, on coupons which says you are going to win a Limo or something, on contracts for reality shows with million rupee prize money, on applications for mobile/phone/internet/cable connections, while installing software, etc etc. But usually, nobody is bothered about it. Whatever be the terms and conditions, we need the product. But sometimes, our carelessness might rob of our money and time. You can get the proof from the Gulf News column, Reader's Issues Solved. So many people who have not gone through the '*terms and conditions apply' phrase, later write into newspapers to get their problems solved. But even then, sometimes they have no success and they feel cheated.

I too had an issue regarding this phrase. When I was at home in India, I applied for a IDEA mobile connection. When I got the connection, I searched their site to look for a internet connection, and found out a suitable scheme for it. Rs 9/- per day for unlimited time and data transfer. I was so excited about it, that I never bothered about reading their '*terms and conditions'. I called them, and they sent me the settings for the scheme, which I installed in my mobile phone. I had recharged my phone with Rs 20/-, and the phone was used for browsing only. I never called anyone with the IDEA sim card. After two days, they had deducted Rs 18/- from my phone, as per the scheme. On the third day I was not able to browse using the phone. Ok. May be because I have no enough credit. But on the fourth day, when I checked my credit it was Rs -7. I was not ale to connect to the network, but still they have deducted the money! Is that fair? Either we should be ale to connect to the network and browse the web, or they should not deduct the money. Well, the problem doesn't end here. I recharged my phone with rupees seven hundred something on the next day. I browsed the web for three hours that day and then it got disconnected. I tried to reconnect it again and again, but in vain. When I checked the balance credit money on my phone, it was Rs 1/-. Where have the rest of my seven hundred gone? I called the customer care and talked to them. At first, they replied they will look into it. No reply from them for two days. By the third day, with my balance credit -17, I called them again. They asked me to call another number. I called that number. They told me that if my balance goes below zero, my scheme of Rs 9/- per day will be automatically changed into another scheme, with 2 paisa or something per kilo byte. Why didn't they tell me this at first? Isn't this cheating? I don't know if this term or condition is written on their site because I never went into their site again, for I never wanted to see the word IDEA.

So next time you get into anything like this, please go through the terms and conditions of that product.

1 comment:

  1. This is the worse thing. It is stealing, and oyu almost have to get a lawyer to go through even basis contracts. Who can afford that. Unfortunately, it's easy to get ambushed by all the deals etc, but yeah, it's a big problem.

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