The corporate looters! WARID TELECOM

Sometimes I feel all corrupt, thieves and looters from all over the world have came down and settled here, making my country an uglier place to live.

The sad part is everyone is looting in their own way. One of them has guns and they go on streets, put gun on victim’s head and take away everything they have. The other flicks away money when nobody is noticing. Then there are few, who spend millions of rupees feeding corrupt politicians hoping that someday they would come into power and will multiply their initial investment by hundreds of times.

I have been a victim too. One of the leading telecom companies by the name of Warid Telecom is busy cheating and looting money from its so-called ‘valued’ customers. I have been using the network for over 9 years now and I have never made any deferment in payments. My payment record has always been a decent one. Around 8 months back I switched my plan from prepaid to postpaid.

Things were well; I had no trouble with Warid until this month, when I was charged with an amount much higher to my credit limit.

I am using Warid 250 postpaid package plan and as per the policy I am assigned a credit limit of Rs. 1,500. Exceeding this amount means temporary disconnection of my plan. Until this month I regularly received Warid’s notification on 70% usage (amount exceeding PKR. 1050) and 90% usage (amount exceeding PKR. 1350).

On 8^th November without any prior intimation my connection was disconnected. As per routine, without inquiring about my bill I paid PKR 1500 through my ATM. Despite prompt payment, my connection remained blocked and upon inquiring I was told that my payable amount was PKR. 4000 and as I have made a payment of PKR 1500, the amount outstanding is PKR 2500.

I will cut the long story short; during past 10 days I presented my case on every forum – their helpline, their facebook page, their customer service center and also e-mailing @ postpaidsupport@waridtel.com. Much to my aggravation, they all agreed that I am being victimized and it is because of their system error that my connection wasn’t disconnected at reaching credit limit BUT there is nothing they could do. They don’t have authority and ultimately I have to pay the amount.

Unfortunately, in our country the rule is simple, “the bigger the criminal – the better will be served”. I would hate to make this payment to Warid BUT to my misfortune, I cannot afford to change my number. Firstly, I don’t want to have any default payments to my name regardless of the reasons. Secondly, I am using it for more than 9 years, everyone in my circle has this number and it would be a big hassle for me to redistribute my new number. After a lot of consideration, I have decided to make the payment but soon I will be switching to a much better network.

The supervisor at Service Center (Sharah-e-Faisal) informed me that I am not the only one who is being charged like this; and this is the reason why I am sharing with this post. I am also attaching few cuttings from my itemized bill to bolster my argument.

Ironically, the credit limit is PKR 1,500 and I am charged PKR 4,004.48.

P.S. I was using my calling service, text messaging, edge and other value added services with the impression in mind that I won’t be charged more than PKR. 1,500

I have been charged for using GPRS (I had 1gb package activated) and its record hasn’t been shown to me. Not that I disagree the usage but I was under impression that I have not crossed my assigned limit.