I brought new iPad from Croma Stores 2 weeks back. In the store a Tata Docomo guy lured me offering 10 GB free. But just before he activation, he came back with a worried smile and said “sorry sir, free offer is no longer available”. Another customer next to me too got same smile. I choose to go ahead with decent 5 GB pre-paid plan, to avoid delay in experiencing new iPad. Recharge at store did not happend, shop boy said, it will be active in another 10 minutes sir. Trusting him, I decided to recharge it from home. New iPad, without a issue connected to DOCOMO 3G, and I was able to browse without even recharging it. Recharge was easy and straight forward from DOCOMO website.
Issues started thereafter, logging into DOCOMO MyAccount website welcome me with different name and address, it also showed me a outstanding balance of Rs. 49000. Reaching DOCOMO customer service on phone is most painful experience I ever had. I believed what Ranbir Kapoor gave advertisement on calling customer care, press 1 for english, 2 for .. press 1 for pre-paid 2 for…. press 1 for CDMA press 2 for GSM … press 1 for Existing Customer. It is no different from another customer care service. At last when I able to speak to executive, voice was so feeble, I could not able to make out anything out what he was saying. One such conversation I had with DOCOMO customer care is here,
CE > Hello sir, My name is…., How can..
ME> Hi, I’m Harsha, I have some questions on online payments I made..
CE> Sure sir, tell me
ME> I purchased new 3G connection for my iPad.. in croma,.. I’m able to see DOCOMO network is showing up, I made recharge of Rs… but when I login I see different name, and negative balance,
CE> Sure sir, tell me your number,
ME>.. (I gave my number)
CE> Sir, There is no problem with your account, there is …….
(too low volume to listen, as we experience call on voip over bad internet connection, I just assumed/reconstructed thats what he was saying.. )
ME> Sorry, I cannot hear what you are saying, can you be a bit louder
CE> Sir, There is no problem …..
ME> Still, I cannot hear you complete…
CE > Just a minute sir,
puts me back into infinite music loop.. I took it lightly .. and continue to hold line and listening to same music samples for more than 30 minutes… (how crazy am I?)
Unfortunately this repeated again, Customer Care executive might not liked my voice, he just told me to hold on the line.. I was again listening to DOCOMO music for some time.. no one picked up the call..
Two days later, 3G Network on iPad went down, I waited and tried different options to connect back, but remained unsuccessful. I decided call up CC, this time again another Customer Care executive was in “only speak, no listen mode”, I’m was not sure what he was trying to explain me.. he was trying explain me something.. but I could not able to make head and tail out of his speech. Loosing my patience, just hung up the phone.
Later, I decided to visit Tata DOCOMO Customer Care Center present in Kormangala. When I went there, token got generated for me, about +35 in queue. Most of the numbers were called upon for service desk, were not present. I asked guy sitting next to me, whats your number?, he replied 10 from the current, and is been waiting from last 45 minutes. Then I did mind calculation, It would round about 2 hours for my turn. But anyway, I sat, started listening to all complaints people have brought. About 1 hour later, I got my turn. At desk, guy was cool and said, (1) connection details are falsely entered to get your sim card activated, you need to submit fresh document for correction, (2) Your account has no negative balance, and got rightly charged with prepaid amount from online payment (3) For 3G not working, SIM might required to be restarted, please eject the sim and insert again – which apparently worked 
(4) For Hotspot Setup, he took me inside rest cabins and introduced me to another executive, he able to get Hotspot thing working. I was more than happy!! with that.
After a week, fourth time to CC, I tried to login to Tata DOCOMO online website, my multiple login attempts failed, login id got blocked. I tried to speak to CC, believe me, Only thing the guy was kept me telling was “My Account is not enabled for 3G, I cannot do anything, others cannot do anything”. I said I was able to login before, he said “may be” but “My Account not enabled for 3G,…”. I asked him to transfer call to someone else, he said not possible to transfer call. After I tried re-explain what I’m looking for & before I completed, my line was transferred to “infinite music session”.
Today, I before writting this blog, I tried to login to website, login rejected, tried to call up CC, only reply I got is “My Account service is not available for 3G”, no idea when it will be back.
On iPad, as there is no way to see how much data is consumed, like in GSM USSD messages, which is really painful to live with.
