As per the telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), telecom subscribers of Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices Airtel and BSNL in some circles have reported maximum discrepancies in their phone bills.
TRAI's guideline suggests that, not more than 0.1% of the total bills raised by a company in a service area should be disputed.
However, 0.18% postpaid customers of Vodafone customers in Andhra Pradesh, 0.33% in Assam and 0.24% in North East telecom service area, disputed their bills as per TRAI's latest report on 'Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators for June-September 2014.' On the other hand, 0.19% of postpaid customers of Idea in Andhra Pradesh, 0.11% in Gujarat and 0.13% in Kerala, complaint about their phone bills.
"Over 1% of prepaid customers of state-run BSNL raised issues in Kolkata and 0.24% in West Bengal raised issue regarding their bills," the report said.
"If a customer raises any dispute regarding the bill, companies must resolve the issue within four to six weeks to 100 percent satisfaction of the customer," according to TRAI guidelines.
Interestingly, State-run BSNL was unable to resolve the billing dispute within 4four weeks in 10 out of 22 telecom circles in the country which include Bihar, Kolkata, North East, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh West and West Bengal.
Similarly, there were no records of BSNL available for Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.
In the meantime, private Telecom service provider Tata Teleservices failed to resolve the billing dispute in four service areas like Mumbai and Maharashtra for both CDMA and GSM services, Kolkata for CDMA and in Tamil Nadu for GSM services.
In addition, Airtel and BSNL failed to refund charges levied wrongly on consumers within TRAI benchmark of 1 week from the date complaint is resolved.
"Airtel was found breaching the guidelines on the same in Delhi and Chennai, the state-run firm BSNL credited money back into customer's account across six service areas - Bihar, Chennai, Kolkata, North East, UP West and Bengal," it added.
"TRAI did not have BSNL report on refund status of wrongly charged money in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan," TRAI said in its report.
