Vodafone fined Rs 30,000 for not helping its customer who lost his phone

HYDERABAD: Vodafone company was asked to pay Rs 30,000 by Telangana consumer court as compensation for deficiency of services towards their customer. The court also asked to pay another amount of Rs 5,000 towards costs of litigation.

A Praveen Kumar, a Vodafone user, complained that the company had failed to help him generate his e-bills and call history while he had lost his phone. He claimed that he applied for e-bills of January 2020, February 2020 and March 2020 along with his call history as he had lost his phone.

The complainant said that the company had sent the information through a password-protected pdf in his email. He said that as the password did not work, he requested for a hard copy but there was no response. As the Vodafone company paid deaf ears to his repeated requests, the complainant registered a case seeking justice, he said.

Vodafone, defending itself, said that the details requested by the customer were sent in a PDF format with detailed instructions to open the file. The passwords were set automatically without human intervention and therefore there is no reason that it would not work, they said.

The court, in its verdict, said that the user when raised complaints about the password not working, neither the customer care nor the main office helped the complainant. The court said that the deficiency of service of the telecom company had caused great mental agony and hardship to the complainant and therefore it is liable for a compensation.