Confronting with Mobile Woes

By K Ramanathan Iyer

I never thought that having a mobile phone would create such a ruckus in my life. To have efficient and cheaper communication we (I and my better half) had gone for two connections from the same service provider and to certain extent it proved to be a beneficial option for us.

But along with the connection there comes ‘head-aches’ like unsolicited calls and SMSs. At least we both get 20 SMSs a day each, both from the company and private people. Sometime we even get calls/SMSs offering a particular ring tone after midnight.

We get calls from banks as well asking for personal loans, credit cards, car loans or house loans. Most of the time the callers would belong to fairer sex (with sweet voice), but being a happily married and having the first name of Raja Dasrath’s elder son, these things hardly matter to me, but the persistent unwanted calls and SMSs really put me off.

Piqued by this I approached the company and enquired whether there was any way that I could stop these irritants. The officials from the company promptly diverted me towards their website and asked me to register in their ‘do not disturb’ section.

Thinking that our ordeal would see an end, we promptly visited the site and after a few minutes search, we located the said section of the website. I was asked to register our numbers, that we promptly did and pressed the “enter” button fast. Alas, a message poped out informing us that our request would be processed in 45 days time telling us indirectly that till then you would be getting these messages.

One month passed since then, but the unwanted calls and SMSs are unabated into my mobile set and we do not know what to do. From our friends, who have connections from different providers, we came to know that they too get a daily dose of such irritants regularly.

I do not know that whether it’s a shear coincidence or a planned strategy of the company, from the day on, the frequency of SMSs has increased. Sometime, we get it from the company itself informing their various schemes and sometime from some private parties informing about tuitions, English speaking course, etc.

If this not enough, one I reach office, I am being bombarded with phone calls from private banks asking me to take up their credit cards free of cost or a sweet voice pleading me to take up an insurance-cum-investment plan.

The funny part is that we both get messages almost simultaneously. So, we have adopted a policy to compare both the messages before opening it. If both are from the same person, we simply press the delete button. Same with the case of the calls we get.

But jokes apart, these unsolicited messages make one sick. This is nothing but invasion into one’s personal space. Though legal provisions are there to tackle such problems, companies fleece subscribers even if they opt to block such messages and calls.

I really wonder who provide these numbers to banks and insurance companies. Surely, there may be a nexus between the banks/insurance companies with the mobile service providers. That means our data has not been kept confidential by them. It’s nothing but a breach of trust.

Once I asked the caller, that from where they get numbers. A young innocent voice replied that they have all numbers stored in their “date base”.

Can any one give solution to lessen my agony?

Though I do not want to name the mobile company directly, I can give you a clue that the company belongs to a sibling of one of the world’s richest person and son of the great business tycoon of India.

Yes, you guessed it.