Go Mobile for Life at Rs. 999
Airtel seem to have gone berserk, and launched a new prepaid scheme wherein you have to pay Rs. 999 and you get a cellular connection for life! I thought that there must be a (lot of) catch, so I called up Airtel’s customer care and grilled them for answers, and it seems like there aren’t many strings attached. CLIP is included and there’s no recurring payment for it, so effectively, if you don’t make outgoing calls, it’ll be free for life !
Future recharging will not enforce a validity period on the connection, but you must use Airtel’s EasyCharge facility only. As I’m not an Airtel user, I’m not familiar with the difference between normal recharging and EasyCharge, so if someone can enlighten me, they’re most welcome.
As for me, I’m wondering why I committed two years of rental in advance for a Hutch postpaid, but hey, at least I get free HutchWorld GPRS (for now).
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Hutch have their own reply to this but I doubt CLIP is included:
http://www.hutch.in/prepaid/offers_forever.asp
You mean that after a connection is bought for Rs.999, nothing else is to be paid for lifetime & I get incoming calls? Surely there’s gonna be a catch, they’ll require me to recharge every X period of time else they won’t make much from this. Hutch requires you to recharge every 6 months. Now that might be ok, a recharge every 6 months, even every 2-3 months would do. And what about the validity of the recharge?
Something, I mean a lot of things are missing from here!! I think I’ll call those guys & ask them!!
No, that’s why I was surprised ! I asked them all the above and more, but they said it’s Rs. 999 come hell or high water !
I hope it was’nt a lie. Besides, Hutch have more hidden costs than Airtel.
In fact, from what I read today, existing prepaid numbers can be converted to this plan as well ! Any future recharges will give full talktime.
No it isn’t a lie, I saw their banners all over the place announcing a free for life mobile connection for Rs.999. Its just that I’ve a strong feeling that something is missing that’s not being told. Like, they’ll for sure have a time period in which you’ll have to get atleast 1 recharge, otherwise they don’t stand to make any money after the initial Rs.999. :think:
But that’s the thing. I asked them all I could about any possible recharge commitments, enforcement of validity on recharge, etc. but the answer was always no !
Here are the ugly conditions:
* MRP: Rs. 999
* Talk time: Rs. 25
* Tariff: All Local calls: 1.99 Rs / min, All STD calls: 2.99 Rs. / min.
* Lifetime Incoming after recharging once with Rs. 999 Recharge coupon
* Validity for Lifetime is subject to change in regulatory or license conditions in the future.
* Connection will be permanently deactivated if either of the following events i.e no incoming / outgoing / recharge happens for any continuous period of 6 months.
* On all subsequent recharge, Full Talk time, (excluding Taxes) will be applicable on all paper Recharge coupons and selective denominations of Easy charge
* This Voucher cannot be coupled with any other Promotional scheme / Tariff packs
* Consumer will loose the existing benefits of Free Airtime / Free SMS etc (e.g. Nokia Bundle etc) after recharging with this coupon.
well, that really stinks, that you’ve to recharge first for Rs.999 & then they can change the offer anytime, meaning that if they’ve got enough people onboard & after 7-8 months they feel its not earning them much, they will change the offer, making idiots of those who shelled out Rs.1998 for their crap!! No thanks, I’ll stick with my regular pre-paid!! :tdown:
its good only for those who feel adventurous!!