I purchased a mobile phone in March 2006 after a long and continuous pestering and nagging from my friends and relatives. I quickly got an Airtel connection. Everything went on smoothly till March 2007 after which Airtel started showing its marketing prowess. I feel they have got a new marketing manager or must have hired the services of a b-grade marketing agency. It has started a new way of communicating its offers to its customers- Giving them a call during anytime. What was limited to sms transformed into phone calls during nights, office hours etc. A lady with a sweet voice (of course recorded and system generated) starts with saying Airtel Presents......

The company wakes me during nights, makes me jump out of the busy traffic and come out of meetings, spoils my happy outings with my friends, etc. Unfortunately, my phone doesn't have any facility to block calls from certain numbers as it is a medium range phone. I tried to call the number back but it is always engaged. Uh! some person is always under the attack. The tagline of Airtel is Express Yourself but it is the company that is expressing itself more than what we or I do.

This is in addition to the torture caused by banks, credit card companies, etc.

These days, every time a call comes from a new number starting with 9949, I presume it is from Airtel and just cut it without hesitation. My gut feeling is if somebody wants to contact me, I feel he/she would dial again.

Lucky, this system doesn't have AI installed.