| Living in a democratic country brings with it the right to free expression. The people of india have realized their rights and are ready to fight if they do not have access to the services they deserve. The national consumer help line is a body that facilitates the consumers to lodge complaints against companies that do not provide proper services to them. |
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 If you think of approaching the court to nail a company for substandard service is the last thing to cross an average consumers mind, think again.
Since its inception this March, the National Consumer Help line (NCH), a joint venture of the Delhi University and the consumer affairs department, has been receiving calls from consumers across India seeking relief for defective services. Nearly 300 Mumbaikars called up NCH in August and 361 in September.
The help line, which works as a counseling service, informs consumers about their rights and guides them to a range of organisations, including industry-level bodies, chambers of commerce, regulators and government departments. As a last option, the person is advised to present the matter before a consumer forum.
A case in point is city pediatrician Raju Khubchandani. When he logged on to a travel website to book tickets for his Detroit-based son, before his transaction could be completed, a window popped up on screen saying, "valid data not entered." Khubchandani entered the valid data and clicked on the "Pay now" icon. He did this four times, yet the transaction failed.
But he was in for a shock. The front end of the software was not recording his transaction but the back end had been debiting his credit card for Rs 65,715, each time he clicked on the "pay now" icon to confirm the transaction. In fact, 30 minutes later, he received a call from his banker to confirm whether he had made a transaction worth Rs 2,60,860 with Northwest Airlines.
Khubchandani immediately called up the websites call centre to lodge a complaint with the manager. The manager apologized for the mistake and offered a discount of Rs 2,000.
But the discount did little to ease his mental agony. The doctor held the website responsible for its action and called the National Consumer Help line (NCH) in Delhi: "I approached NCH. They advised me on the course of action and I have decided to lodge a complaint against the company."
Rita Kumar (name changed), too, decided to contact NCH when in spite of repeated requests to a gas company, she was wrongly billed on her gas connection.
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