Provides wrong & fraudulent information
SHILLONG: Customers of Longkmie Gas Agency (LGA) are made to run from pillar to post to book their LPG refill cylinders.
The agency has recently informed its customers that only SMS booking will be accepted as counter and phone bookings have been done away with. But the buyers are crying foul over this move since LGA has given them “wrong” and “fraudulent” information regarding SMS booking, while misleading and creating utter confusion and inconveniences to them.
The LGA customers showed this daily an IVRS mobile number, 9089024365. They were asked to dial on the number and register themselves following which a registration number would be issued via SMS. They were told that the registration number must be used for booking refill cylinders through SMS. But this Idea Cellular number went kaput after a few days as it was giving repetitive abrupt information without catering to the purpose of the customers.
When these customers contacted LGA, they were given a customer service cell number (0361-2520673) of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Guwahati Area Office, which turned out to be the BSNL Directory Enquire Service.
Later, LGA gave an emergency call centre number (1906). After calling on the number, the buyers came to know that it was dealing with only LPG leakage-related issues and the voice on the other side asked the customers to dial a toll free number 18002333555, which appeared to be the helpline number of the oil industry in the country.
Here too, the customers had to dial several times but the IVRS continued to repeat unnecessarily indicating that it was not functioning.
The four numbers provided by LGA to its customers could not help them in registration for SMS booking and only added to their harassment. These buyers, while alleging that they were misled, also said none of the LGA employees were conversant with any kind of information leading to the customers’ predicament.
The LGA employees after talking to each other passed the buck on IOC and said they have given these numbers being provided by the oil corporation. Nonetheless, the customers of LGA are in a peculiar situation here since on one hand they are unable to take their refill deliveries because the gas agency is only insisting on SMS booking whereas on the other hand the number for refill booking has crammed. Furious customers are of the opinion that LGA should be pulled to a court of law.