Mumbai: Someone’s stealing our customers with false claims, says Airtel

The woman called Bharti Airtel customers between July and August this year. Representation pic

The telecom war in the city has now reached the police station. The Mumbai police are looking for an unidentified woman who allegedly stole customer data from Bharti Airtel and convinced 419 customers to switch to another network by giving false information about an increased plan rate. As a result, Bharti Airtel has suffered a loss of Rs 4,83,000.

The Bangur Nagar Link Road police in Goregaon have registered an FIR against the unknown woman and have initiated an investigation into the matter. Bharti Airtel reported that a majority of the customers who got the call from the woman use the Rs 999 and Rs 1,499 postpaid plans.

The complainant, Mukesh Rambacchan Yadav, 45, who has been working as a manager with Bharti Airtel for the past 14 years, received a complaint on July 17 from a customer named Rahul Jain. Jain informed the company that he had received a call from an unknown woman who claimed that the cost of his postpaid plan would be increased the following month and advised him to switch to another network.

Jain recorded the conversation and submitted the audio to Bharti Airtel's customer care. Upon receiving the audio, Bharti Airtel contacted Jain to discuss the incident and obtained a copy of the recording on a pen drive as evidence.

Subsequently, Bharti Airtel launched an investigation and sought assistance from the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) office. Through MNP, Bharti Airtel discovered multiple complaints linked to mobile numbers that had switched from Bharti Airtel to another network. In each case, an unknown woman had called the customers, providing false information about upcoming increases in Bharti Airtel's postpaid plan rates.

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A police officer stated, "Most of the customers who got the call from the woman used the Rs 999 and Rs 1,499 plans. They were contacted between July and August 2023. In all, 419 genuine Airtel customers changed their network during this period after receiving calls from the woman impersonating a Bharti Airtel company representative. Due to this, Bharti Airtel faced a loss of Rs 4,83,000."

"Airtel officials filed a complaint with us, reporting that an unknown woman had stolen customer data and deceived them into switching networks by providing false information about increased rates in postpaid plans. We have registered an FIR under Sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 66 (computer related offences) and 43(b) (damage to computer, computer system, etc) of the Information Technology Act. We are trying to trace the woman," said the police officer.

mid-day contacted Yadav, Bharti Airtel's manager, but he refused to comment and said that his superior would contact mid-day. However, at the time of going to press, mid-day did not receive any response from Bharti Airtel's representatives.

July 17
Day Jain complained to Bharti Airtel