Mast kalandar near Brigade millenium

How to get phone number to place order at Mast Kalandar near Brigade Millenium?

1. Search for "Mast kalandar near Brigade millenium" and Google will take you their Facebook which declares that they have opened 50th store near Millenium. And dud, it stops there no number or contact details. 
2. Then go to their website http://www.mastkalandar.com/contact.html and call 080-41102316 somebody picks up call on saturday afternoon after a while. He tells I am from corporate and I discuss at length explaining that I want the store number near Millenium. He confidently gives me a number 08041104644.
3. I call 08041104644 and person says it will take an hour if I order now and 30 minutes if I order at 6:30 PM. I checked location with him because 1 hour was a very long time when Dominoes comes within 30 minutes. He said there a store close to place I stay and gives me 08065690568.
4. I call 08065690568 to my delight that finally I got the Brigade Millenium store. She asked to hold on , saying she needs to check my number if I had placed order before and then the call dropped. 
5. Now I do redial. 
6. This time no hello, directly asking for my number, I give in she takes the detail and asks me nearest landmark. Its a 1000 people apartment complex, why would it need a nearest landmark.
7. I ask what do I have and she tells all combos and stuff. I got confused. I said hold let me check if they had online menu. They instead had a pdf uploaded on their website beside contact us form. Downloading pdf felt like visiting the government site and every other link is a pdf. 
8. I download pdf and felt more comfortable placing order now. 
9. They have 30% off if you are in Bangalore so go for it if you love them.

I love their food so putting effort to give this feedback :)

FOXed by Spectranet

Last monday I was lured into going in for the attractive "the spectranet zerobill plan" which promised 12-16 Mbps of speed and 16GB of monthly volume.

On tuesday got a verification call, followed by cable guys coming and fixing cables. The optin fibre cables. The router guy came in late on wednesday evening and after several hours the internet was finally live at around 9 PM. It was also my daughter's birthday but the guy insisted that he was around and would quickly finish this up.

On thursday the speed promise broke. The connectivity was giving around 0.1Mbps, both upload and download. I called up their call center early in the morning at 5 AM and they took the complaint.

Then it was followed by series of calls and technicians and what they called as engineers and today 10 days after the process of experience the FOX was begun I have not recieved refund of the upfront INR 2200 nor is the connection cancelled.

Sample of call conversations

1. I heard you have slow speed issues. Yes, It will be rectified. Our engineer will visit and look into it. 
2. I am so and so from Spectranet, is your issue fixed. Our team said it has been handled well. 
3. Your laptop wifi drivers are not updated. Duh!
4. You will not get more than  12 Mbps. 
5. ...

Sample of visits

1. One guy kept warming the chair for over an hour and then I thought I should watch whats happening. The so called engineer was typing ip-config instead on ipconfig on windows command line. 
2. One said the speed for wifi drops by 50%.
3. Backend said your plan allows 10-12 Mbps
4. ...

The wifi was giving "Connection timeout" for wifi 10 feet away. 

If you need occasional pleasure of 12 Mbps at random time of day and you have spare 2000 rupees then I would recommend you for Spectranet otherwise advise them to focus on the core strength which is laying cable.

They are prompt in receiving the calls but poor on delivery, beating BSNL in quality of service.

Do you know somebody who can help me get refund from the might/lies of Spectranet?

Ola cabs lynching money from waiting time

Yesterday booked OLA cab to pick up and drop father-in-law from Yeshwantpur to JP Nagar 7th phase. The booking had a waiting time of more than a minute before being attended by somebody. The booking was done in about 3 minutes. When I asked to explain for the fair detail the OLA booking agent said for compact car its INR 13 per kilometers.

The train came at 8PM. The cab was booked for 7:30 PM. At 7:30PM I got a message stating there's a waiting charge of INR 2 per minute. The driver finally picked up at around 8:10PM.

The cab fare came to INR 461. Going by the fare details provided in the booking call it would convert to a distance of around 35KM. I called back the OLA cab call center. They said there had been a waiting time of  more than a hour. I was stumped. I said it was only around 40 mins. He said no it adds at traffic signals and all.

Additionally, there was another guy sitting along side driver. The driver said he was his brother. So, when you get into OLA get ready to meet driver's family too.

So the distance travelled was 24KM. So the fare would come around INR 312 but we actually ended up paying INR 461. A difference of INR 150.

OLA cabs business model is based on waiting time and they took 32% of the cab fare on waiting ALONE. That is ridiculous.

So my recommendation would be use OLA cab service only when there is no waiting time expected in your travel in the bangalore city. That seems to be the time between 11PM to 6AM in morning. Otherwise the good old Auto rickshaw seems better or its also time to connect to your friendly neighbourhood cabwallahs..

India intelligence failure

In the wake of recent spot fixing scandals here are few observations.

The guilty should also be charged with facilitating mass murder and terrorist attacks?

Why?

Some points to ponder

Who is controlling and giving intelligence support to Dawood Gang?

Pakistan intelligence agency like the infamous ISI.

Who is undertaking terrorist attacks in India?

ISI trained terrorist through smuggling routes and contacts in India.

Who is financing terrorist attacks in India?

Indian businessmen, bollywood and sportsmen?

How?

Who fixes the match?

Dawood gang.

Who puts the money in the betting?

Indian businessmen and Bollywood.

Who wins the bets in either case?

Dawood gang representatives.

Who facilitates the show?

 Indian sportsperson especially cricket players and Indian bookies and Indian Bollywood personals. They do it for little amounts like they say chiller and women.

What  happens with the money won?

Finance terrorist activities. 

What do the terrorist do?

Destroy Indian social fabric. Unnecessary loss of Indians and their property.

So this is a masterstroke and gullible Indians are prodded to kill their own. Its unfortunate they dont realize it yet.

Therefore, the charges on these players and bookies  should be escalated to financing terrorist attacks and killing the belief and passion of Indians in their sports and daily life.

BTW - what is Indian Intelligence doing? I don't know if it even exists.  Let me know if you get across a document proof of they destroying the social fabric of our enemies.

The war is not on the border. Its in the mind. Its creating a generation of hopeless and despair Indians.

BSNL Broadband disservce

It is said that when BSNL works it works but when it fails you are left clueless in the world. Once again BSNL broadband did the broadband fiasco and this time I will cancel it. Although if you search on Google for "cancel BSNL broadband connection" you will not find a single link which will help you do so. If you know the procedure do share in the comments.


Friday 17th May 2013
The broadband service stops. I called the local exchange at 5:17 PM. Heres the response

Its 5:17PM. There is no one. I will try. Its time to leave....

Saturday 18th May 2013
The local telephone exchange does not work. Tried 1504 and other BSNL helpline numbers. The call simply drops. There is option to raise complaint to the machine and it gives you a ticket number. Beyond that there is no way you can connect to their so called customer service. Its pathetic.

Sunday 18th May 2013
Same as saturday

Monday 19th May 2013
I tried started calling local telephone exchange 08026850003 and 08026851199 from 9:30AM onwards. I guessed the staff will not come in by 10,even if they did they would not lift phone for the customer calls. I got through at 10:35AM.

There is some problem with mains. We were not working on Saturday. We came to know of problem today only. It will be repaired. 

I

Its been three days without internet and you had no clue. Tell me how to cancel the broadband connection.

The call went dead. Utter disregard to the poor customer whose bills and taxes pay the salary of the BSNL staff. I tried to call again but to no avail.

I checked the phone bill , online and there is no mention of the procedure to cancel the BSNL broadband connection. All the money spent on their IT budgets/tenders simply is a wishy-washy affair. The IT integrators who render service do a third grade job and the staff is still not jolted out of the colonial mindset.

Disgusted I have decided to try alternative in Tata Docomo. The guy said there is 90% probability that the technician will come today to fix the connection. When I called the sales agent whats the progress, he said it will be done tomorrow. I asked him the

Do you understand 90% probability?

 He

I am submitting the form and it will be done today. 

Lets see how Tata Docomo broadband service fares the days to come. Meanwhile, if you know how to cancel BSNL broadband services , do let me know. Thank you.

ICICI home loan Part payment experience

This is the story of a bank, its employees and a customer.

There is Lady 1 who sits beside Lady 2 at Jayanagar IVth block branch of ICICI bank on the ground floor.

Recently ICICI put across an ad which shows exclusive service to privileged customer. So feeling privileged I venture into the branch, a confident and happy walk, not knowing that in an hour the walk out would be similar to running away exasperated.

What service I wanted to avail today?
Make part payment of home loan.

I walk in and Lady 1 looks at me and gestures me to sit down. I state my need and she reconfirms "Is it prepayment or part payment". I part the remark again.

Based on previous experience, I enquire "If I make part payment now will it reflect from the next EMI". There was some confusion in last experience so I had sent email using ICICI online portal. Yes, there is no way you can create any other request beyond what is available on the site, still I dared to use a previous reply on another query to reply to my bank manager. "I have made part payment in first week of feb and it will reflect in the EMI from april, so I lose almost 2 months of interest".

Generally, part payments are not small amounts and so may get some good interest. There was a call from somebody from bank based on my email. I asked him to raise a complaint to address my concern, he prompty forgot after the call. But he said if you make payment after 15th of the month it gets reflected in next month EMI. If you make it before 15th of the month it gets reflected in next to next month EMI. I said it was crazy and he said that is how it is.

So, this time around I went armed with this know how. Lady 1 said it is always next to next month EMI. I was surprised. I said I wanted to complaint, she gave me a white sheet. She said a form needed to be filled for part payment and said another challan need to be filled if cheque is from another branch. She got busy in call.

Another gentleman employee was hovering around so I asked him and he promptly got me the form. He said he did not know where the challan was there. Lady 2 called a boy and asked him to get photocopy of complaint and some challan forms from first floor. Yes, the privileged customer section has more space for customers to hang around and less for utilities to fasten his queries.

The boy went, stopped over security for some chit chat. Lady 1 also disappeared with some guys into another section of bank. I was waiting, knowing not what to do next.

About 20 minutes later I enquired Lady 2 who sits beside Lady 1 and was serving customers that "Did Lady 1 went for lunch?" Last time around Lady 2 was on lunch when I was waiting for her to come and complete my request.

She said "No". I said I needed a challan. She promptly game me one from her side of drawer. Another surprise. If I had not asked her she would not have given me the challan till end of time. I filled the challan.

Lady 1 and the boy appeared with photocopy of complaint and some challan forms. I said I had already filled one and got it from other lady, she gave a blank look.

I said "How will I track the complaint?". She was clueless, now she asked her friend Lady 2. Lady 2 was in her elements, she said the branch cannot take complaint, nor can it send on behalf of customer.
Lady 1 had given be received marked photocopy. Lady2 said "You gave customer received letter without knowing that branch cannot raise complaint, say sorry to him."

Lady 1 must have tears in some corner of her eye and she sat still. I get uncomfortable when ladies sit still in silence. It means either you are going to get back or there would be deluge of tears. Here it was unlikely that I would get so I quickly stood and rushed out after reconfirming that the forms filled and challan were alright.