The Indian telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) may have put an end to the long spree of freebies from Reliance Jio. But the new telecom operator is yet to give up luring its customers.
India’s top two telecom operator Airtel and Vodafone India had raised a complaint with TRAI against Reliance Jio for continuing the Jio Summer Surprise offer. Both incumbent telecom operators have asked the regulator to take suitable action for violation of its orders.
In case you missed, just a few days ago TRAI asked Reliance Jio to withdraw the Jio Summer Surprise offer. To which the operator responded saying that it will comply with the regulator’s advice as soon as ‘operationally feasible‘, over the next few days. That simple technical wording allowed the operator to continue luring its subscribers to recharge for the offer.
“We are surprised that Reliance Jio is openly continuing with its Summer Special offer despite the same being declared ab initio void by the Trai,” said an Airtel spokesperson to ET. “In addition, Reliance Jio is running an aggressive campaign via social media and on-ground as well as digital flyers encouraging customers and channel partners to subscribe and recharge under the scheme,” the statement added.
“For past three days, it has been promoting and luring customers to quickly recharge to avail the benefits of a non-compliant offer and also asking its retailers to communicate the same. In our view, such promotion of the customers on an offer held as non-compliant is a blatant violation and disregard of Trai’s advisory,” according to a complaint filed with the regulator by Vodafone India.
According to both companies, the continuation of Jio Summer Surprise offer is a breach of the regulator’s instruction. Also, the operators say that extra day extension provided by Jio is invalid for all customers who have recharged after the TRAI order came into effect on 6th April 2017.
Well, Reliance Jio has responded back to this allegation saying “We are pained to note such continued and deliberate attempts by competitors to create unnecessary confusion in the market,”.
At the time of writing this article, Reliance Jio has not yet ‘completely’ withdrawn the Jio Summer Surprise offer. You could still join Jio Prime and recharge for minimum Rs 303 prime plan to get extra 3 months of free complementary service.