My brother in law wanted to find out about a legal advisor today. He only had their address and the names of two lawyers in the organization. He asked me if I could find out their phone numbers.
This firm is at Free Press House, Nariman Point and I will be going there this evening. So I thought I will go personally and check. But then, it would be too late and the offices may be closed. So I could send my office boy to go and find out!
Then I thought I could use the “2888 8888” service to find out! So I called them up. Now they are a phone based information provider. They can provide phone numbers of only organizations they have in their database. They did not know anything about the people I wanted to find out.
Next, I checked up MTNL website. They have an online directory service to find phone numbers. None of the queries I made produce any results. I don’t know if they even have this service working!
So I called up MTNL telephonic service that finds out numbers for you. (call 197). The call center executive was very courteous and willing to help. She actually did many permutations to find the numbers. But alas, nothing worked.
She then gave me the numbers of Ask Me services (2411 1111), so I called them up. They did not have the details either. But they could provide me the phone numbers of 3 other lawyer firms in the same area.
So I called up those three firms to find out if they know any one of the lawyers I was looking for. The receptionists were a bit apprehensive of talking to a stranger who was asking not for their services, but a competitor’s! Nonetheless, they did do their best.
Dad suggested looking up the printed Yellow Pages next. So he started searching in there. He looked up one name, but then got tired of flipping through the yellow pages.
Then I thought I should look up the websites of the yellow pages and search there. So I did. But then, I thought let me try Google! I was not expecting the law firm to have a website or to find anything online.
But I was proved wrong! And I was happy about it! I searched for the address of the firm and it landed me straight to a page not only with the full address, but also phone numbers and the details about the company – including the bio’s of the partners! Superb!
Martindale.com is the website I found their info from. I spent some time on the site after getting the info, and found it very interesting!
Next time you are looking for a lawyer, you know where to go! 😉
> Next time you are looking for a lawyer, you know where to go!
Yeah, – http://justfuckinggoogleit.com 😉
My personal experience tells me that MTNL is India’s telecom nightmare!
Where private operators like Reliance and Tata Indicom provide you with a new connection within hours, the speed of getting a new connection from MTNL depends solely on the persistence of your follow-ups and your willingness to pay baksheesh. And yes, you need to find time and personally go to your local telephone exchange as MTNL Customer Service Department DOES NOT entertain any letters or telephone calls!
I applied for MTNL Triband NU Plan in December’05. 4 LONG MONTHS have passed and I am STILL WAITING for that installation day to arrive. Please read more about my personal saga with nightmarish MTNL at my personal blog: http://www.vishaltayal.com.
In the last one week I have made three visits to your Borivli telephone exchange for getting a Dolphin post paid connection:
Visit no 1. The online system for allocating the telephone numbers was out of order, so no progress could be made. The real reason later told by an insider was that everything was fine with the system but the employees want to go home so from 19.15 hrs onwards they refuse to accept any customer.
Visit no 2. The concerned lady was absent for the day and others did not accept the form as they did not like to interfere in her work.
Visit no 3. At last somebody accepted the form, but said that telephone bill cannot be taken as a resident proof.
I am a subscriber to MTNL landline and Triband service. I went ahead to subscribe the Dolphin service even when I was advised against it by my family members.
Alas frustrated I quietly tore the form and on my way back home got an Airtel form which seems the best option.
If you donot accept your own telephone bill as residential proof then, why do you mention page 3 of the form that telephone bill is accepted as residential proof. The reason given to me was that you are unable to verify the address of the subscriber and only government issued documents are accepted. Airtel has accepted your bill as a residential proof without even murmuring a word.
I am now having second thoughts on continuing with your triband and land connection also I feel like a fool accepting shoody services when the private companies seem to be offering a much better service without charging anything extra.
MTNL is govt. company and all govt. organizations have this thing in their blood. I also tired with all govt. organizations, semi govt. organizations and even some big private organizations who are providing services in telecom sector like Hutch and Airtel both.
Our Govt. really needs young staff who are really want to do something not just want to enjoy govt. duty benefits and nothing in terms of service.
They have policies while they need to provide services to us, but they dont worry about anything while they need to make a deal with us or to get money from us.
If you wont pay the bill on due date, they can immediately cut your connection but If they wont able to pay you deposit back on time, they can have very nice reasons like “Sir, we are having such company policies and which take atleast 45 days of time”. So we need to wait for 45 days to get our own money back from them.
India is having very bright future if Govt. think about this, and not just think but take some actions about this.
The broadband services provided by MTNL are just superb
even the private operators in india do not provide very good service.the complaint of my tata landline phone with internet connection has not been attended forthe last one month.even they have not responded to the legal notice of my lawyer .things are not yet that bad in mtnl although they have to fasten their belts to give competition to good private operators.
I think all the Government employees are pretty cool in handling customer complaints. since they are enjoying all the benefits of the govet job , they don’t get too much hyper or excited about this customer satisfaction thing. even their bosses are not concerned about making them work because most of them are approaching their retirement age and wish to spend their remaining days with MTNL peacefully. So no one seems to be ‘worked up’. as someone said earlier, the ministry should think of getting some young staff in otherwise this ‘cool’ attitude will cost MTNL dear