Airtel Says Service Deactivation Message Was Sent Wrongly to Some Users

Airtel on Friday wrongly informed some of its customers about the deactivation of their services and discontinuation of outgoing calls on their numbers. The telco had sent an SMS message asking the affected customers to recharge their accounts to continue their outgoing calls. However, Airtel later clarified to the users that the message was sent due to a technical error. Gadgets 360 reached out to the operator for clarity on the issue and was informed that it occurred specifically for some users in the Delhi region and didn't impact Airtel customers in other parts of the country.

“Your outgoing services have been discontinued. To continue, Click airtel.in/prepaid-recharge or dial *121*51#,” Airtel had said in the original text message.

Hours after its circulation, the operator generated a clarification saying that the wrong message about the deactivation of services might have been received due to a technical problem. It also asked the affected customers to ignore the content of the message and apologised for the inconvenience caused.

Airtel informed Gadgets 360 that the message was sent due to a system error to some of its customers in the Delhi circle and was followed up with the clarification. However, we were able to confirm that some of the affected users had not received the clarification message till the time of publishing this story. The operator clarified to its users reaching out on social media, though.

Hi Vijay, due to a technical error at our end you may have received a wrong SMS regarding deactivation of services. Please ignore the same. We are sorry for the inconvenience cause. Thank you, Amit https://t.co/2G23qpsqlP

According to the recent data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Airtel had 348.29 million wireless subscribers across India in May, of which 16.13 million were from Delhi.

Last month, Airtel revised its postpaid plans and brought new offerings for corporate users. It also discontinued the Rs. 49 prepaid recharge option and replaced that with the Rs. 79 as the most affordable monthly recharge pack.