Vendor Reply Letter: Fill & Download for Free

I had received an internship offer working with the legal department of Philips India Limited at their office in Cyber City, Gurgaon (now called Gurugram) during January of 2016.I used to commute daily from Green Park Metro to Sikandarpur Metro. I would transfer to Rapid Metro to reach Phase III and route back to return home (Rapid Metro is a private entity and is not a part of DMRC).The route to the office and back to my room would cost me around Rs. 78.This went smoothly for a couple of weeks, and I developed a habit of checking the balance on my Metro card each time I checked out of the automatic gates.On one occasion, while I was returning from the office, I decided to recharge my Metro card, even though I clearly remembered that I had sufficient balance to return. But, I would be short of balance for the next trip to the office in the morning, and it would have been better to recharge at that moment than to spend time standing in the queue the next morning when everybody was in a hurry.I proceeded towards one of the recharge counters and handed over my Metro card and a Rs. 500 note for recharge. The interesting part begins here.The vendor took my card, placed it over the NFC equipment, and proceeded to recharge my card, but took longer than usual.I noticed that he lifted the card on more than two occasions from the equipment and placed it back.I also noticed that after a couple more attempts, he dropped my card on the floor and bowed down to pick the card up.I considered it to be a normal course and did not pay much heed to it. Afterward, he handed me the card, along with the recharge receipt.I noticed that the new balance was Rs. 490 after adjusting the negative balance.I immediately asked the vendor how it was possible that the balance was 490 and not 500 plus? He replied that it was none of his concern how much balance was there on the card, and that he had done his job.I always checked the balance on my card during check out at the exit gate, and I recalled that I had a balance of Rs. 76 on my card.I told the vendor that the card which he handed me was not my card.He replied that it was mine and enquired, in an undaunted tone, where he could have gotten another card from.I told him that I clearly remembered my card having an existing balance of Rs. 76, and that after the recharge, it ought to have shown a balance of Rs. 576. He paid no heed to my explanation, and instructed me, in a rugged manner, to stand away from the counter, as I was obstructing the queue.I went towards the equipment just beside the counter to check my balance, as well as my transaction history. The equipment showed that I had been to Pragati Maidan at 3:30 pm, and had checked out from Rapid Metro Phase III at 5:50 pm, while I actually was in the office during that period. I returned back to the counter and yelled at the vendor for giving me another card.I remembered that during the recharge, he had dropped my card on one instance and realized that he must have exchanged my card with some other card, which had a negative balance, and handed the other card to me.I asked him to hand me the complaint register so I could file a complaint, which he was reluctant to give. I called the station controller, who came outside and asked me what my question was. I explained it all to him.He ridiculed me by asking, ‘How do you remember that you had Rs. 76 in your card. Are you a computer?’I then realized this was going nowhere, and asked him to give me the complaint register.He replied that they did not have any complaint register, and I would have to file a complaint online.I found it unusual that such a huge entity could not provide a complaint register at a Metro station.I told the controller that I needed to talk to his senior, to which he replied that he was the senior at the station. I insisted that he hand me the register, which he later did, and gave the excuse that he was a new recruit, hence, he had no idea about it. Meanwhile, the vendor handed my actual card and said that the card got exchanged by mistake.I was tired of the drama, and proceeded to write my complaint. I asked the name of the vendor, and the controllers said that it was Amar. I grew suspicious by the way he replied (he stammered) and asked for the vendor’s ID card. The name on the ID card was Ashwin.In the complaint, I also added the name of the station controller as an accessory.The next day, I received a call from Rapid Metro Services regarding the complaint I had filed.The following actions were taken based on the CCTV footage, which recorded the act:The original card was recharged for RS. 500.I also got to keep the exchanged card with RS. 490 balance.My original card was recharged for Rs. 1000 as compensationThe ticket vendor, as well as the station controller, were handed their termination letters.EDIT:Thanks to Pritesh Kumar for mentioning another malpractice, wherein they generally charge more for tickets if you are unaware of the fare, which many of the commuters aren’t aware of.

The previous answers have extensively covered a lot of popularly known points, and some have also covered some lesser-known but nonetheless, important aspects. I will try to give some perspectives (may be repeated, but whatever!) from my years as a toddler and a schoolkid from your next-door middle class family during the 1990s era.Experiences in a small Indian town (1990 - 1997):I grew up in the town of Purulia in West Bengal. We did not have a telephone in our house until late 1995. In fact, ours was the first family in a radius of 2–3 km to accomplish that coveted feat! Before that, we depended solely on postcards, telegrams and inland letters. I remember some of my best times writing to my cousins and maternal grandparents in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in clumsy handwriting, and equally joyous feelings reading the reply letters! For those too young to know inland letters, here is what it is like (Courtesy Google Images):2. Our house was (still is) pretty big where I lived with my parents, grandparents, my grandmother’s bachelor brother (until his demise in 1992), housekeeper, and the eastern wing rented out to a family of four- an elderly woman and her three sons. We learned to respect our family members, and treat those around you as extended family. We never needed to ask permission before visiting anybody’s house. This was an open-door policy and helped us bond with our neighbours, friends better, and they became our extended family. We genuinely loved joint families, and nuclear families were rare.3. Combining the above points, we had to rely solely on letters from our relatives informing when they would come to visit (Durga Puja, Diwali etc.). Sometimes, the letters would arrive after our relatives would arrive at our doorstep! Imagine our surprises and the laughs we shared!4. As kids, we learned the value of every rupee. There used to be an ice cream vendor outside our school, and I wanted so badly to have one sometime (the concept of pocket money was as alien as a mobile phone). So on the day of my last exam in Class 3, I asked my mother for some money for ice cream. She told me to take only the required amount from her table drawer. An ice cream used to cost anywhere from Rs. 1.50 to Rs. 2 (in 1996), but I took a Rs. 10 note as I was in a hurry. After the exams, I joined the other kids in the rush, and I was ecstatic to buy a vanilla-mango ice cream for a whopping Rs. 2! But in my excitement, I forgot to collect the change of Rs. 8 from the vendor hand happily came home, and as expected, my happiness was short-lived. I will never forget the sound thrashing I received from my mother and grandmother that day! Since then, I have been quite thrifty.5. As Balaji Viswanathan (பாலாஜி விஸ்வநாதன்) Sir rightly pointed out, the 90s was a sensational decade in terms of media. We learned the use of electronic media and yet not lose touch with printed media. My father brought home a tape recorder from Singapore in 1984 and a VCR from Japan in 1991. The colour TV entered our home in 1990. Even then, our entertainment was limited to Doordarshan but believe me, that channel instilled a love for our motherland in a way 250 digital HD channels today never could. We grew up watching the Flag hoisting, parades, and a number of patriotic songs which makes me proud of my country and gave me goosebumps. The newsreaders were dignified and neutral, and the lack of extensive media meant political discussions were not as heated and analyzed to death as they are today. People had minimum expectations and were not impatient. We witnessed good quality rib-tickling comedy shows (Dekh Bhai Dekh, Shreeman Shrimati etc.) whose stature remains unmatched. We would visit the local video shop and rent classic movies to watch on our VCR. And when that happened, there would be at least 20 people including our extended family (neighbours) who would come to watch. We watched the silver screen birth and journey of actors like Shah Rukh Khan on their journey to stardom. We were also introduced to Hollywood, as we would sit watching some of the English movies (without understanding much) with our mouths hanging, imagining life in a country that was halfway round the world! Say what you will, but the 1990s Bollywood gave the best music, lyrics, singers and songs with emotions and feelings!6. One hour every evening was compulsorily devoted to playing with friends. No compromises there. Gully cricket outside our house, and hide-and seek in our garden remains fond memories as we learned some good hiding places (by climbing up a tree, for instance)! On rainy days, we sat indoor and played ludo, snakes n ladders, the marble-game BRAINVITA (if you don’t know what it is, I recommend you play it), or made paper boats or planes.7. We were a part of the last generation to throng single-screen theaters to catch a glimpse of our Bollywood idol hunks or secretly nurture a crush on a beauty queen on the silver screen. Those theaters had none of the glamour of malls, and were minus the inflated ticket and food prices. Sadly, single screen theaters are dwindling and I think it is safe to say that there are more tigers in the wild than single screen theaters in India!Experiences in a big city (1997 onwards)1. Imagine my disappointment when in March 1997, my parents, my brother and I shifted to Mumbai, leaving our small town life behind us. But there was some excitement too! The first and most important thing (according to me) I was introduced to, was cable TV. And by that, I mean CARTOON NETWORK! I got introduced to some EPIC shows. Sadly, post-2004, CN is a mere shadow of what it used to be.(Courtesy: Google Images)2. Got access to a plethora of books in our school library and learned the importance of reading and learned to respect books equivalent to God. I attribute my improvement in English wholeheartedly to many of those books, the love and respect of which I have till today. This was part of my carefully maintained book collection till 2009:3. Obsession with sports (read cricket) reached a peak in the 1990s. We were among the youngest audience of the 1996 World cup, the 1998 desert storm in Sharjah, and redefined the meaning of India-Pakistan rivalry in 1999 when Anil Kumble bagged a tenner, much to our pride!4. Being the big city that it is, Mumbai had greater access to electronic media than most towns those days. We learned the use of portable tape recorders in the form of Walkmans (which were cool before iPods were made), portable video games (e.g. TETRIS), were privy to the world of computers (learned languages like LOGO and BASIC, which are all but extinct today) and their growing power and influence over the digital world. We were proud to store information in a 5MB floppy disk and call it our “secret disk”!These were some points I remembered and felt worth mentioning.Yeah, a wondrous decade, the 1990s. Good time to be growing up!

I was a supervisor in a support call center one time. It was a normal day, until one of my female agents got off the phone and went into a conference room, crying uncontrollably. I went to her and asked her what was wrong.Apparently some guy called in angry about his cellular phone, which was the product we supported, and he went ballistic because he had a woman on the phone, and proceeded to call her a four-letter word that starts with a C that I won’t type here. It turns out she had been a victim of sexual assault, and her attacker used that word repeatedly during the attack, and she had a flashback and panic attack.I WAS FURIOUS! So I called our client’s account manager (we were outsourced to another vendor), and told him all about it.“Do you have this guy’s IMEI number?” That’s the unique identifying number for every GSM handset, kind of like the VIN on your car.I gave it to him, and Jim replied, “I’ll have his goddamned headset blacklisted and it’ll never work again. If he calls back, which I know he will, you give him my direct number and I’ll tell him where he can put that phone.”I let my employee go home. I told her, “You come back when you’re ready; it’s fine. I’ll approve your timesheet.”She said, thank you, but asked if I was worried about getting in trouble.I said, “Nope. They can fire me if they want to. Nobody on my floor is gonna get treated like that.”I did tell my manager though, and he was fine with that.