Each year I visit India and each year I have to purchase validity and time for my mobile phone service. I purchased lifetime validity in Nov. 2007 by paying 3-4 times the amount I would have for 3 month validity only to find that the provider had lied to me. I was told while leaving the country in December that I would need to use the phone once every three months. This is after I had informed the provider that I stay inthe US. On returning to the US I found that there is no compatible network. So even if I was willing to spend extra on the call, there was no way I could make the call.

I visited India again at the end of 2008. I have now purhcased Lifetime Validity for a considerable sum (over Rs.1000/-) and I need a guarantee from someone in the company that it will work. I was told that I do not need to make calls every three months to keep this validity and my mobile number. However, given the track record of Airtel I have no trust inthe company and I will switch to Vodafone this year if I have been scammed again.

Airtel seems to have a large network of lousy and untrustworthy shopkeepers and who hawk the service but who are either ignorant or cheats or a combination of both and there is no vigilance by the company on how customers are being scammed as long as statistics point to an increase in subscribers -- an easy goal in an overpopulated country like India.

I need to know if my lifetime validity will work when I return to India this November so I can retain the same mobile number.