If the phonecalls are to be believed, Vijai Singh Yadav, has a non-bailable warrant issued against him, is the target of an income tax raid and his house is up for auction. Yadav, 38, is not an offender of any sort, you won’t find his name on any “most wanted” list, but the cellphone company, the services of which he stopped using two-and-a-half years ago, would have you believe otherwise.

“Ever since I stopped using the service provider, the company has been calling on those numbers that appeared frequently on my bill and spreading lies about me”, Yadav, who signed up with them in 2002 says.

According to the initial terms, he had to pay Rs 10,000 to the service provider, Rs 4,000 for the sim, Rs 2,000 for STD facilities and an additional Rs 4,000 for ISD facilities. This money was to be held as a deposit with the company, to be refunded after he stopped using the same.

After three years, when Yadav decided to shift cities, he discontinued use of the phone.

“My credit limit was Rs 10,000, which the company had as security deposit. So when my usage reached Rs 9,000 the company cut off services. I called them up to say they could deduct the service charges from the deposit and return the balance to me, which they refused”, he explains.

Instead company executives told him he would have to pay the bill and only then would his deposit be refunded.

But this refund was to be a long process and the company was unwilling to give Yadav a date by which he could expect it. 

“Since I had heard from many friends that they never got back their deposits, I decided not to pay. After all it does not make sense to pay and then get the money back”, he points out.

Then the phonecalls started. Every other day an alarmed friend or relative would phone to say he had got a call (always from a different number) about some trouble that was to befall Yadav. Once the company even sent to his house some recovery agents under the guise of income tax inspectors.

“But the funniest part is when they call up my home saying they are calling from a courier service and have a delivery for me, for which they need my address,” he laughs.

Repeated letters to the company to sort out the matter have yielded no response. “I even sent a legal notice across, but nothing came out of it. It is shameful that they should try to threaten me when I do not owe them any money to begin with,” he says. Meanwhile the phone continues to ring.