A broadband user has taken down a satirical website targeting Bharti Airtel after the company issued an apology and a refund, following a month-long service disruption that affected his connection.
The user said the disruption lasted for a full month and affected his office setup, which relied on an Airtel static IP. He said he built the website as a response to the outage and the company's customer support experience.
The episode highlights how service complaints can escalate into public criticism when users turn to online platforms to document their experience and attract wider attention.
In a Reddit post, the user, identified as “anir0y”, wrote: “Yes, airtelblack.com is mine. Here's the full story.” He said the issue persisted despite having three internet service providers, as his setup depended on Airtel's static IP. He added that the project aimed to mirror the disruption he faced.
The website gained traction online and drew attention from Airtel's corporate office. The user said the company then issued a formal apology, refunded one month of service and requested that the website be taken down. He agreed to shut it after that.
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The website is set to expire on June 19, 2026. The user said it could return if new complaints are submitted with evidence. “I built an automation: If anyone sends a real Airtel horror story with proper evidence to wesuck@airtelblack.com, the LLMs will verify it and bring the site back to life — with their new fuckup added to the wall of shame,” he wrote. He added that Airtel gave him 30 days of disruption and he was “returning three times the pain”.
The website carried a banner that read, “Airtel Black- The Customer Experience | A Satirical Tribute.” It featured lines such as “Your issue has been resolved ignored,” “Premium Services, Premium Neglect,” “Our engineer will visit shortly (shortly=between now and never),” and “We value your feedback (we do not value your time).”
It also mocked complaint handling through features such as “Ticket Roulette”, where issues receive new IDs and are closed without a fix, and criticised the Airtel Thanks app for closing complaints without resolution. A section titled “Site of Shame” questioned claims of high resolution rates by showing tickets marked closed without outcomes.
Airtel's Response
A letter attributed to the company's CEO, shared on the website, said: “Fixing things is a separate department, and they're on lunch.” It added, “We don't close tickets without resolving issues; we resolve tickets and then the issues persist independently. These are two separate workflows. Our resolution rate is 99.7%. Our fix rate is a trade secret.”
In another note, the letter stated: “I want to clarify that ‘up to' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Think of it like saying ‘I can eat up to 47 pizzas.' Technically true. Practically meaningless. Legally airtight.”
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