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Checks and balances [Gulf Daily News (Bahrain)]
[April 05, 2014]

Checks and balances [Gulf Daily News (Bahrain)]


(Gulf Daily News (Bahrain) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) After a repeated string of SMS messages threatening to cut my mobile phone service, I finally discover that there is an option to have the bill issued every 15th of the month. A piece of information that could have prevented me (and many other loyal users, I'm sure) from being insulted every end of the month a day before the salary gets deposited in the bank. Never known to have missed paying any overdue amount, that occult piece of information that I was able to squeeze out of a call agent after a 45-minute complaint session at night came out a bit late! And I already had my mind set on giving "Number Portability" a try by shifting over to a more lucrative network.



There seems to be a problem with this provider telling us customers what's best for us just for them to make easy killing month after month. Or rather, there could be a problem with the way they train their customer service agents? And I say this because I am frustrated to have discovered that after paying all my one-year contract instalments for a Samsung Note 2 smart phone in an impeccably timed manner by the end of February this year, they continued to charge me the same fee for two months in a row (including the instalment fee) on the same exact package simply because I "did not personally visit one of their branches" to manually downgrade my package!!! But when I asked for an explanation on what "downgrade" was supposed to mean, all I understood was that customers who are lucky enough would receive an automatic SMS message notifying them that they would be charged less for more benefits (minutes/bandwidth). And now I feel so unlucky to have received that SMS message two months late! I do not know what book of business ethics the firm goes by, or how much supposed respect they have for customers who are patient as I have been, especially after suffering from horrible 3G/H+ speeds for well over three months now (apparently due to eternal upgrades to their network). A phone conversation with another call agent turned out to be even more frustrating! I was misinformed that I had 8GB and would not be charged for exceeding that limit. But after I decided to repeat what I was told just to confirm it with the agent, he clumsily double-checked his system and then said that he was sorry for giving me bad information and that I only had 6 GB and would be charged for exceeding it! Now ... to me it feels like a trial and jury situation whenever I come in contact with my provider.

Even the "Send B to 4554" SMS report is inaccurate and out-dated in my opinion and I encourage all users to triple-check their balances (through website/call agent/even the branch!) because quite sadly, all sources of information have been proven to be (deliberately or not?) inaccurate.


Adel A R Jamal (c) 2014 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company

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