Wateen Broadband !

Dear reader, welcome to another one of my experiences. A big name indeed, Wateen telecom, a middle eastern company! now don't pretend the first thing that came to your mind after knowing or already knowing that Wateen comes from the oil ladden region, is MONEY MONEY AND MORE MONEY, and it has a strong financial backing.
The broadband services how ever are less than satisfactory. Or so have been my expereince , may be some where out there is one lucky person who may be giving wateen a standing ovation for it's broadband services but I certainly will not. What I know from my first hand experience with the hyped product is .....
It was the year 2008 in its infancy... I see Wateen telecom's large advetisement the paper, claims of superb, reliable internet service ...'THE TRUE BROADBAND' !!! well well well I was seduced truely. So there I was standing at one of their franchises called 'Honest Communications' at chundrigar road, Karachi. Please do not be fooled by their name they are really really far away from their name , for those of you who know urdu well a very common day saying goes like ....."baatein karooron ki ....dukaan pakooron ki" !!.
Well , I had made up my mind so the ill-trained staff at honest communications could not disuade me from buying their 512 kbps package. Paid the money and was anxious enough to bring home their CPE (customer premises equipment) home all by myself instead of waiting for their technician who they said will take one day to come over to my place and deploy the equipment. So i decided to do it on my own, when I got back home , I found they had not given me the network wire or the phone wire ! anyway so I bought wire and set up the connection to find out that my user name had not been activated and will take atleast 1 day ....so much for me bringing everything home I still had to wait then.
So I waited but that 1-day time turned into 4-days before my user name got activated and I could finally surf the internet thru their connection. The CPE was no doubt a quality product because it was made by Motorolla, but their internet service(wateen's) is not at all reliable. The connection drops off , you might see the CPE in-sync with the server but you wont be able to connect or surf or chat. This could happen any time and for any duration , the customer support number 111-365-111 had only one thing to say to me...... this is happeing because your usage area is falling out of our coverage area ! Goodness why did not Wateen's franchise people tell me that before ?
You know why ? because the franchise people told me their represetative had been to my area and confirmed that we had coverage there. This is only one example of how out of touch the service center and the UAN-111365111 people are when it comes to Wateens support.
After all that pain and frustration , I decided to return the connection and get my refund for the CPE, so I called the UAN again , they told me all I have to do is to take the device back to the franchise where I bought it , they will give me a form to be filled and then give me a receipt, money will then be returned within 2 weeks.
But Wateen's tradition of pinching the customer on every possible oppurtunity is still alive ! Keep in mind what the UAN people said. I went to the franchise (Honest cummunications! oh how honest they are !!!!) , only to face another episode of anger and frustration when they told me , they can't return the device until I get a particular code number from the UAN !!!! Damn ! I said to myself , is this how a large group of companies should be treating their customers , pushing them around from one place to another just like our government offices. I told them the UAN said I onnly need to bring you back the device. I showed them my original sales receipt and my NIC ....see people see this is me I bought it and I wana return it now ! ...to no avail. They said come back on the first day of week next week to decide whats to happen. One more painful episode one more mouthful of frustration and one more oath to myself to not trust Wateen Telecom anymore !.
My dear readers, friends, foes ,everyone be your own guide and spend your money where you are sure it's only going to buy you what you want instead of frustration.


Salam Alaik.