Postal charges
I registered my company with Hamriyah Free Zone Authority, Sharjah, on November 15, 2009 and was charged an amount of Dh770 towards PO Box charges.
Due to the procedural exigencies, the keys of the PO Box were handed over to me by the concerned authorities in the second week of January, 2010. At that point in time, I was told that I will not be required to pay the renewal charges for the year 2010 as the PO Box had been handed over to me in the year itself.
To my dismay I stopped receiving bills and other documents through the PO Box in March, 2010.
On visiting the Emirates Post office situated in the Hamriyah Free Zone, I was informed that the service has been discontinued for non-payment. I was told that as per the records available with Emirates Post the PO Box was allocated to my company on December 28, 2009 and as such I was liable to pay for the year 2009 and renew in the year 2010 as well. Since I had failed to renew my subscription in time for the year 2010, I was also liable to pay a penal fine.
In my opinion the whole episode was unjust since the last three days of December 2009 were officially declared holidays and Emirates Postal authorities would have been well aware of the fact that my company would not be in any position to have access to the said PO Box during this period.
Despite this, I was made to pay PO Box renewal fee of Dh500 and an additional amount of Dh500 as penalty for late payment. Hence I ended up paying Dh1,000 for no apparent fault of mine.
It is not the loss of time, business opportunity and hard-earned money which pains me as the loss of trust and belief that just practices are being followed.
From Mr Rajan Sabharwal
Sharjah
Editor’s note: The complaint was forwarded to Emirates Post for comments. However, despite repeated reminders, its management failed to respond.
Life interrupted
The residents of Gardens, Jebel Ali, have been suffering for two months as etisalat is fixing fibre boxes and converting copper cabling to fibre.
They have hired contractors who do not contact the residents for appointments, just ring the bell and come in.
They have disconnected the copper cable without testing if their new technology is working.
We, and even my next door neighbour, were not informed about the fibre optics and we lost our telephone connection. The landline works on random occasions. The internet gets disconnected while we are using it. This is disrupting our life. We have children at home with the maid and cannot contact them.
The contractors are so careless — they randomly disturb other cables such as for the televisions and we are left with no connection in our houses and have to call the service providers and pay a bill for Dh150 for each visit.
We lodge a complaint with etisalat and a technician comes a day later, looks around, restarts the fibre box, which is when the line starts working. Then, he leaves.
I have had to lodge complaints almost every time after the technician visits.
Also at times the technician does not come to fix the issues and the issue is closed as ‘resolved'. The issue can then not be reopened and a new complaint has to be registered again.
The landline has a continuous echo and it is inconvenient to use. We can hardly hear the person on the other side.
From Ms Rupinder Kaur
Dubai
Editor’s note: The complaint was sent to the management of etisalat. However, despite
repeated reminders they failed to respond.
A faulty metre
I have a complaint against the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (Sewa). The issue is regarding a surprisingly high bill in the month of January, for Dh3,767.01. An abnormal bill considering our average monthly charge is around Dh500.
Under the column adjustment there is a value of Dh3,400 mentioned. On taking up the matter with the caretakers of the building, we were told that it was due to a faulty metre.
Is this charge justified, as the metre reading is supposed to be taken every month? Why are we getting penalised for it? Is there any way we can take up the matter with the concerned authorities?
I would appreciate if Gulf News could help us address this issue, as we want to avoid such instances in the future.
This is a large amount considering there is only one bread-earner in the family. As an avid reader of Gulf News I hope that you could help us in this matter.
From Mr Sean D’Costa
Sharjah
The management of Sewa responds: Regarding your complaint, could you please visit the nearest Sewa branch?
Mr D'Costa responds: I had visited the Sewa office in Al Taawun, Sharjah, and this is what I found out.
I met with somebody and explained the issue to him. He verified from the computer and said that the electricity metre was apparently not working from March, 2008 until February, 2010 and hence the department decided to charge me the amount for the entire period.
He also explained that the department does not have a large technical workforce and hence with more than a million homes in Sharjah, it takes time to rectify faulty metres.
Basically, he said that nothing could be done. On the other hand as a customer, why should I suffer due to faulty metres and Sewa's inability to rectify the same on time? It is rather disappointing.
I do not know what to do now, as it seems that we, the customers, have to bear the brunt.
Editor’s note: The complaint was forwarded to Sewa management for comments. However, despite repeated reminders, they failed to respond.
If you have similar consumer complaints, send them to us at readers@gulfnews.com
