Do not celebrate
I think the recent catch of an ocean sunfish should not be celebrated as something good (“The Sunfish shines bright”, Gulf News, March 17). Hunting for the fish, also known as Mola mola, is banned in Europe and surely so because it’s a humble creature and does not appear everywhere in the ocean. I suggest the local authorities advise fishermen not to catch this species and if it gets caught in the net, they must release it. I did some research and found out that the fish is a delicacy in the Far East and it’s just showing up in the UAE waters. If people know about the price it can fetch, I am afraid they will start killing it wherever they find it. This is a rare fish and we must protect it.
From Mr Bilal Hamed
Sharjah

Free of plastic
I’m calling on everybody as well as the authorities to avoid the use of plastic bags in the UAE. Please, let us start now and not wait for the problem to become bigger. We should apply the rules as early as possible. While walking around, you will notice plastic bags everywhere, but once you put them all together, you will see how tragic that amount of garbage would be. It can cause a lot of damage to the planet and all the living creatures. I hope I get support on my mission to keep the UAE free of plastic.
From Ms Marthy M.
UAE

Confident individuals
Though it may be hard to believe but we are still operating in a society where certain segments consider racism to be a part of life (“Focus: Racism”, Gulf News, March 19). Racism is ubiquitous and pervasive, but off-limits to discussion. The seeds of racism are most often planted at home. The media provides the sun and rain that further cultivates the growth of these racist and prejudiced beginnings. Problem comes when people are courteous towards others but receive nothing but contempt in return. Tourism is an intrinsic part of a country’s economy and racism can prove detrimental. One needs to be a confident individual to survive among racists.
From Ms Shivani Singh
Dubai

The human divide
As a child, I was told by my grandmother that I couldn’t be friends with other children in the neighbourhood as they supposedly belonged to a “lower class”. For the child in me, that division meant poverty as they were dependent on our morsels. But I came to know the world in a more focused way, when a classmate of mine refused to be my friend because of her grandmother’s thought that non-vegetarians were to be treated as untouchables. It is all in the mind! For me, humans come first, whatever caste they belong to. My eyes see only the human factor. That’s probably the reason why I try to instil liberal values into my own child’s thinking.
From Ms Agniyah Shaikh
Sharjah

Strange behaviour
Recently, I had a strange experience in a taxi in Abu Dhabi. Few moments after I stepped into the taxi, the driver started enquiring about my personal life. Being new to the city, I didn’t want to answer his questions. But, he persisted and tried to obtain more information from me. I spoke very less and then he asked my name. This disturbed me and I asked him to stop the taxi — it was just a few paces from my destination. I paid him the fare and left. Recently, there was news regarding taxis driven by women. I don’t see such taxis around. This is making women as well as teenage girls vulnerable to weird behaviour from taxi drivers. I have heard of several strange experiences from my friends, too. The transport authority should cut down on the taxis driven by males and ensure that there are more taxis driven by women to safeguard girls, women and children.
From Ms Nithya Raghavan
Abu Dhabi

The real world
The media generally thrives on sensationalism, electrified with staggering thrill and hair-raising melodramatic action. In fact global media is responsible for enticing and entrapping young viewers in the cobweb of [bad] content, which drives them away from the hard core of real life. A pragmatic, positive and enlightened global media is a sine qua non for a healthy and dynamic world society.
From Mr Nazir Ahmad Qazi
Abu Dhabi

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Readers' complaints

Bank clearance
I am in the process of changing my bank from HSBC to Emirates NBD and have been dealing with HSBC for two months without any progression. Two months is a ridiculously long time to process, isn’t it? I went to an HSBC branch many a times trying to collect my clearance letter. I called them several times about the status and everybody provided different answers. Once they said that I could collect the clearance letter for my personal loan or car loan. But then someone else said that I couldn’t collect it because it hadn’t been cleared yet. Why am I wasting my time and energy calling and visiting the branch for confirmation? As long as I don’t get my clearance letter from HSBC, I cannot change my bank account at my work records. They’ve stopped all the benefits and I can’t even withdraw money from the ATM. The only winner here is Emirates NBD and I want to thank them for being supportive to me by clearing everything immediately.
From Mr Faisal van Duuren
Sharjah

Mr Ahmad Othman, manager corporate communications, HSBC, responds:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for bringing Mr Duuren’s case to our attention. At the outset, please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience Mr Duuren might have experienced.
We have reviewed the issues raised and would like to advise you the following: Mr Duuren made a request for a “No Liability” letter two months ago. However, at that time, his liability with the bank was not yet cleared.
He was advised to make a full payment and accordingly request a liability letter.
The liability was cleared on January 11, but no request has been found on our system since then.

Also, Mr Duuren does not recall the name of the employee he dealt with regarding his request. Allow me to share with you that our Service Level Agreement for such requests is five working days and we ensure the utmost attention is given to processing applications on a daily basis and this process is monitored to provide the best level of service to our customers.
The customer has been contacted and we have confirmed that he has received the “No Liability” letter. Thank you once again for bringing this matter to our attention and assuring you that we take customer feedback seriously and investigate all issues thoroughly to ensure a fair outcome to all our customers and that we address root causes, if any.

Mr Duuren responds:
As HSBC mentioned it was indeed 2 months ago that I requested the letter and of course my liability with the bank was not cleared yet due to the lack of communication and professional understanding of the HSBC. This is a serious matter and very inconvenient for the client. The issue could be ended in 2 weeks instead of 2 months. I cannot imagine how many times I went to the branch to clear everything and get the letter.
In the meantime HSBC starts charging on every transfer. Overall, not a strong feedback comment from HSBC, which stated that it was their failure to handle the matter. The damage is done already, the account is closed and I am very happy with my new bank now.

Mr Othman responds:
We have further reviewed the issues raised and would like to assure you that we take all customer feedback as an opportunity to revisit our processes and accordingly put measures in place to improve our services.

Delayed flights
Recently, I travelled to India and made a booking to return the next day to join work on time. I took a local airline from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, India to catch an Emirates flight to Dubai, so that I could reach Dubai and then drive to Abu Dhabi, which is where I live. Unfortunately, the earlier flight was delayed for more than an hour and by the time I reached the Mumbai check-in counter for Emirates, they said they could not issue a boarding card since the time was up. Of course, they hadn’t closed the counter yet.
I had no option but to take another Emirates flight paying more, a difference of more than Rs3,000 (Dh241.70), in order to reach work on time. The same incident repeated itself and the Emirates flight was delayed — it arrived 45 minutes late to Dubai, due to which I could not go to work and lost a day’s salary.
Had I known that it gets delayed, I would have come comfortably by another flight without paying extra. When I claimed compensation from Emirates, they regretted that they were not responsible for the flight delays due to operational reasons, which I could not understand. Furthermore, they are not entertaining further correspondence on this issue.
From Mr Syed Hafeez Hussain
Abu Dhabi

Emirates’ Customer Affairs responds:
We regret the inconvenience Mr Hussain experienced when travelling with Emirates in October 2009.
In the first instance Mr Hussain was unable to connect to flight EK509 from Mumbai to Dubai, on October 24, 2009, due to the delayed arrival of his Spice Jet flight SG206 from Ahmedabad.
Unfortunately Mr Hussain’s inbound flight SG206 was not booked in conjunction with his Emirates flight, as only flights included within the fare basis shown on an Emirates ticket, that is a fare quoted and paid for all of the sectors regardless of the carrier, are considered conjunction tickets. Under these circumstances, Emirates is unable to assume liability for the misconnection.

Secondly, Emirates regrets the 22-minute delay that Mr Hussain experienced when travelling to Dubai on flight EK501. On-time departures are an integral part of the Emirates product. However, there are occasions when flights are delayed due to circumstances beyond our control. Whilst we make every effort to transport passengers according to planned schedules, sometimes operational necessities/technical difficulties cause changes to these schedules.
We thank Mr Hussain for his understanding, and for allowing us to respond.

Mr Hussain responds:
Thank you [Gulf News] for your efforts in liaising with Emirates. As for the second point, I am still not convinced with the statement that the “delay occurred due to circumstances beyond our control.” Any delay will be beyond your control, for which passengers must be insured to pay compensation for loss. If any fatal accident occurs to any passenger during the flight, the circumstances are beyond their control, are they not insured? This is a similar case and since we rely on Emirates for its timely arrival, we purchased the ticket. Otherwise, we had many options [and could] choose [another] airline. Since we value our time, we did not hesitate when paying extra. When they ignore compensation due to their fault, there is no point in flying by an expensive airline. For example, the other airline is ready to pay compensation for their delay due to a technical fault, beyond their control. Nevertheless, I did not want to claim it. Is Emirates’ service worse than a domestic Indian carrier?
Additionally, I received a mail from Emirates saying their flight was 28 minutes delayed and this second mail says it was [delayed by] 22 minutes.
Editor’s note: The follow-up letter was forwarded to Emirates for further investigation. However, they declined to comment.

Internet connection
I live in Al Qusais, Dubai and I recently moved to another apartment in the same building. I then applied for an internet connection on January 17 and I received an account number. As I did not get a connection, I visited an etisalat customer care centre in the area on January 26, only to understand that etisalat had cancelled my application for an internet connection due to some internal technical reason. Then, they reissued another account number to me.
Until now they have not given me an internet connection. I called them several times to know the status. I also made several visits to their offices. But, every time they assure me that it will be done shortly.
I sent e-mails to their customer service and got their assurance, but in vain. Could you help me sort out the issue and provide the internet connection?
From Jinto Thomas Chirayath
Dubai

The management of etisalat responds:
Kindly be informed that Mr Jinto Chirayath’s complaint has been solved and service has been provided with customer satisfaction.

Mr Jinto Thomas Chirayath responds:
I got the internet connection on February 18 after waiting more than a month. During this period I visited etisalat offices several times and made numerous telephone calls to speed up the matter. Etisalat issued six account numbers to sort out technical problems of their various departments. I understand, finally, your [Gulf News] involvement helped me get the connection. Thank you for your support.

Editor’s note: If you have similar consumer complaints, send them to us at
readers@gulfnews.com