Du connection
In January I moved from my old apartment in Jumeirah Lake Towers to a new building in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and contacted du regarding the transfer of my line to my new apartment. I was told over the phone that internet was available in my new building and that I could go to any du representative office to set up my new connection.
I left my office at lunch and headed to the Dubai Mall du shop and waited for an hour to be served. The representative said my building was in fact not ready for internet and that it would take up to three weeks.
I explained that I was told by their customer service counterparts that it was in fact ready, to which they scoffed and said they were the ones who knew, not the people on the phone.
I then contacted customer service again and told them they had misinformed me and that it was in fact not available, to which they replied that it was. After arguing for a while, they checked again and said I was right. Angrily, I asked them why they had wasted my time. They simply apologised.
After this, I contacted the building management for my apartment and asked them what was going on. They told me they were in fact ready to receive internet from du, but were being held up. I called the next week and enquired yet again, to which the customer service agent responded that it was finally available. Sceptically, I left (again during my lunch break) for the du store and waited again for an hour for my number to be called. I explained to them the circumstances, and again I was told it was unavailable.
Infuriated, I called the du customer service line and gave the phone to the representative at the shop and told them to figure out why they had conflicting information. Finally, after a week of arguing with du, I had internet and a landline installed in my apartment.
During the setup process, the technician said the phone would take a day to activate, but that internet was up and running. During this time, I had more issues with du (apparently the internet speed I had requested was not available, but they were still trying to charge me for it), and was forced to keep calling them on my mobile phone (an iPhone with du).
At the end of the month (January), I received a bill from du for my mobile phone with an excess Dh150 for calling them. I called du and argued about the issue. It turned out I had been calling the non-toll free number (043905555), and not the toll free number. Normally, I would have been okay with this bill, but nowhere online does it say that one number is toll free and one is not. Furthermore, the two numbers serve two different services at du, the toll free number (155) only serves the mobile phone enquiries, while the paid number (043905555) only serves home subscribers. I could not contact du via my landline because they had trouble activating it, and as a result was forced to call the paid line to solve issues they should have resolved weeks prior.
Now here I am, a month later and still whenever I call du, all they tell me is that billing should contact me soon. Honestly I am sick and tired of what can only be called a complete display of disrespect for customers’ time and business.
From Mr Ramsey Sahli
Dubai

The management of du responds:
With regard to Mr Ramsey Sahli’s query on phone charges accumulated by calling du’s non-toll free number, we would like to confirm that following collaboration with the customer, the issue has been successfully resolved to his satisfaction. We would like to inform our customers that while our customer care numbers 155 (for consumer mobile) and 188 (for business mobile) are toll free, calls to other numbers such as 043905555 (for home services) are charged at normal rates.

Mr Sahli responds:
If it wasn’t for Gulf News then I doubt they would have acted at all. You have my gratitude.

Insurance dispute
I am an account holder with Mashreq bank and I also have a credit card with the bank. I subscribed to the insurance policy of the credit card too (by offer). Recently, I cancelled all my credit cards by paying all my final dues. The credit card was cancelled from the system online. Yet they are charging the insurance amount from my account. How are they charging it from my account? If I don’t have an account with the said bank, from where will they charge it? Is this cheating by the bank or not? To my knowledge, if I cancel the credit card then all the items related on the credit card also will be cancelled automatically. Is this right or wrong?
From Mr Dinesh Kumar Babu
Abu Dhabi

The management of Mashreq responds:
Thank you for sharing Mr Dinesh Kumar Babu’s letter. Initially, Mr Babu had signed up for an insurance policy on his Mashreq credit card. However, he had cancelled the card in January 2011. The insurance company continued to debit the premium amount from his current account to keep the policy active. We have highlighted Mr Babu’s concern to the insurance company and we are pleased to confirm the reversal of the entire amount debited from his current account, post cancellation of credit card. The same has been confirmed with Mr Babu and he was satisfied with the resolution. Thank you for seeking clarification.

Mr Babu responds:
Thanks to Gulf News for resolving this issue.

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