Customers complain about being billed for inquiry calls

Dubai: A telecommunications service provider is forcing its customers to listen to voice messages and making them pay for it, complain customers.

The furious customers said that if they contact any of etisalat's billing inquiry calls and the directory enquiry calls such as 101, 181, 700017000 or any other etisalat billed numbers they are forced to listen to a voice message for a few minutes before they were able to request assistance.

Many customers said the voice message starts by apologising to the customer that all the customer services officials are currently busy answering other customer and thanking the customer for holding the line. This message may be repeated several times.

Before that, the voice message asks the customer to press specific numbers for language and for service and which specific service they want and the intervening time could reach 10 minutes sometimes.

The latest etisalat trend is that whenever a customer contacts any of their paid inquiry calls, they have to listen to a voice message saying in Arabic and then repeated in English that users of mobile phone numbers have to add 050 before dialing the number.

etisalat when contacted said it was unaware of the problem.

"It would be easier for etisalat and the customers if etisalat just sends to all mobile users SMS message instructing them to dial 050 before the number," said Lina, a customer.

"Once I had to contact the 101 inquiry call number to inquire over the reason behind the disconnection of my land line at home. I dialled 101 from my prepaid mobile phone number," she said.

"By the time the voice message finished the credit of my mobile also ran out and the line got disconnected," said an irritated Lina.

Tariq Mohammad, another customer of etisalat said that all the enquiry calls are paid and not free and it seems that etisalat has its own way of extending the time of the inquiry call.

"It happened that many times when I contact 181 to inquire about a specific phone number for a company or department the customer service official at etisalat used to tell me that the number I want is not available and they ask me to contact 700017000 which is very costly and I have to listen to the voice message for few minutes before they reply," he said.

Mujib Ali, another customer said that etisalat can include in the bill they send to the customers information, instructions or other details they want.

In my opinion, all information numbers must be toll free.
Faheem
Dubai,UAE

This is a very clever use of the customers' money and time by etisalat. Whenever you call them it is certainly criminal as they are knowingly abusing their monopoly. Hail the competition that they may get from du.
Dominic
Dubai,UAE

I'm very glad and thankful that this issue had been raised. I would like to bring to all the readers' attention that the number provided by etisalat as customer service is also charged. I travel a lot, and have noticed that cellphone network providers in countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka or Kenya do not charge anything for customer service, so why etisalat? I mean, customer service numbers should be free of charge. Thank goodness we now have a competitor in the UAE. I hope they take appropriate measures for customer ease and affordability.
Shabbbir
Dubai,UAE

It happened to me, when I contacted them it was charged. I wasn?t sure, so I contacted them again and they said it was a toll free number. In another instance I noticed it was charged and when I contacted them they said its toll free for land lines.
Arsath
Sharjah,UAE

I wanted to get an internet facility, for which I called the helpline number. It was almost seven minutes hold time and my prepaid balance got reduced, meaning I had to top it up twice on the same day.
Sharmil
Mumbai,India

Yes, the calls to directory enquiry numbers should be made free or answered quickly.
S.J. H.
Dubai,UAE

Etisalat must stop charging for its enquiry service. Etisalat says it is at your service at every step, but it does not offer the good service. It only wants to charges for everything. The inquiry number is for customers' help. To charge for that as well, is really disgusting.
Maryam
Sharjah,UAE

It's very true and extremely irritating for us to listen to this long prerecorded voiceand then end up paying so much which is not worth it. Etisalat should really make it short and to the point. This seems just another way of extracting money from customers.
I. Gilani
Dubai,UAE

Yes, the enquiry calls should be toll free and not charged. They should have the additional service of topping up your mobile account from an ATM (during night time when there is no phone card available), they should have a normal bank balance checking facility for pre paid card holders through SMS for free. Sometimes etisalat is good and many a time it is bad.
Qadir
Dubai,UAE

Very true. And please don't say etisalat aren't aware of this. They would really know.
Muhammed
Dubai,UAE

This is a common practice in major cities like London. Callers are charged for listening to answer machines. However, people who have subscribed to say BT do not pay any charge when contacting BT, but pay when contacting say NTL lines. Since etisalat is the only network provider in UAE (operational until now) it should not charge its customers for calling any of its numbers.
Foad
London,UK