First let me start by expressing how much I hate Fastlink -and I hate mobilecom too, actually I hate every telecom company out there in Jordan for being the blood suckers they are-.
I received another offer from fastlink: charge with 9 JDs or more today and earn 50% extra credit as a Ramadnian desserts.
Being the naive girl I am, I thought it’s not such a bad idea, especially that I wanted to call my sisters in the U.A.E. I did not know that the bonus account is only for calls to another Fastlink number! How was I supposed to know? They didn’t mention that anywhere in the two sms messages I received before and after charging my account by 12 JDs. Which I must confess, was veeeerrrrry smart of them.
So what happened is that I called my two sisters, spent 9 JDs deducted from my main account and because I didn’t know the stupid bonus account is only for F to F calls I saved the 6 JDs which were about to expire in only two days by the way for my international call. So now I lost 9 JDs on a call and lost the 6 extra JDs because naturally, I don’t make enough local calls, not even to Mobilecom numbers.
And I got so confused at first, I thought there’s some kind of technical mistake so I called Fastlink customer service and OMG, a very disturbing guy talked to me in an annoying Lebanese accent and an even more annoying over-niceness. At last, I came to know that the extra bonus of which I could only spend 17 2ersh in 10 days before it expired was for F to F calls.
I mean now when I think about it, 17 2ersh in 10 days is very little, but what I can’t help but notice about almost every offer telecom companies in Jordan make is that it is only good for people who spend hours talking on the phone and those are probably lovers! And I can’t help but notice that not just telecomunications but almost everything else in Jordan is expensive because of this lovers-oriented business outlook. Restauranst are for couples only because a guy would spend more when a girl is sitting at his table, or just because chicks like it.
To tell the truth, I’m really surprised that the boyfriend-girlfriend thingie is something more than normal in Jordan. I can not express how surprised I am to see how marriage-driven the Jordanian society is and how sexually charged people are. Inside classes, doctors and instructors joke about marriage, Jordanian women and Jordanian girls compared to Lebanese and Syrian girls. I heared about matches made in heaven but never about one made in a cab! but it happens in Jordan, taxi drivers will discuss marriage with their female customers, provide premarital consultation and if she was marriage material will try to hook her up.
Long story short, lovers out there, for heavens sake cut down on your phone calls!
Popularity: 7% [?]
Men 5elal derasati el mostafeedah lal mojtama3 al 2ordoni o lal post taba3ek …. al eqtera7 el amthal enek dawreelek 3ala wa7ad …..hada al 7al al methali to get benifit from everything here
h3
CheeerZ!
btw! do u know this offer is only for 10 days!
Thanks 4 discerning me to that piont of view! lovers thing!
I havn’t looked @ it in that way!
Thanks for openeing my eyes
try mobilecom, it’s cheaper for international call, and umniah is cheaper for local calls.. anyways, thx for the note
Dar, this is what marketers want, but I’m not gonna succumb to manipulation
rare, yes I know, and I spent only 17 2ersh on local calls in those 10 days!
Moey, I don’t make enough local calls apparently, and as for international calls, my family tends to call me more than I do.
I guess fastlink will have to attach a manual to each new offer it launches! they must provide the proper equations and formulas for us to calculate the cost per time and per use! The guys at the marketing and the offers departments are pure geniuses for creating such offers and actually understading it !!
Omar, lool in the UAE we had only one telecom company: Etisalat, so I didn’t expect that special offers from Fastlink are only valid for Fastlink senders and receivers. They should’ve mentioned this somewhere
You can file a complaint at the TRC and they’ll definitely penalise Fas*tlink for its deluding advertising policy, and if you make a high profile case of it, you might get a refund or even a 1-year free unlimited use line!
The best company for mobile international calls will probably be XPress, they charge as much as JT, the lowest from mobile phones.
Welcome to the Anti Fastlink center…. Here are OUR solutions:
1. TALK in a more Annoying NICER way to the customer service employee.
2. TALK in a more SINGING sound.
3. Whenever there are offers. Always call 1234 and ask them about every detail in the offer.
4. Good questions: The offer is valid till? I can call mobilecom, umniya and express too? Internationl too? How much is the charge? SMSs included ? What else is there to know? Ok thank you for replying to my questions, I don’t have any other thing to say, Have a good night and bye bye. (haha.. the guy will die when you take his part)
5. After the employee’s first answers the phone tell him: mar7aba…ma3ak Shaden, w 3indi istifsar 3an offer ramadan il jdeed.
I can’t think of anything else… for the moment. But know that their offers ALWAYS have bugs…. Never think other wise… With that it is still an offer, you only need to know how to benefit from it.
I liked your post.. and Jordan is flamingly expensive.
Shaden
There is an EGO thing among GSM operators, and normally, their marketting campaign are not targetting their customers, but a telcom war among the operators. This is one draw back about fierce competition. Naive is relative, if you grew with the Jordanian GSM operator, you can still be naive and only believe that those offers are only against the competition and not for you. In jordan, only naive people would understand that F - F is cheaper than F - MC, thinking that the tarrifs should be even among operators requires shrewd and complex customer driven mentalify that does not exist in typical naive jordanian minds. You will face many, many similar experiences not only in the telco industry but in all other industries, the best slogan that i can think of to help what to anticipate is just to say “WELECOME TO JORDAN”. But to be fair, this kind of advertising tricks are American by root (however, American have to state all the applicable conditions in unreadable fonts)
UAE itisalat is still more expensive that any of the jordanian operators and since they monopolize the market, they do not have to do lots of thinking in their offering schemas (until the new UAE Operator start the service).
You only need to kick back, relax and do not let these things bother you.
if for your other point obout male-female social changes, i feel this has become the norm rather than the excpetion in most Arab World. To what extent this phenomena can be seen really depends on the social circle that you mingle with. In today’s terms, certain manners and behaviours are not fashionable these days (like fasting ramadan, like being non-alcoholic etc ..)
ammar Sajdi
U can call dubai from Xpress with the same fixed line rate…
U can call dubai from Umniah with 0.32 JD all day long, 0.25 JD between 10-11 PM, and 0.17JD after 11 PM until 8 AM the next morning..
(which means, its even cheaper than a fixed line ….. your call to Dubai from umniah is evencheeper from the Fastlink-to-umniah call!)
& both of them give you cristal clear quality, and charging per second, form the 1st second
& by the way, with xpress u can get GPS & PTT services for free, & unlimited wireless internet with only 0.10 JD per day (unlimited KBs). and the most perfect part about xpress, is that you buy a 10JD recharge card with 11.5 JD and it gets charged with 12
Hell to fastlink and mobilecom,, by the way, Fastlink doesnt really have 2 million subs! those 2 million do include unused lines!
Kudos to pay per second, cheap internet (Umniah provides EDGE all over jordan & for all the web content with 10% of Fastlinks price which has 10% of umniah’s EDGE coverage … but i still prefer Xpress on thier unlimited internet with 0.10 JD), unique tariffs to all the networks, and almost free in-network calls…
& by the way, who tells you that Xpress or Umniah have bad coverage…… try and verify, dont listen to old news!
Basem, no one sent to the TRC more emails than i did … do you really think they care! NULL!
for more about my stories with fastlink, check those 2 links:
http://nasimjo.blogspot.com/2006/01/fastlink-enough-is-enough.html
http://nasimjo.blogspot.com/2006/03/fastlink-enough-is-enough-part-2.html
send your complaint to [email protected]
I give you 10/10 for your words