The Curse of Mobily strikes

Saturday 20^th June 2009

Something is going on here to further increase my Stress And Annoyance Level. Here I was, sitting here doing this blog entry in OpenOffice and was also online with Skype and Firefox open as I normally have. Suddenly the sound that comes when my USB modem gets disconnected. Well, it sometimes happens and so I went to reconnect. Nope, no good, and the message I got was that one which I get when I am not allowed to connect due to my 5GB monthly allowance having been exceeded.

But that was impossible. I had been down to the Mobily store on Thursday evening to pay my 200 riyals for the month to come AND had received the SMS to confirm that my account had been recharged to that effect. Didn't make any sense. But then I saw ANOTHER SMS message dated today early in the morning which “kindly” informing me that my, “Mobily data bundle has now expired” !!

What the HELL is going on??

OK there was a Customer Service Number so I thought I would try it. Would it be in English? Well, as they allow me messages and spoken help in English, then I hoped so.

One thing I thought. When I went to pay for my new month of internet, the man did wonder why I was paying early, ie, before the 21^st of the month. Well, I obviously didn't want to make a special journey down there on a weekday spending taxi money for little gain so why NOT do it this way.

Oh dear! Murphy's Law “If anything CAN happen, it WILL” (or is that Sod's law?). Yes, it would seem that, in trying to be efficient and sensible, I have “beaten the system”. According to the helpdesk man, my payment did not show up in their system.

Hmm, so which system sent me the SMS telling me my account had been topped and and renewed then??

So this is RIDICULOUS! Do I HAVE TO go down on the exact 21^st of the month just cos their blasted system can't do more than one thing at a time? WHY should I now have to lose this evening and all the rest of tomorrow (until the evening) just cos of an error on THEIR part??

Well THAT will teach ME to dare to be too efficient in this country!

As of today, Sunday 21^st, there is STILL no internet. My colleague, who phoned the Mobily people after himself having problems apparently says that there is some kind of general computer and/or database problem on a larger scale at Mobily just now and that (inshallah!) it will be cleared in 24 hours (inshallah!). So that will mean tomorrow (Monday) evening.

I am just NOT going to make a SPECIAL TRIP down town just for little reward. It is obvious that MY problem is something different and that I will have to go in AGAIN at the weekend to see what is going on. NO WAY I am going to waste taxi money and time on a solo journey into town for something like THIS.

And that may mean I am without internet every night this week ….

Can you see the storm clouds gathering over the Persian Gulf?? It's ME – don't worry!

UPDATE - Friday 26th June 2009 (evening)

OK, the good news is that i DO have my internet again this evening.

Yes, I did have to make that extra trip into town Friday afternoon/evening. Didn't like it, but there was no other choice. Well, the choice was STILL no internet or go in and get it SORTED.

Phoned the helpdesk Friday afternoon, though didn't think it's do much good since it didn't do ANY good before.

Now, I'll cut down the conversation that was had. But the gist of it was this :-

• I had not waited for the text message to tell me that my internet package was activated before using the net.
• Because of this, and because too I HAD done this "awful thing", the Mobily system interpreted it that my normal internet package was not activated and so what I was doing was using the internet at the 2 riyals per MB used rate.
• Given that we are talking about two and a half days doing this, you can see that my 200 riyals got used up pretty quick. Simple Maths - two and a half days, about 8 hours a day, and even with normal use the 200 riyals was gone quickly.

THAT, folks, is the extent of what was explained to me.

So .... even though I HAD been down the Mobily store and clearly stated that I was paying for my new month of internet, somebody somewhere was being a bit 'slack'. I naturally assumed that, having paid, I could get using the internet straight away. Fair assumption, don't you think? Why would I assume any different.

Also there had been this Mobily system problem of unknown origin or effect which I had been told about before. Perhaps it scrambled the poor computer brains too and kicked me out just for fun.

A special trip into town was needed and that's what I did. It was a pain in the butt, a wassted evening and highly unnecessary.

But .... it got me my internet back AND I managed to get a load of that nice Carrrefour bread which had NOT been there on Thursday evening.

Not QUITE making it worth the trip, but not so bad either.