I’ve been staying over at my cousin’s place in DHA, Lahore, for about 6 weeks now. He’s using Wateen’s monthly prepaid Internet plan (512kbps/4GB). That’s right – monthly “prepaid”. What on earth is a monthly prepaid plan anyway!? According to Wateen, you’re supposed to pay a fixed amount (Rs. 850 in our case) on the 14th of every month or your connection gets blocked (i.e. you run out of credit). And when you do pay up, it’s like charging a prepaid account, scratch cards and all, except your account isn’t charged on usage (unless you cross your plan’s download limit, upon which they start charging you Rs. 25 per 100MB). Makes half sense to me, but that’s just half the problem.
When our account was blocked on the 14th of last month, we didn’t pay up till the 18th. It’s cool that you don’t have to go to their outlet to pay your monthly bill because they have scratch cards available all over the place, just like any other network operator. So all I had to do was get a Rs. 850 scratch card from the neighborhood store and recharge my account, right? Yeah, except they don’t have a Rs. 850 scratch card. Now, I do understand that they offer several bandwidth/download limit plan combinations, each at a particular rate, so it’s obviously impossible to have a scratch card denomination for each combo. But then they don’t recharge your account upon cash payment at their outlets either (maybe I went to the wrong outlet though). The cashier just gave me a couple of scratch cards for my cash (Rs. 500 + Rs. 250 + Rs. 100) and told me I’d have to recharge my account manually!
So I went home and entered the voucher numbers into the account, one-by-one. In jumps of 500, 250, and 100, their horrible web interface (http://prepaid.wateen.net) showed the Rs. -758.00 balance (??) move up above the magical Rs. 0.00 mark (what the hell!?). Anyway. Finally, I would be able to take a breath of fresh Internet. Except the Net still wouldn’t work! Apparently, I had to wait around 45 minutes before their system was able to unblock our connection.
So I charged our account on the 18th of last month and was expecting it to work till the 18th of this month, except it got blocked on the 14th. I swear we cursed Wateen exactly 850 times – I went at it 500 times, my cousin 250 times, and his dad tried his best to do 100. I called their helpline and they confirmed that I’d have to pay up if I wanted the connection unblocked. What the hell are they smoking up there at Wateen!? Give me back my 5 days, CHEATS! Highway robbery!
One more thing: according to my cousin, he signed up for the 512kbps plan. I ran a speed test and all we’re getting is 256kbps. Even worse, latency is 3000ms! Pathetic!
I am surprised Wateen is still afloat. They should have been bankrupt in this year now.
ReplyDeleteI have worked as a contractor for them and I can tell you first hand that Wateen is a disaster waiting to happen.
Dude it must be a mishap! but now it is far improved. I talk to few Wateen personals in a conference and asked for their efforts to improve service. They said, Wateen is one of it’s own kind in Pakistan ;with deployment of largest WiMax facility in Asia.. and as the issues appeared we are coping up with them. The training is ongoing for staff, The rates are revised and customized according to user feasibility. Hope this time you will have good response from customer service staff. And if you play CS, join us on Wateen Server :)
ReplyDeleteDon’t miss the important thing, Calls from wateen to wateen are free for life.
Dude, Anonymous, I seriously hope you were being sarcastic, because your comment was truly humorous to me.
ReplyDeleteElse, you're either a Wateen employee, or acting naive on purpose, or truly unfortunately naive, or a combination of these.
I signed up with Wateen last month when I was visiting Pakistan. Customer service to sign up and activation etc., excellent (or so I thought)! Only thing, they gave me the CPE which had a good reception in main gulberg and had no reception in my township area. Somehow my brother fixed the CPE (as I didn't want outdoor/indoor installation) on the ceiling of my first floor bedroom and it worked.
ReplyDeleteNext, the internet speed I signed up was 1mbs but actual was like someone said only around 256kbs or 512kbs during off peak times. Still better than vfone which I was using before, so I was content. Now that I am back in Canada, I discovered that I ran out of my limit of 5GB in 2 weeks. I am shocked because in Canada I had 4GB limit and I used to download songs, movies, chat and watch You Tube but never had overage. So far my brother has topped up the account by another Rs. 800 which is totally ironic.
I also signed up with the phone service. Turns out, even though there is a monthly charge, its prepaid also. Means you have to top up the account if you want to call. I wasn't told of that when I signed up!
Having said all of that, I think Wateen is still better than the DSL service in my area because at least when Wateen is up, the speed is good enough to make VOIP calls and run the webcam at the same time. Will I recommend Wateen to my Wateen? Probably yes because it is better than the sucky vfone internet and PTCL dsl in my area.
i have not seen even a single person happy with their service. they could have done a better job.
ReplyDeleteDear All
ReplyDeleteI am from Wateen customer service. I have gone through your feedback posted here. If you have any pending concern regarding Wateen service kindly send an email to customerservice@wateen.com along with your Wateen internet login We will get back to you.
Regards
Saadia
Dear All,
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is facing any problem just call in Wateen contact center inshallah resolution will be provided to you all.
Wateen has very bad services specially customer care. i have documented proof (collected from wateen franchise). they have rob my Rs.800. contact me at m_f_fareed@yahoo.com for documented proof.
ReplyDelete