After my big headache of getting adsl hooked up (click here for that story) it seems I am back to more headaches.
The service is 50 dinars a month and you have to pay for it by purchasing a card from one of the many representive's shops around town and recharge your account by phone. Now do you think that they sell cards for 50 dinars? No of course not because that would make sense, woudn't it! The cards are 30 or 100 dinars in the shops around me. So I thought I was being smart by buying a 100 dinar card and have uninterupted service for two months.
What was I thinking??
After the first month was finished I tried to open the internet connection and got this:
What?!? I kept trying, thinking there was something wrong. Finally, I decided to call the phone number that you call to recharge your account, it said I had a balance of zero dinar, zero dirham! What! There's another 50 dinars on there! When I press number 4 for more information it tells me the monthly quota is finished but my account will be reactived April 22nd which is the next day. You get to download 5 gigabytes and I know I didn't get anywhere near that amount because I checked it a day before the month was going to be up and it said I had almost 3 gb left. OK, I will be patient, not that patience is one of the charecteristics of my personality, but simply because I have no choice.
The next day I try to connect and it's the same thing even though the recording says I will have internet on the 22nd - I still have no internet, it's the 22nd and their offices are closed so I will have to wait until they open and feel like answering the phones to take my complaint and try to get my service started up again.
I finally get through to someone from LTT on the phone. The service representative says the people that handle adsl won't be in until tomorrow. I go through my whole story with him anyway and he checks my account and it says zero. 'Why did you use a 100 dinar card?' he asks. I say, 'Because there isn't a 50 dinar card.' 'Oh, well we're going to come out with 50 dinar cards soon.' was his response. 'Does that mean my 50 dinars is unrecoverable? I've thrown 50 dinars in the garbage?' I ask. 'Oh I'm sure it can be straightened out, maybe tomorrow or some time this week.' he says, but his voice doesn't sound very confident, 'and besides,' he adds, 'the service is supposed to be getting cheaper soon.' - I told him 'I don't care if it's getting cheaper soon, your service stinks and no one has a choice do they?'
The poor guy doesn't know what to say to that. Being American I have not inherited the Libyan trait of 'balah waasa' and just sitting back and accepting things. I have little patience and the American habit of speaking my mind.
Later in the day as I'm out and about I pop into one of the LTT representatives that sell the cards to see what they have to say. He was quite amused by my story and we opened my account on the website to see it. Low and behold it said my account was zero and that not only had I used up 5 gigabytes it had somehow gone over that by 250 megabytes! Quite amazing really since less then 48 hours ago it said I had nearly 3 gb left! I've been robbed of 50 dinars! The guy asked me if I printed it out and of course I hadn't so there was no proof to my story.
His advice to me for the future was to buy two-30 dinar cards each month and NEVER let them have more then 10 dinars as they will 'eat it' and you can do nothing about it. Also he said print out the page with my account every few days so I have a record. Then if there is a question I can show them the print out. Also never add to your account before it expires. Let the expiration date pass and then add to your account as they will 'eat' your balance that way too.
And who do I complain to??? The customer service at that company stinks but as far as I know they are the only company that offers adsl so you are stuck with them. Why does no one seem to be bothered by this but me?? I need a vacation . . . . . uuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhh!
Hello, This story is a typical for everyone who uses the LTT service. It is a chracteristic of most of Libyan service companies; particularly the government companies. As you see the problem isn't technical (technological) or financial, actually it is administrative (management) problem. It looks that the only solution for these problems is privatization and competition. Till that we’ll need more patience – May ALLAH grant it to all of us.
ReplyDeleteManagement is the word.
ReplyDeleteWherever one goes or whatever one does you are bound to encounter this typical Libyan problem.What's to be done?!! Now that's a good question!
Seems like the same problem most (if not all) of DSL users are having.
ReplyDeletethe problem here is not the "management" nor the company, its the actual undemanding customer if LTT get a daily average of 1345325 phone calls a day complaining about the problems they would have to improve their service, but instead most people just sit back and wait for things to get better.. well they WONT!! why would the management bother to improve their service if everyone seems to be satesfied to the extent that no body has complained whatsoever about any aspect of the service apart from khadija =). one more thing Customer Service does NOT exist in Libya, which adds up to the already existing problem.
Khadija, you are not the first persone since this service has been started here in Libya my friends, me and others people was complained of this service. That's not all, after you paid for 2 card (30+30=60)and recharge your account just take a look you will not find your 10 dinars they took 1 dirham and you have to recharge before the midnight of the last day or you'll lose your 10 dinars also. what's wrose than this I hate LTT but I am thinking of Orbite internet connection using thier satellite service!
ReplyDeleteSifaw, many users complained
see these Links Libyan Forums:
http://alhandasa.net/forum/showthread.php?t=75493&highlight=Adsl
http://alhandasa.net/forum/showthread.php?t=70799&highlight=Adsl
LTT as every other company here have one problem only which is the people working in it , in libya people have this thing I dont know what to call it but they just dont care about anything , not about costumers not about any complains .
ReplyDeleteonce I had this huge fight with the telecomunication and post company guys ,we pay our phone bill regulary evry time it comes out , and they give high discount to people who didnt pay their bills and have Dyoon, My point was how you give 50% discount to someone who didnt pay for a long time and to the one who pays regulary you dont give anything ,the fight ended as any complain here in Libya by the words Kana mish 3agbik bara ishki .
to whome you will complain if these words came from the head of their branch .
hasbona allah wa ni3ma alwakeel .
I assure you that Libyans DO in fact speak-thier-minds off but to no avail ..
ReplyDeleteI hear Italy is nice this time of year...
ReplyDelete