JEDDAH, 9 October 2003 — Saudi Telecom has been receiving complaints from several SAWA prepaid services subscribers who had their service canceled because they did not use it enough.
One customer, a Saudi businessman who lives in Egypt but has business interests here in the Kingdom, bought three SAWA chips in the last four months as his service was repeatedly canceled.
“I live in Egypt and come to Saudi Arabia once every six to seven weeks and stay for a few days,” he told Arab News. “When I arrive at the airport, I switch from my Egyptian chip to my SAWA chip. I enter the required pin code, and am met with a message that says ‘Unregistered SIM card.’
“Each SAWA chip I have bought in the past four months was legally purchased by my son, using his Saudi identification card at Saudi Telecom’s office in Jeddah. When I arrived from Cairo the other day, the same thing happened again. My son contacted Saudi Telecom by telephone and they said I had to buy another SAWA chip as that one was canceled.”
His son was going to buy another chip for him, but he was told the maximum number of chips allowed per customer was five. “Now he can’t buy another chip. Since they canceled every one of my SIM cards, why are they still counted among the five permissible working lines? If they cancel your chip, then they should remove the number from your record at Saudi Telecom, and that way you can buy another SAWA chip,” he said.
An official contacted by Arab News said the SAWA service card must be recharged at least once every 30 days or the service will be canceled. “If the customer comes into our offices and cancels the de-registered SIM card, we will be happy to give him another,” he said.
But the businessman said he had found it impossible to do so. “We tried canceling two chips that were de-registered due to lack of use from my son’s record, but they remain on his record to this date.
“The inefficiency of Saudi Telecom is monumental,” he alleged. “Even their customer service operators on 902 are unhelpful and, of course, inefficient.”
Saudi Telecom can only recommend leaving the card active with someone in Saudi Arabia who can recharge it every 30 days. “The other solution is to get the Al-Jawal subscriber billing service. That arrangement allows for the use of your mobile using the Saudi number both here and in Egypt,” the official said.
But the subscriber was unconvinced. “If I get Al-Jawal, I will be charged a premium for roaming services. Forget it. I am just going to have to do business without a mobile. This is a great inconvenience and is very inefficient. So far my son has spent SR600 on SAWA chips that were used for only a couple of days. We did not get our money’s worth.”
