Customer Service?

(Note: This is an old email I found in my Outlook Sent folder, and I think - for lack of new material - it warrants posting on my blog. It was written to 7 Days and as usual, they didn't print it because it mentioned one of their regulars advertisers.)

Seriously … what is it with Dubai and customer service ... or the total LACK of it, to be precise?!! One weekend and three serious arguments with Dubai-standard – whoops – bog-standard - customer service.

I take my out-of-town guests to lunch. At the end of the meal, I whip out my credit card. The waitress returns with it after a few minutes (and herein lies a gripe within a gripe) she flicks it onto the table (Hello miss, mind your manners ... we are PAYING guests and your are WAITING STAFF!).

“There is no money in your card, “ she taunts.

And when you have a 30,000 credit limit on your card with no major purchases ever made, that’s a bit alarming.

So I call my bank (Mashreq Bank, if 7Days dares to print the name, which it probably won’t!) and after about ten minutes I get through to an agent who tells me that “this is not the bank’s fault” and that the Mastercard system has been experiencing a problem for the last few hours. No one knows how long it will be before the problem is resolved, because – obviously – the call centre agent has no idea about anything and his supervisor is off somewhere hiding from furious customers.

My question to Mashreq Bank: when you can send me SPAM SMS advertising your new credit card/loan offers and other useless crap like that, who oh why can’t you send me an SMS saying “The Mastercard system is experiencing technical difficulties, please do not use your card for the next four hours. Use cash”?!!

I know why.

Because you are stupid beyond comprehension.