Remember a months back when we informed Fasttelco users that their personal information was being leaked by their ISP.
Well, their official response by their Marketing Manager, Ali Dervasi, was that our post is “propaganda” to further our “history of hostility against FASTtelco“.
Sorry to burst your conspiracy bubble .. but we don’t carry any ill will towards any companies, just their services (or lack thereof). As for our ‘propaganda’ post .. In addition to FTs users experiencing the issue (and posting screenshots), Google themselves confirmed that there was a problem. And our “history of hostility” is a direct result of FT’s poor service, which isn’t limited to the following: blocking sites, high prices, false advertising, security issues and all-around shitty ads.
FT needs to take a step back and reevaluate their services (and prices) before pointing fingers at its users. The other ISPs have stepped up their services and offerings (except for UCC, they are terrible). Reading reviews on blogs and through word-of-mouth, end customers are more aware of the alternatives available. Until FT fixes its issues, I continue using (and recommending) الخمطة بربع.
Link to original article [here]
Posted by K.
44 replies on “Fasttelco hates bloggers”
Only in Kuwait is the customer always wrong.
^^” Erm, what exactly is “الخمطة برب”? xD
But yeah, seems like us customers are always wrong here =(
Used FT for a year.
Worst decision of my internet life:
1) 40% higher than competitors
2) Service frequently had problems
3) Block Many sites, I remember them even blocking Youtube when I was a customer.
When it came to renewing my 1mb line, (back when prices were extortionate) I explained to the idiotic salesman that Qnet was much cheaper by comparison. He said, yes, but Qnet doesn’t have a backup link and isn’t as reliable.
A fantastic lie, considering when their HQ burnt down, I was without internet for around a week. Where was that fabled ‘backup link’ eh?
I never went back.
Correction to the headline:
“Fasttelco hates bloggers that sucks”
It seams that nobody is visiting K.THEKUWAITI blog, so he is trying to do some marketing here.
they don’t have the gut to admit they were wrong!!!
Mimi:
And don’t forget spreading hostile propaganda..
Shoxin:
Its an old term .. Translates loosely to: fill your hand for a quarter.. Usually denotes that the product is low quality or cheaper. (In this case the latter is ironically true).
crocko rock:
And thats what FT can’t seem to figure out .. instead of lowering costs and improving services, they point fingers at their competitors (and users).
ziza:
I might be a terrible blogger seeking attention .. However, seeing how your comment originates from FT’s corporate department: I found it quite funny that you chose to attack me instead of defending FT’s services.
Pearls:
^ 🙂
[flame]
Poor (sometimes non-existent) Service
Over-priced
Rude/useless customer support
only in Kuwait would and ISP of this caliber continue to be in business.
[/flame]
oh and ziza marketing is defined as:
“the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling” (from dictionary.com)
Last I checked K hasn’t sold anything on here (or anywhere).
oh and it’s suck without an S. (The British Council offer courses in English; it would be a worth while investment)
Dear all,
i just got the news . Fasttelco is closing thier ISP line of buisness and establishing a new line in the food indusry.
– They are gonna offer a new unique Falafel sandwich and new ‘7aroof machboos. in addition to thier amazing B3eer Kabab.
– Furthermore, they are in process of selling new kind of sweets charging you 0.250 fils per ‘7am6a.
Regards
K:
Find a yourself a better monitoring software, try MSN messenger 😉
KTDP:
Go back and lookup “goods” at dictionary.com, as for “S” read the sentence again and again until it makes sense.
and we hate them too
ziza, wats ur problem?
u wanna support fastteleco?create ur own blog and tell us wats soo wonderful bout them!
and no, nothing u say makes sense. no matter how many times someone tries to read it, bull**** always remains bull****.
oh yea, how bout we say this: bloggers hate services that suck. oh sorry, in ur case u wud say “suckS”
Oh? This is delicious news, I want more info!
FT has established themselves as the lowest ranking ISP in Kuwait. That’s a common fact among us corporations. Sorry to burst your bubble ziza but if FT was any good then they would’ve expanded to include other companies instead of whatever is under control by Al-Ghanim Industries and it’s sycophants. (No offense to the buds working there.)
Why is that? Poor service delivery and extremely poor everything else. Obviously, FT management never heard of the standards required by the general IT community and never learned how to properly handle it’s services.
My suggestion: corporate restructuring. Always start from the top. Heads gotta roll, my friend.
Ziza,
Fuck off and stop making yourself look stupid and while you’re at it, go learn some English.
Linda:
A new blog wont be fun without anti FT bloggers around
Я:
“among us corporations” thats a good one, may i ask who’s us?
Oh and Al-Ghanim Industries doesn’t own FT anymore.
Stafa:
Thanks for the advice, you also should find yourself a manners boot camp, what is it with your blog… can’t find something to blog about..the F word would make a nice post.
I’ve been having problems accessing most websites in the past couple of weeks. especially the ones based in the UK. So I’m stuck with proxy to access websites that have nothing to do with porn at all.
someone should **** fasttelco they way they’re ****ing us over and over
“Additionally, our customer care agents did not receive a single call concerning this particular problem.”
Derisavi described the reports as “propaganda” created by bloggers with a “history of hostility against FASTtelco”.”
LOL. Tell Mr “Derisavi” That I DID call them to complain about the problem. And that the person who answered the phone said I should call after the weekend cuz the “core” support team are OFF for the weekend.
Also tell him that only after I yelled my lunge out on the phone, and threatened to file a complaint at the police station regarding this issue… only then i managed to get someone’s attention. and whats even more horrible, i wasn’t being taken seriously. the man over the phone was only trying to figure whats going on.
I say F***Telco can **** themselves now for not acknowledging the problem and just talking bull****.
ziza:
Whoever talked about ownership? FT & Al-Ghanim Industries which incidentally includes Gulf Bank, Gulf Insurance Co. and many others under the ‘Al-Ghanim’ umbrella share a very interesting partnership. Exclusive services if I must say. Which means FT’s portfolio is quite small in comparison to the rest.
As for corporations, I’m talking about companies that require a high level of service in which FT cannot provide for them. Both local and international companies currently in Kuwait.
Bottom line is: If FT can’t handle retail services properly, then how can it handle services at a higher level?
“Service Delivery & Service Desk” are the keywords there. Now even the smallest and meanest computer company aggressively follow the proper service delivery procedures and try to provide a better service desk service. Nowadays, these are very important issues which are being addressed worldwide. Service desk suck(s) = lots of red money and loss of a customer base.
The customer is always right, you lose one…you’ll get the domino effect. Kuwait is a tiny country after all.
Not to mention FT’s terrible PR. I won’t get into that though, not my domain.
Thanks Я,
thats the way to criticize…thats the language of bloggers, i hope Mr. Stafa is reading.
I may sound like am defending FT but am not, its just i don’t like it when people post shallow posts that doesn’t really benefit either the blogger nor the company being criticized..it defies the whole idea behind blogging about any topic.
I guess a lot of people still don’t know the deference between chatting on IM and blogging.
Oh and Mr.Derisavi if you are reading this..and you should .. please address the issues brought up above ….
ziza this post is showing how FT decoded to lie and deny there was a problem instead of admitting they made a mistake and then accused us bloggers of having a campaign against them trying to tarnish their image. If that isn’t post worthy I don’t know what is.
ziza: I’m not defending this blog either, I’m pretty sure Mark & K. are MORE than capable of debating their points and come out on top in the end. It’s all about facts and statistics. I’ve never dealt with FT personally, would be more than happy to sit with the FT management and give them a crash course on how to better deal with customers. Even better yet, let me at their service desk and whip them into shape heh.
It’s ironic how Gulf Bank won the award for best call center (correct me if I’m wrong? I saw an ad?) and this standard hasn’t been implemented across the board.
Mark: Glad you posted this, man. There’s a witch hunt going on now against bloggers, sadly.
FT sux!!
Keep up the work Mark and K. Internet access is one of the services that should be taken very seriously with no nonsense. Any provider that doesn’t realize that should be pinpointed in public.
Haven’t seen that particular ad, but i have been in advertising for almost 15 years and i can tell you that when you have the dough you can have an award created and award to you, then use the media to PR about it – Whack the Dog is a nice movie to watch-.
Oh and lets not go into you being in their place and how you would manage things better.. because then we will need to clone you 50 times and have you at Maglis al Uma.
mocman:
Try posting at Stafa- blog, it the perfect place for people like you https://www.stafa.us/
Я I didn’t post this, k.thekuwaiti did
congratulations, you looked up the whois information for my domain, want a cookie? also if you don’t like the content being posted on this blog then u’re free to go to another blog and spill out your bullshit there, I don’t remember god giving you a position to monitor blogs and rate each post and whether it’s a credible post or not! and so what if I had my blog being there with no content? whats it gotta do with you? go find something better to do, maybe fuck urself or something…and yeah this is my language, got a problem? if so then u can also fuck urself, cuz this is how people should talk back to some1 like you!
Gentlemen (and ladies of course),
We do not hate bloggers. On the contrary, we know that our customers including bloggers are the source of our income hence, we love them. We also know that constructive criticism and feedback from customers is what pushes us forward. However, we do not see expressions such as “Shitty”, “Sucks”, “Idiots” and so on to be a great source of learning.
K, I’m sure you’d agree that criticizing service, level of professionalism, price or even a simple advertisement should follow certain quantitative criteria. Simply stating that a service “sucks” is neither professional nor could lead to any service enhancement.
Blocking sites
You might be aware that there are rules and regulations that govern this issue. These rules apply on all service providers and are not set by FASTtelco. It not that we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide to block somebody’s site. The biggest demonstration of this fact is that this very site is accessible by all FASTtelco subscribers and although it contains many expressions that we perceive as hostile, it was never blocked.
Our services
As you know our service provided to end users involve third party services, devices and infrastructure. We do not have full control over all the components that make our services available to our customers. Additionally, we, like any other firm operating in the field of technology, do not claim to have perfect services. However, I can assure you that we do our best to improve the level of our services on regular bases.
We are not operating in an established and mature industry with well defined standards. You are familiar with the fast-pace of evolution in the technology field. The result is an ever changing environment. The dilemma is, do we want to wait for the technology to mature and then be followers adopting it, or try to be a leader in adopting and introducing new technology in the market. We chose to be the latter. And trying to be an early adopter has its own challenges. It seems to me that you are a technology savvy individual; let me ask you: How long did it take you to get your first iPhone knowing that it might not work in Kuwait or it is not Arabic enabled? If that did not take you much time because of your thirst and desire to learn and use new technology regardless all the challenges, then you might want to appreciate our way of thinking. We are the first to introduce WiMAX. We know it’s expensive and it involves challenges, but we take pride in being the first to introduce it to the market.
This bring us to our pricing scheme
You are aware that new technology is expensive and it gets less expensive towards maturity. Our prices are not the same as they were two years ago, so our prices are evaluated on regular bases. However, we are not a discount happy company and do not enjoy price wars. Your fellow marketers would tell you that price is only one element of a complex mix and it does not take much intelligence to change it to grab more market share. However, generally speaking, extended price wars hurt not only the company and its customers but the whole economy. Cheaper products/services means cheaper labor and cheaper equipment and that means cheaper service level which all together would lead to a cheaper economy. We do not want to be involved in creating a cheap economy. I am sure you too would not want to be part of it. One of our stated values is to contribute to civic development. We do not see that getting into a price war would help us have a positive contribution to civic development. At the end of the day, pricing depends on company’s strategies and is different for every company. Thanks be to God that we live in an open economy and we do not have a monopoly. People are free to choose which service provider to subscribe to based on criteria other than price.
Finally, we decide to address your concerns due to telephonic conversation I had with one of your fellow bloggers. It was a very helpful discussion and was conducted in a very professional manner. So here we are to let you know that we do not hate you and we are very much open to constructive criticism. Would you take the initiative to show us that you do not carry any ill will towards FASTtelco?
God Bless,
FT, thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate what you have to say. I understand your take on the services you have to offer, but what about customer service? I have been a FT user for nearly 5 years now, and I’d really love to see better service when I call the help line. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times your IT people have hung up on me (for the simple fact that they didn’t know how to solve my problem), or the number of times I’ve gotten “Sorry but we can’t help you”.. and of course as soon as I hand over the phone to my older brother everything somehow magically gets solved.
I don’t know if your staff has something against women or what the deal is but if you say cheaper products means cheaper labor, I’m sorry to say but it doesn’t seem like your money is going in the right place because there may be some underpaid or incapable people on your staff for the kind of customer service being offered. Either that or someone needs to teach them Marketing & Sales 101: The customer is always right.
Please let me make it clear that I’m not attacking FT, I’m just offering some customer feedback which I hope someone will take to heart. I would love to see better customer service because ever since my last several calls went bad, I have yet to bother calling them myself.. I sort of already know what their answers will be- not very helpful.
English lesson:
FT hates bloggers that suck… Plural bloggerS, suck with no s
Got that??
“We do not hate bloggers. On the contrary, we know that our customers including bloggers are the source of our income hence, we love them. We also know that constructive criticism and feedback from customers is what pushes us forward. However, we do not see expressions such as “Shitty”, “Sucks”, “Idiots” and so on to be a great source of learning.”
Well, maybe you should ask your selves why we talk like that… MAYBE because nothing else worked with your SHITTY service and now all we can do is express our FRUSTRATION with your SHITTY service.
It is SHITTY, especially that you don’t show the slightest effort of actually SOLVING any problems or at LEAST trying to COMPENSATE US for the SHIT you made us go through.
Now, you may flush this post. So it can be at same EXCELLENT level of your internet service.
>_> that was inappropriate. But seriously, is there any possible way to make them understand that they are making me regret the minute I decided to renew my subs? Apparently an email or a phone call wont help.
FASTtelco , its “basis” not “bases”
Spell check can never replace a formal education.
Was this ghost written by the blog owner?
Similar spelling mistakes.
I’m glad people appreciate constructive criticism around here. The question is:
Have you considered looking deeper into service desk issues? If you have noticed that FT users, or let’s say bloggers; are complaining of ‘bad service’ from the help desk. I’m sure FT, along with anyone else or another company who may be reading this, would nod in agreement when I say the following simple statement: A company with inexperienced staff at the help desk will go through irreversible setbacks and lose a certain amount of revenue.
Technology *IS* expensive, I agree. Yet to keep up with the costs, one will have to be proactive in order to minimize the number of incidents, in turn minimize the amount of excessive spending by investing in the very people who are at the ‘front line’, training help desk staff to deal with tech illiterate people is a pretty good investment.
It doesn’t cost that much to teach a help desk employee how to be patient and to explain in layman’s terms on what the issue may be, in comparison to the cost of spending heavily on ad/marketing campaigns to retain the customers.
Always provide adequate support for the product you’re selling. Otherwise, it won’t sell.
ziza: majlis il-omma? Will I get all the perks? Free trips to vegas and all that? You’re hired. 😛
Mr.Derisavi :
Sorry for asking you to address the readers concerns, i guess it was a bad idea…but don’t worry and look at the bright side.. you became famous and everyone knows who to call when having connection issues with FT.
Why don’t post your cell number 😉
Speaking from personal experience only:
I used Fasttelco for a year at a start-up company. The price was much higher than anyone else in Kuwait, but during that entire year, we never had a problem with them – not once. The following year, we decided to go with Quality Net. Immediately – within a week – we had problems and couldn’t get Qnet service people to come out. Some of them actually shouted at us on the phone. It was unbelievable.
I interviewed at Fasttelco years ago and I found that their workforce is not diversified. I think that is unfortunate because they could be gleaning different perspectives and ideas on better service.
I know the Al-Ghanim in charge of Fasttelco and he is one of the coolest people I have met; very down to Earth, young, and energetic. You can’t put the blame on him – maybe it is the management he has chosen.
One of the easiest ways for any company to remedy customer service problems is to conduct customer surveys. Maybe they should do that online so that bloggers can respond.
BTW – you can get to ANY site ANYWHERE in the world through a proxy bypass site. If they block one, ten more pop up the next day: Not a problem. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Desert Girl:
This post was written to inform FT (and its users) about their issues; as they were delirious to them (calling it propaganda).
I agree with you .. FT started off as a great company with reliable service.
And I too was a happy customer, however that has gone to the dumps during past three years (as mentioned). In that time, Qualitynet and Zajil managed to reinvent themselves and have come back with great pricing (and service).
FT is الخمطه بربع
fastelco and united networks are the worst ISP’s in Kuwait. Really shitty service, bad customers support, in other words a joke of a company.
Just get qualitynet, it’s the best.