ATHEEB GO BROADBAND HAS GONE!

With much fanfare, ATHEEB GO Broadband announced its arrival in Saudi Arabia. A huge media campaign deluged the city of Riyadh in early 2009, from posters, newspapers, to handouts. WIMAX had arrived and ATHEEB were spearheading the delivery of this technology to the city's eager consumers. Lightning fast speeds, reliability, and "around the clock technical support" were touted. With the temptation of irresistible promotions dangled in front of our glassy eyes. A picture of a speeding black bullet on their Home page as if to illustrate their blazing speed just seemed too good to be true. And it was … too good to be true!

The ATHEEB GO dream has degraded to regular and extensive drop outs, speed that dwindles to dial up, and lying Customer Support Agents that read from the same monotonous prepared script telling you that your complaint is with the Back Office and you can expect a call today or tomorrow repeated to frustrated callers day in and day out. With a parting "can we help you with anything else?" it almost becomes condescending, because you never receive that call from GO Technical Support. I wonder how they sleep at night?

BEWARE the NO MONEY back scam after 3 days! Everything is fine at first, but should you encounter any connectivity issues DO NOT expect to see ANY technical support from ATHEEB GO.

In any other country, this kind of behaviour would be looked upon as fraud and there are Government agencies to monitor and ensure consumers get what they paid for. Unfortunately it is a sad fact of life that many consumers here in Saudi Arabia take getting ripped off and people stealing their hard earned money as going with the territory.

I take comfort in the fact, that although I, and many others, have kissed our hard earned money goodbye, that many of ATHEEB GO's lying staff will have lost their jobs next year due to a dwindling customer base as the word gets around. And believe me, these days, WORD GETS AROUND.