No Dial Tone in Dubai

Posted by Cindy on July 29, 2009

So, I was waiting for my friends flying in to Dubai from the State to give me a call when they arrived. I’d head out to the airport after their call and by the time I get there, they will have gotten through customs and retrieved their luggage. I’m pretty sure they have landed but I didn’t hear from them. I picked up my phone and I had no dial tone! I started to panic because whoever called me would get a busy tone. I had to make a call to the horrible etisalat.

If one lives in the UAE long enough, one will know that etisalats customer service is the worst ever possible. I’ve known friends that had to wait up to 2 months before an easily fixed technical issue, which only took say 5 minutes to fix. I’ve heard about calling in and getting only generic responses from the customer service agents for any issue. The nightmare stories are infinite. I really didn’t want to call the etisalat, but I had no options. My friends will be hanging around the airport for days cause they can’t get a hold of me. But, I thought I’d give it a go anyway, so I dialed the 3-digit code which directly routes any phone call to the etisalat, dial tone or no dial tone, and expected to be but on hold for hours, so once I got put in the Que, not wanting to get bored, I decided to make some tea. But, before I even got up out of my comfortable chair, my call was being answered! It only took a few seconds of being on hold.

I  told the customer service agent that I had no dial tone and I was expecting a standard response of we will check into the issue and get back with you, but that didn’t happen. The agent put me on hold for a few seconds and then came back on the phone to inform me that the issue I had was due to an error in maintenance and they have reset the line so when I hang up, I will have dial tone. I asked them to reassure me, and the agent did. I thanked him and hung up the phone. I immediately picked up the phone and had dial tone! Amazing. My phone issue was fix in minutes. Minutes. I put the phone back down and it rang! It was my friends saying they just arrived to the airport, so they’ll be needing a ride to the 4 Star Hotel Dubai where they made reservations. A miracle in the desert. I tried calling etisalats back to thank them for helping me out so quickly, but I couldn’t get through.