Comments

26/02: Stay Away from BrainNET's DSL Service!

Maverick on WCCK Forums reports that BrainNET is using false advertising to lure potential customers to its unlimited home DSL packages when in fact, these packages are capped at 3GB per month. If you require more bandwidth you are charged more or else, your account is locked.

Maverick's post is quoted below as a matter of record and so that the reader's understand this matter better:

---

Sadly I have come to know after a bitter experience lasting 10 days that Brain Net gives you only 3GB of downloads even though they advertise unlimited downloads....That's correct folks regardless of what anyone else says Brain Net reserves only 3GB for their 'unlimited' advertised accounts.

So I am in day 12th today and early in the morning I receive an sms message that my account was due for Rs. 2300. Confused I called up the local office only to be advised that the message is erroneous and that I should ignore it. Around 1pm my internet got disconnected and wouldn't connect again, Modem error message was "Authentication Failure"!

Called up the office again only to be told that they will fix it, 3 hours later I called them again and I was quite upset this time, demanded their address and told them I will pay them a visit to which they provided me the number of their toll free number and told me that they too contact the same number as the troubleshooting is only done in Lahore.

Called up the toll free number and the CSR told me that my account was blocked because of non payment, I told him it was impossible as I had already paid in advance for the whole month which started only 12 days ago, He checked again and then told me that my downloads had exceeded the set limit consistently hence the account was locked. The guy told me that he will restore the connection within 10 minutes.

Pretty upset with all the nuisance I called up the regional head of sales department, Mr. Ayaz told me that I was downloading too much and that they cannot keep my account any more. I told him that they had advertised unlimited downloads to which he gave me stupid excuses:

Ayaz: You are not downloading like a home user rather like a corporate user
Me: It does not matter how I download as you have advertised unlimited downloads.

Ayaz: But we have a 3GB Limit for home users (30GB for 1:10 shared connection)
Me: Then why haven't you mentioned the same and why do you advertise unlimited downloads?

Ayaz: 3GB Downloads are enough for any household that is why we advertise unlimited downloads. What do you download anyway?
Me: I download HD Movies off torrents, why do you not advertise a 3GB download limit? Why do you misguide customers like me, why do you think I pay almost Rs. 2400/month for a 2MB connection?

Ayaz: All ISP's do the same, your downloads will be restricted regardless of which ISP you use.
Me: That still does not justify your false advertisement which attracted me to you in the first place. Be also advised that I am an active member of quite a few Forums and I will post about your LIE. Please refund me for the days remaining.
Ayaz: Let me arrange that when I get back to office.

Brain Net advertisement about unlimited downloads is a fucking lie, Beware!


---

What makes it all the more alarming is that BrainNET seems to be doing this deliberately. Proof of this is found when one looks at its website describing the packages available. You can go to the package details page by clicking here. There is no mention of any volume limit for the packages. On another page, they advertise these packages as being "24 hours unlimited". I would call this a clever use of words to state that the connections remain connected 24/7 which is sort of an implied meaning of a broadband connection. However, the potential customer (most not understanding a lot of English) takes this to mean that the packages don't have any volume limitation. Even on the above linked page, there is no mention of any bandwidth/volume limitations for the end user. The customer is thus deliberately misled into believing that the packages have no volume limitations.

In the quoted conversation with the regional head of sales department, Mr. Ayaz lies blatantly and unashamedly to Maverick. First, home users these days download huge amounts of data. This is evident with the increasing popularity of video sites like YouTube and MetaCafe which consume a major portion of internet traffic these days. In fact, I would venture very confidently to say that in Pakistan's scenario a corporate connection generates less traffic than one installed at homes of any avid internet user. 3 GB download is not enough for any household. With increasing size of web pages, and increasing multimedia content in websites, most often one finds that the [non-advertised] volume limit is crossed quite easily. Calling a 3GB limit package unlimited is lying to the customers and false advertisement.

Amongst all ISPs in Pakistan providing broadband connections, it is well assumed that they will be unlimited in both connectivity and volume. Out of all the Pakistani ISPs I have read about (and I read about them quite a lot), Nayatel is the only one providing FTTH which has volume limited home packages which makes their packages unappealing and utterly crappy. Other Wimax packages from Wateen are also volume limited for the most part. Take any of PTCL, LINKdotNET, Micronet, Maxcom or other popular ISPs providing DSL service. All offer home DSL packages which have no volume restrictions. This proves that the contention of Mr. Ayaz regarding other ISPs "doing the same" is another lie.

This underhanded maneuver by BrainNET is a patent example of how to defraud a customer. I would recommend to potential DSL subscribers currently looking for a new connection to stay far away from BrainNET's service until this issue is satisfactorily resolved either way. You can trace progress of this issue on Wired Pakistan Forums, WCCK Forums or on PKFORUM.

Stay alert and protect your rights as a consumer.

Everyone who uses BrainNET or any other internet service provider is welcome to share his or her experience in the comments section below. Good luck to you all in finding the internet service provider which provides internet packages fitting your needs at a reasonable price and great after-sales customer service.

Edit [1/7/2009]: Maverick adds:

Hey Asad, do you know I wrote that post on wcck about BrainNET, the one your turned in to a blog and have in your signature They refunded me 2 weeks later as their GM was out of the country and no refunds could be made before his return (well actually the CS at the office paid me earlier but out of their own pockets which they told me will be refunded once the GM returns!).

All's well that ends well. Congrats to Maverick for getting his money back.




Asad  Reviews 
Karma: 736 [Add to karma] 


Comments made

nice and quick work asad......
26/02 05:03:27
@ Fajoo: Thanks!

People need to be aware of false advertising by these ISPs who think they can play on words to fool the customer.
26/02 10:43:00
Thank you for sharing this! A friend was going for BrainNet, but now I will definitely advise him against it! I myself am a LINKdotNET customer and I can vouch for the fact that they have absolutely NO data caps and whether my download for a month are 3 or 30 gb...they never charge extra. False advertising is becoming a trend...has always been a trend in Pakistan, actually, but in this new age of open communications...companies should BEWARE of telling lies to their customers. There can be major backlash.
26/02 11:13:49
Maverick: On a personal level I was contacted by a local staff who was just as surprised that the accounts that were advertised to be unlimited weren't actually unlimited at all. According to my knowledge the local staff too had an argument with Lahore on the 'Unlimited' part and have vowed to enlighten all prospective customers about the 3Gb cap.
28/02 02:56:59
I have lodged a complaint with PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority):

Thank you for using our online complaint registration system.
Your complaint has been submitted. After examination for information consistency your complaint will be registered and complaint number will be sent to you through email.


Will Keep you Guys posted.
28/02 03:11:05
@Ashar: Thank you for the update. I hope that BrainNET removes this stupid limitation from your connection.
28/02 09:55:28
Wow, Sucks to hear about ISPs doing this sort of unbearable tricks.
I'm a PTCL DSL user, and I consume 3.5-4GB of DOWNLOADs everyday. I dunno how maverick passed 10-12 days with that little of bandwidth.
Damn, BrainNet should be sued for thinking Pakistani netizens as some kind of fools who'd live with their bull**** happily ever after.
Seemingly , the ISP need better 'brains' if they don't wanna vanish from the surface of the earth soon enough.
02/03 19:27:41
@Abbasjin:

Yeah, it is unethical. When I was on 512K, my normal download per day was 4.3-4.5GB. Now on 1MB, it easily crosses 8GB per day if I download continuously.
03/03 10:38:55
Horrible horrible. One advice to this poor fellow, just change your ISP.
11/03 01:51:38
I SO not taking cybernet dsl ,their dialup card sucks enough :|
I have to say ptcl is pretty good out all the other isp providers,1mb for 1200 rs,900 rs for student.Now thats called "sweet"
15/03 03:38:38
I Hate BrainNET. And I wish for the End of BrainNET. It will be delightful if such companies are banned or destroyed by any means.
29/03 13:06:26
I Hate BrainNET. And I wish for the End of BrainNET. It will be delightful if such companies are banned or destroyed by any means.
29/03 13:08:20
My monthly download ranges from 80GB to 150 GB, mixture of torrents and Rapidshare/Mega.... mostly bluray movies.... 10-21gb.... I guess i will get a monthly bill over 20ks with such stupid tarriffs....
27/04 02:25:39
You are lucky. Back in dialup days, I got their 30 days unlimited connection. After a few days I started disconnecting after every 10 minutes although the line quality was good.

I visited their their headoffice in Lahore. It turned out, that they are deliberatively disconnecting me as I download too much data :-( You are lucky that you simply got disconnected once.

Too much on dialup, at 3kb/sec.

I had been their customer for ages, but never used their service again.
30/04 00:57:14
You are lucky. Back in dialup days, I got their 30 days unlimited connection. After a few days I started disconnecting after every 10 minutes although the line quality was good.

I visited their their headoffice in Lahore. It turned out, that they are deliberatively disconnecting me as I download too much data :-( You are lucky that you simply got disconnected once.

Too much on dialup, at 3kb/sec.

I had been their customer for ages, but never used their service again.
30/04 01:00:01
Hi,

I've been using Brain DSL and my average download is 2GB per day with a total of 60gb+ per month and my connection never gets blocked, I am using their home dsl package 2MB and it is working fine in Lahore Cantt.

I called their help desk and they informed that those capping stuff is for users with some sort of Virus, DOS attacks, worms and trojons (and everone knows they are expert in virus stuff).

This is the reason their DSL outperforms PTCL and LDN as their DSL service is much more stable and consistent compared to others.

I wish best of luck to Brain Net as they are pioneer and first ISP of Pakistan and knows the very inside of TCP/IP and UDP stuff.

Regards,
Z
09/05 17:33:27
CAN ANY BODY HERE TELLS ME HOW CAN I CONFIG BRAIN NET DSL MODEM? setting need from A-ZEE.

thanks
03/06 18:49:24
First of all thanks for letting us know about this NoBrain dot net scam. It's funny how some companies in Pakistan think they can repeatedly screw the client and get away with it.

False advertising is considered very bad business practice.

There are two mode of actions you can take.

1) Go to RipOffReport.com and file a complaint against BrainNet. Then when people search for BrainNet in Google, your complaint will show up and will be seen by potential clients. You will be saving them the bad experience you went through.

2) File a complaint at the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunications Autority) site. I think they will also take some action. Might not be as effective as RipOffReport but still will be something.

As for BrainNet, I don't think they will make it too far if they keep up this business practice.
17/08 11:22:35
Siraj, do you supply movies to dealers....:)..well thats true, there should be no cap, no false advertisement. My brother in US has 15MB connection and we are here fighting on 1 or 2 MBs and even for that we are being fooled by the operators.
I am seeing from the posts that our customers are getting the required awareness. I'm very hopeful things will be better very soon.
01/09 02:21:13
Thanks for sharing This...!
27/09 16:46:28

Add comment

 

Allowed BBCode:[b] [i] [u] [color=] [size=] [quote] [code] [email] [img]

Comments must be approved before being published.

 

Copyright © 2006-2013 Asad Asif - All rights reserved unless otherwise noted.

CSS | XHTML 1.0 Strict | RSS