KARACHI, July 30: Subscribers of Pakistan’s largest cellphone operator have complained of misuse and said that their credit balance was discharged without making calls and demanded of the Pakistan Telecom Authority to take notice of the situation.

People using Mobilink complained about poor quality of service of the mobile phone operator and said that they experienced frequent line disconnections.

They also criticized the operator for loss of signals and said that it also frequently rendered them helpless from making calls.

“I recharged my account four times, but every time the balance disappeared in a day or two. I am helpless. I can’t do anything. When I contacted Mobilink’s call centre, I was kept waiting for nearly half-an-hour and then they tried to explain that their system is ‘perfect’ and that I would have made calls,” said an angry Mobilink subscriber using a prepaid connection.

Many users complained that call centre numbers were unreachable and users could only hear call-waiting announcements. They said that they were waiting for the implementation of a number of portability technology, enabling them to switch over to other operators as they did not want to change their numbers.

“After experiencing repeated misuse of my account, I have stopped using Mobilink connection,” said another subscriber. He said all of his friends had encountered the same problems and had switched over to other services.“My wife and I have lost around Rs1,800 on account of faults while using the Mobilink connections. After repeated complaints (two-hour calls from PTCL numbers) the call centre people had admitted that a fault had been detected in their system and that the money would be refunded to my account. I was stunned to see that they had credited only Rs89 against my claim of Rs1,000,” complained an irate subscriber.

A lady doctor and a nurse at a local hospital said that they had tried their best to lodge complaints regarding the ‘disappearance’ of credit amounts at the Mobilink’s call centre from their mobile phones but the number was always busy and one could only hear about their promotional packages.

“Mobilink’s service seems like that of a public sector company. Instead of rectifying faults in their system, they are only interested in grabbing more customers,” remarked the lady doctor.

Many callers also complained that besides the misuse of their credit balance, Mobilink’s call tariffs were too high compared with other mobile phone operators and were unjustified in the light of the quality of their service.