Category: Uncategorized

Here’s my chat transcript for a customer manager, reading this will halfway solve your problem.

masnun [1:40:03 PM]: EDGE/Coverage/VAS
System [1:40:03 PM]: Connection established.
System [1:40:13 PM]: Initiating Chat, Please Wait.
System [1:40:13 PM]: Welcome to GrameenPhone Online Customer Service
System [1:40:13 PM]: http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php
System [1:40:14 PM]: Connecting… An Online Customer Service Manager will be with you shortly.
System [1:40:14 PM]: Kindly be patient while one of our Customer Service Manager will respond to your query.
Minhaj [1:40:31 PM]: Good Afternoon Mr. Masnun, how may I assist you?
masnun [1:40:57 PM]: I need to check my P2 balance
masnun [1:41:10 PM]: and I have one more query after that
Minhaj [1:41:46 PM]: Please allow me some time to check that
Minhaj [1:43:35 PM]: You have used 3480.80 MB in your phone till today,Sir
masnun [1:44:19 PM]: ok
masnun [1:44:36 PM]: Why am I getting low quality images?
Minhaj [1:45:46 PM]: Please wait for a while
masnun [1:45:58 PM]: ok
======= 5 minutes break =======
Minhaj [1:50:19 PM]: How Long you are having this problem,Sir?
masnun [1:50:33 PM]: last 2-3 days
Minhaj [1:51:27 PM]: Alright sir
masnun [1:52:16 PM]: what?
masnun [1:52:33 PM]: I don’t see anything right here
Minhaj [1:52:51 PM]: This happening because of Data Optimization
Minhaj [1:53:18 PM]: To avoid this Press Ctrl+f5 which will reload the existing page in un-optimized mode & from there onwards the customer will experience the un-optimized mode till the cache of the browser is cleared
masnun [1:53:51 PM]: Do you know my browser?
masnun [1:54:15 PM]: I’m using Google Chrome
masnun [1:54:17 PM]: what do I do?
masnun [1:54:26 PM]: same?
Minhaj [1:55:00 PM]: Yes sir
masnun [1:55:12 PM]: trying
Minhaj [1:55:15 PM]: After that please press Shift + R
masnun [1:55:24 PM]: btw what kind of optimization is this?
masnun [1:55:37 PM]: can you give me details?
masnun [1:55:43 PM]: and why are you doing this?
masnun [1:56:21 PM]: and what do I do with Firefox?
Minhaj [1:57:22 PM]: This is a provision given to the customer if the customer feels that the image quality needs to be improved or the image needs to be downloaded, which is right now a website specific provision & may not work for all the web pages. But this provision will be applicable for all the web pages as the development is in progress.
masnun [1:57:52 PM]: You gave me wrong shortcut
masnun [1:58:45 PM]: It’s Ctrl + Shift + R for Google chrome
masnun [1:58:59 PM]: no need for Ctrl + F5
Minhaj [2:00:04 PM]: Alright sir
masnun [2:00:29 PM]: what do I have to do in Firefox and IE?
masnun [2:01:26 PM]: ok found on FF
masnun [2:01:35 PM]: same Ctrl + Shift + R
Minhaj [2:01:53 PM]: Please press Shift + R, then refresh the page
masnun [2:02:33 PM]: on IE9 beta
masnun [2:02:40 PM]: just Ctrl + R works
masnun [2:02:53 PM]: sorry
masnun [2:03:04 PM]: Ctrl + F5 in IE9 BEta
masnun [2:03:21 PM]: thanks for the balance inquiry
masnun [2:03:47 PM]: and please note that Shift + R and Ctrl + F5 doesn’t work for other browsers
masnun [2:03:57 PM]: the shortcuts I just gave you
Minhaj [2:04:03 PM]: Thanks for your sharing sir
masnun [2:04:10 PM]: I’ve tested on FF 3.6.8
masnun [2:04:14 PM]: Chrome 6
masnun [2:04:16 PM]: and IE 9
masnun [2:04:18 PM]: 🙂
masnun [2:04:21 PM]: you’re welcome
masnun [2:04:24 PM]: bye
Minhaj [2:04:31 PM]: Thank you for being with us, have a nice time!
System [2:04:35 PM]: Chat session is over, Thank you for using Online Customer Service

Conclusion:
Grameen Phone has included some sort of data optimization. It loads low quality image by default. You need to use the following keyboard shortcuts to get rid of the low quality images:

You need to clear your cache to remove the old images in the cache. First clear it. Then use the shortcut.

IE9 Beta: Ctrl + F5
Google Chrome 6: Ctrl + Shift + R
Firefox 3.6.8: Ctrl + Shift + R

If you again clear your cache, you will be getting low quality images. So whenever you clear the cache, do hit the shortcut as well 😀

This comic strip reminds me of the customer care of Bangladeshi Telecom companies and the ISPs. Restart your machine and turn on/off your modems is the only solution they have. They also expect everyone to use Windows 😀

Source: xkcd.com 🙂

Well, in one of my earlier posts, I wrote on how you can use Moneybookers to transfer your online earnings safely to your DBBL bank account. The post got popular and many people were inspired, I believe. Moneybookers is indeed a very cost effective solutions for Bangladeshi free lance workers who are working online on different free lance sites/agencies like Scriptlance, Freelancer or oDesk. Moneybookers charges only $2.32 to transfer any amount to Bangladesh. But the situation worsened when some of the readers notified me about the high transfer fees which were applied to some transactions. I was also charged extra than the usual Moneybookers fees. I was surprised. Looking up the transaction gave me information that the money was passed through a bank in Germany. They charged around 12 EURO as a bank wire transfer fee! No doubt, I was damn unhappy! I was not the only one. Apparently most of the Bangladeshi moneybookers users ceased to withdraw cash via them.

I was not out of luck or helpless with Moneybookers. Rumman vaiya (my partner at JOTIL21) had a verified paypal account linked to his canadian bank account. He’s a canadian citizen. I used to transfer a lot of my earnings via him. But I was feeling very guilty to disturb him every now and then. On the other hand, I didn’t want to go for Payoneer debit card, since I hardly do any free lance projects these days. I need to receive money from my employer. So, I decided to knock MB customer care.

I sent them an email regarding the extra charges. They responded 6-7 hours later. They mentioned for some reasons, the transactions were processed in EUR. Thats the reason, I got charged extra! They also claimed that the issue was resolved now and they’ll charge the normal rate afterwards. Here’s the quote:

We would like to kindly inform you that your withdrawal has been sent out in EUR due to processing requirements. However, we have resolved the issues and again we process withdrawals in USD.

I was curious, I knocked them regarding why they were required to process the money in EUR. Here’s the heads up:

We appreciate your enquiry and would like to inform you that we have had processing issues with Standard Chartered bank which was processing our transactions in EUR. The situation has however been resolved and the transactions from your account will be processed in USD.

OK, so they claim that they had some sort of problem with the Standard Chartered Bank and they had to process the money via another bank. That makes sense! But they should have explicitly informed the users during the withdrawal. That would have helped us making an alternate decision or at least it would have made Moneybookers more credible as a money transfer solution!