The dark side of the satellite technology - The nightmare of reloading our Inmarsat BGAN SIM card
Update
Refilling our Satellite BGAN Sim - the success!
After the troubles and the loss of units on our BGAN SIM card due to credit expiration for a refill not performed by the Company the company to which we had ordered the top-up, MVS USA has taken care of our problem performing the subsequent refills.
After contacting managers at MVS USA we were helped to refill or credit at regular intervals with them directly, so from then on our credit has been preserved.
We thanks the staff at MVS USA for having taken care of our problem so that no further problems occurred and should not happen in the future with the refills or our satellite phone number.
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During our expedition, our communications in the most remore areas of South Pacific have been guaranteed by our Inmarsat BGAN satellite modem.
This apparatus allowed us to keep connected to the Internet to read and write emails, browse web pages, and download or upload content on the Internet.
This very reliable tehnology has a dark side.
The cost of this technology is very high. About 5 Eur per Megabyte exchanged.
But that is not the real problem. The biggest problem is that the credit on the SIM expires every two years after the last reload. By reloading a voucher of units (minutes of calls or megabytes for Internet) the expiration date of the units unused is postponed by two additional years.
This seems quite simple, but keep reading the rest of our story and you will undestand how it can turn into a nightmare losing hundreds of eur of credit in a way that should never occur.
Our is a low budget project and losing almost 500 units (around 400 Eur) is a big loss.
The complete story or our unlucky reload - soon on this page!
Some years ago, in 2009 we had purchased our satellite modem and a reload of units from XSAT USA LLC - http://www.xsatshop.com.
Since then, we have been loyal customers of XSAT LLC, by regularly purchasing reloads to preserve the credit present on our BGAN SIM card.
Last reload was on 2014, so we had 712 units expiring on 17 June 2016, as Xsat reported when we asked them in 2015.
On 10 June 2016, we purchased through one of the Xsat websites, a reload of 250 units to preserve our credit that was going to expire on one week later.
The purchase was done through PayPal, so we submitted the payment authorization and provided all details of our Bgan Sim card by email and through the support ticketing system of Xsat.
One week later, by way of Inmarsat Global email support service, we discovered that Xsat had not performed the reload and our credit of 712 units was expired!
712 units are equivalent to around 640 Eur.
We opened a lot of support tickets with Inmarsat, and we wrote immediately to Xsat.
The first answer was that we did not provide the data of the SIM to reload. This is not true. We provided the full details by replying to their emails and through support tickets opened with their support ticketing system of one of their websites.
Please not that they never alerted us that they were not reloading our SIM.
Alerting us would be mandatory if they were responsible people because or credit was about to expire in one week.
Once the credit is lost, it cannot be recovered.
Later on, their version of what happened changed.
They said they did not perform the reload, thinking it could be a fraud.
But again, why they did not alert us of what they were thinking?
They just let our credit of 712 units expire for not having performed the reload before the due date.
We are verified PayPal customers, our order and payment authorization was valid.
Moreover, they released the amount authorized by us, only after our credit was already expired.
This fact has been confirmed by an official email from PayPal.
For what happened, Xsat offered to recharge our expired credit by 250 units, but we had 712 units on the card, a lot more.
They said that this was the best offer from them and that there was "no reason to offer anything additional unless Inmarsat or MVS decide unilaterally to offer you to recover your lost units".
Now the problem was to see if Inmarsat and MVS would help in this situation.
But what is MVS?
MVS, or The MVS Group http://www.themvsgroup.com/ is the provider of our Inmarsat BGAN SIM.
So practically we knew for the first time that our SIM card belongs to the MVS network, so there was no need to refill it by way of Xsat.
We could have reloaded it with MVS directly, bypassing Xsat.
Now that all that happened, surely, we'd better not reloading the SIM by way of Xsat.
But what to do then, to re-activate our expired credit, our 712 units paid and expired, not because we forgot to reload in time, but because Xsat did not execute our purchase order, letting the units present on the SIM expire?
The answer from Inmarsat was:
Inmarsat cannot take sides in a dispute between a reseller and an end user. We cannot make changes to services belonging to our Distribution Partners without their authorisation. I'm very sorry we cannot assist but it is not possible for us to do what you are asking. I know MVS opened a case for you previously, so I would recommend following up with them regarding that case, or discussing this with Xsat further.
Practically, what Inmarsat could do is restoring the lost units for free, but they said that they cannot do anything without authorizations from his partners (MVS and its reseller Xsat).
But Xsat said that MVS or Inmarsat could decide unilaterally to offer you to recover the lost units.
I followed up the case with MVS.
MVS asked Inmarsat to offer a free voucher to restore the difference between the lost units and the 250 units offered by Xsat.
This was the answer from Inmarsat, by way of MVS:
Unfortunately Inmarsat was unable to offer any free vouchers at this moment. As I mentioned in my previous e-mails the system does not allow us to recover any lost units.
XSAT also confirmed they offered you 250 units as a goodwill gesture. At this time the only way to upload more units is if you purchase a voucher, I can process this request directly with you if you don't want to contact XSAT.
So, the problem is not that Inmarsat cannot restore the lost credits without authorization fro, MVS or Xsat. but they have no intention to help in any way.
So practically, everybody would be very glad that one of the other parties in this story and partnership would offer a free voucher to restore the lost units, but no one wants to offer anything itself.
Now our consideration is: can a customer be treated in this way and left alone by an International Company like Inmarsat?
Us it acceptable that Inmarsat does not guarantee its customers regarding the behaviour of its partners or subpartners?
Is it acceptable that MVS does not offer concrete help to settle this situation?
Is it acceptable that Xsat offer only 250 units when 712 were lost because they did not perform the reload?
Has any of this companies a policy towards customers, a commitment to a service quality level and policy?
Do they have ISO 9000, ISO 9001 or equivalent certifications?
Now the question is: who is taking advantage of our paid units lost, and in what proportion?
I do not know exactly how reselling of Inmarsat services work, but I suppose that the provider of the SIM card MVS buy the units from Inmarsat and Xsat, reseller of MVS buys the units from MVS.
So, supposingly, the majority of the cost is gained by Inmarsat, a fraction by MVS, and a smaller part by Xsat to resell the airtime.
In this scenario, Inmarsat could donate a voucher for the majority of the credits lost, MVS, another part.
Xsat has already offered 250 units, that is more than 30% of the credits lost.
The error has been done by them, not by MVS or Inmarsat, but Inmarsat and MVS are taking advantage of the paid credit lost, so they could offer a proportional free voucher to compensate for the credit losts on our SIM.
If they will keep on not offering this voucher, in our opinion this would mean that nobody wants to give up the opportunity of getting a profit from the unit lost, namely taking advantage without doing anything.
Now I would like to express some words to let you understand the extremely stressing and anxiuos feeling when we realized that topping up an Inmarsat Bgan SIM card with Xsat that appeared to us like playing at a slot machine or at the roulette.
The stress is increased when we realized how much was difficult to communicate with Xsat and MVS.
Xsat has several websites, but also several bugs.
Many emails addresse published on their websites are not working.
Please check yourself:
http://online.xsatsupport.com/ (link for recharging BGAN from their page http://emea.xsatglobal.com/)
The same for http://support.xsatsupport.com/ (link for online desk from their page http://emea.xsatglobal.com/support.php)
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Thinking about what happened to us, the presence of a compliance to a standard like ISO 9000 - ISO 9001 or equivalent or a commitment to customer satisfaction policy it is very important.
We are looking to see if Inmarsat, MVS, or Xsat have such certifications or policies, but we'll nto be surprised if they have none.
After various attempts to get help with our case, we got into contact with the president of MVS USA!
She wrote us that MVS will have done their best to support us but nobody helped us and she gfot no reply to our emails.....
It appears that the only chance to prevent problems like those we have experienced is not purchasing satellite services from big providers or networks but rather from those businesses that have an ISO 9001 or equivalent compliance certification, if any exist.
Any comment and (free) legal advice would be much apprteciated.
Update
After contacting managers at MVS USA we were helped to refill or credit at regular intervals with them directly, so from then on our credit has been preserved.
We thank the staff at MVS USA for having taken care of our problem so that no further problems occurred and should not happen in the future with the refills or our satellite phone number.
You can write us at address info@emoc.com
Thank you!
- please keep on to read the rest of the story -
