Secret Dubai diary Intrigue and adventure in the United Arab Emirates





iPhone RPGs

Dubai Info

Best role-playing games
Spiderweb Software
for Mac & PC





21 December, 2005

The price of stupidity

No sympathy at all for the father in this story, whose presumably school-age daughter rang up massive phone bills dialling premium numbers:

"A father had to pay Dh95, 000 for the SMS messages his daughter sent to satellite channels airing offensive songs," [Dubai police chief Lt Gen Tamim] said, adding that he came to know about it yesterday during a meeting with the Islamic department of Umm Al Alaa Primary School in Fujairah.

That any child save Athina Onassis would be given free rein on a post-paid mobile is cretinous beyond belief.

Lt Gen Tamim is running a campaign called "No to Shameful Satellites". It conjures up images of Hot Bird in a peephole bra or Nilesat in a g-string.

Labels: ,

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not think Athina would spend these kind of money-even though she is mere 20, she has alreay gone through a lot and quite mature, though one might question her choice of gloom for the recent marriage. How about comparig this girl on the topic to Paris Hilton instead? Well I guess she works to Paris Hilton instead? Well I guess she works and makes quite a lot of money so she does not count?
It seems that this girl has a decent father so she will be fine, I hope.

21 December, 2005 06:15  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not think Athina would spend these kind of money-even though she is mere 20, she has already gone through a lot and is quite mature, though one might question her choice of groom for the recent marriage. How about comparig this girl on the topic to Paris Hilton instead? Well I guess she works and makes quite a lot of money so she does not count?
It seems that this girl has a decent father so she will be fine, I hope.
Please delete the previous post, SD. Thanks.

21 December, 2005 06:25  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I never cease to be amazed at parents the world over who expect other people to be responsible for their children. Security guards in shopping malls, lifeguards at the pool . . . and I won't even mention teachers at school! Raising children is a 24/7 responsibility for AT LEAST the first 18 years. Sometimes I think people ought to be licensed to breed. (Or do I just need a second cup of coffee this morning?)

21 December, 2005 08:53  
Blogger moryarti said...

OMG..

Knowing that etisalat blocks the mobile number if a payment is not made within 2 months; is piling up Dhs 95K worth of SMSs -in that period of time- humanly possible?

21 December, 2005 10:16  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

does anyone watches XXL?

There is a show in which there is a girl who is wearing clothes, basically you call her LIVE and ask her to take off her cloths! actaully you can tell her to do anything you want.

they have lines for uae, kuwait and other GCC!

I was so surprised those girls speak lil bit arabic as well.

like habiby entey zain! ahhhhhhhh.

i am now bored of these shows.

21 December, 2005 10:19  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i wonder how much people spend on these telephone calls???

21 December, 2005 10:21  
Blogger Parv said...

Mr. Lieutenant-General should focus more on getting the 'working girls' off the streets, than battling those "shameful satellites". The streets/malls/hotels of Dubai are sometimes no different than that vibrant 'Mashkelni' video!

As an afterthought, is it even possible to amass Dhs.95000 worth of SMS messages?! That's more than 300,000 SMS messages! Are they having a laugh?!

21 December, 2005 14:02  
Blogger Alex said...

What would Abu "Hot Arabic singers" Aardvark say about those shameful satellites?

Mind you, perhaps the problem is that the General found out what Hot Bird means in English..

21 December, 2005 14:26  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lessee... 300,000 SMS messages in 60 days equals 5,000 a day... divided by 24 hours equals 208 per hour... or, assuming this miscreant ever sleeps (let's assume she has insomnia and only sleeps 6 hours a night), 18 hours or 1080 minutes... so five text messages A MINUTE, every minute, for six months.

Hm! Damn. Why didn't she compete at that "fastest text" contest they had a couple weeks ago?

Actually, this is, at best, very odd indeed. Knowing Etisalat, maybe they should double-check their accounting?

21 December, 2005 21:31  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

95,000 to a satelite channel that was broadcasting offensive songs? Can we translate this from local press speak to "girl spending 95,000 on sms song requests to MTV." Admittedly, I find MTV offensive, but probably for different reasons.

If I were her I would explain that I was on a mission, texting to tell them to stop playing that offensive music.

22 December, 2005 00:02  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i highly doubt it was MTV, as they use sms to a minimum. I believe it was more likely MBC, or MusicNow - oddly enough both Arabic music channels. Ahhh, it appears homegrown entertainment is at fault, mr. khalfan.

22 December, 2005 03:09  
Blogger samuraisam said...

no no no, these types of TV channels charge you extra to SMS them, anywhere from 5-10 dhs is common per message, people send the same message 5-6 times so it appears longer/more often/yada yada, also seeing as her IQ was low enough that she'd message one of these channels for "nice friendship", she probably bought ringtones, games and wallpaper for her phone too.

22 December, 2005 08:38  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

License to breed! I love the idea. Why not? It would just be like a driving license. Written and practical tests. The same way I feel about voting (you should have a minimum understanding of certain things before you go out casting an ignorant vote).

Oh-oh.. sign me up. On second thought, I don't want that license to begin with. I'm too irresponsible as it is.

22 December, 2005 10:38  
Blogger Parv said...

Sam, thanks for clarifying the SMS costs. Makes sense now.

And yet....95000 dirhams?!? Talk about being trigger happy.

22 December, 2005 10:56  

Post a Comment

<< Home



next issue is no. 12




Google Secret Dubai
iopBlogs.com, The World's Blog Aggregator
 Blog Top Sites

Powered by Blogger




StatCounter stats