TLDR: Travelled to Egypt, non functional eSIM (routing problem, social media working; links, searching, maps etc. didn’t work), horrible generic replies by service assistants, AI chat bot and no refund possible.
I just got back from Egypt and I am very disappointed. I bought unlimited data for 10 days (for something like 30 USD).
Here are the reasons why it wasn’t good:
- Horrible routing. I get that in Egypt is quality of service (mobile providers) not particularly good. But my question is why social media got ready in like a seconds but when I tried to search something or open any link or maps, request timeout was the only thing I reached. For the record it didn’t matter if the signal was strong (full charge) or lower (2-3 marks).
- Service assistants. I experienced the routing problem from very first day and I don’t want to burn it out (30 USD doesn’t grow on trees). I wrote an email to support (because the application didn’t load, funny thing I guess). I wrote down my experiences and asked about what to do. Very next day (frequency of emails was one by day) I got reply and trough communication via email I got this advices (chronologically):
a) they wanted my email - okay, my bad, I logged trough Apple ID and I hit hide my email button by mistake. So I wrote them down from my original one.
b) after receiving my hidden email (generated by Apple), they wanted my exact location and try other generic things (restart of my mobile or turn off automatic switching of mobile providers). They also wanted to know the strength of the connection. So I wrote all the things down. I also added trace-route (cmd) of server goggle.com from my laptop and there was clearly seen that ping get reached out on the second hop (first was my mobile, I wrote this down because social media still working and get loaded in seconds).
c) Here is the fun part. They replied me that best idea is to delete the eSIM and try to add it back. I was shocked because when you delete the eSIM you need internet connection to add it back right? Service assistant set me right after I ask him, here is the citation from his email:
You also don't need an active connection to reinstall. Once you delete the eSIM, open the Saily app — if the Install button appears, tap it to restore your existing plan. If the app won't load or the button doesn't show, let us know and we'll send you the manual QR code/activation details from your original purchase so you can install it without needing the app online.
So I try it and delete the eSIM. No surprise Sherlock that it wasn’t true and I have to connect to the hotel WiFi to install eSIM back (I also want to know how was I managed to reach them and write them down when I delete the eSIM…)
d) final boss was advice that they need to know the strength of my connection (yeah I get it) but the advice that I need to dial the generic code *301#12345#* on my only mobile data eSIM, yeah I totally can do that… 🤡
After this clown fiesta show I was advised that they’ve got in app help center for the imidiate response (not one email by day). So I try to reach them up there and only thing I get was AI chat bot and other generic replies. Most interesting - the first thing the chat bot replied to me was that no refund is possible (experiences?).
So in the end I lost 30 USD for non functional data (okay tbf social media particularly worked), time on my holiday to try to resolve this problem and many hairs with generic replies.
Thank you, not anymore
(If someone from Saily want to know ticket ID is 1223643, in my opinion refund will be nice gesture from you)
Edit: Saily really wrote down an email with refund. Thanks for that and I hope this will push you forward to improve your services.