The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) has distanced itself from a local company offering a high-speed internet service, which would-be customers believe is a scam.
The company, SimNet Caribbean Mobile, placed advertisements in sections of the print media recently, offering “high speed internet on a UK 3G USB modem”. The company also specified that the modem resembles a small, cute and compact-like USB memory stick and that it works on laptops, desktops and 2.0 internet devices. The ad stated that the device has been imported from England and tested to British standards and customers would pay some $3,000 per month for unlimited access.
This newspaper checked the website provided in the advertisement and according to the company it is a “third-generation internet service provider and regional communications management company.” The company stated that it was founded in 2009 by Software Engineer Dennis Adonis, who “envisions the need for technological innovation and revolutionary improvement to the quality of internet services available to Guyana and the Caribbean region’s growing internet population.”
The company stated that it is currently discussing bandwidth provision with GT&T. However, when contacted by Stabroek News yesterday, the telephone company refuted the claim, stating that at no time has it had any discussion with Dennis Adonis or SimNet.
In its newspaper advertisement, the company claims that customers would use a Digicel sim card. Stabroek News sought to obtain a comment from Digicel’s CEO Gregory Dean, but he was unavailable for a comment yesterday.
Meanwhile, several customers, who made arrangements with the company, are yet to uplift the devices they paid for. Some customers made payments to the company, which is based at Nabaclis, East Coast Demerara, more than four weeks ago.
A customer told Stabroek News yesterday that she has had “a royal run-around” ever since she paid down some $21,000 for one of three devices from the company. She said the manager of the company tells her on each occasion she contacts him that she will receive the item as soon as it arrives from the UK. She said he has been providing various dates when she would be able to uplift the item.
The woman stated that she believes the company “is phony,” saying more than a dozen persons turned up to meet the manager of the entity yesterday at an eatery in the city and they all had the same problem.
Adonis had been in the news last year when his then company, Sound Proof Music, had advertised a pro-wrestling event, Guyana Wrestle Mania, which was scheduled to have taken place in August at the National Park. After several patrons had purchased tickets doubts arose when city businesses which had been advertised as being involved with the event disassociated themselves. The event, which was to have brought several international wrestlers from the WWF to Guyana was then postponed to October and subsequently faded into oblivion.
Some nine years ago, Adonis’s then company the Royal Antiguan Money Transfer Service Inc had been investigated by the Bank of Guyana after he advertised the business as offering loans to the public.
Several persons had complained that they had paid sums to Adonis’s company to borrow money which they never received.