RIYADH, 3 December 2006 — Many people in Riyadh go to the Telecom Market to buy, sell, and repair their cell phones. The market is huge and located in the Al-Mursalat district in the northern part of Riyadh. Customers visit it on a daily basis, but you hardly find a Saudi manning a store there.

The majority of the workers are expatriates, about half of them Syrian. Just five percent of the shopkeepers are Saudi and the rest of various nationalities.

Some of these foreign shopkeepers take advantage of the ignorance of customers and deceive them by selling used phones as new. They simply format the phone and clear pictures and numbers, change the cover and then resell the phone. Shopkeepers call this the “zero process.”

Ahmad Haglan, a Saudi shopkeeper, told Arab News that this process is widely used in the market. “Customers can’t tell if the phone is used or new. Only salesmen are able to tell whether the phone is new or old,” he said. “They enter a secret number or code in the phone, retrieve the phone number and figure out the total hours the phone had been used.”

Haglan lamented the fact that there are hardly any Saudis in the market, and says he believes if there were more Saudis there would be fewer incidences of consumer fraud. He says Saudis didn’t like working two shifts, whereas expatriate workers are more than happy to work as much as they are allowed. He says that if you want to deal with a Saudi (because he believes you won’t be ripped off if you do), then it’s best to go to the market in the evening.

“Sometimes Saudis arrive late, after maghreb prayer, and they leave at 11 p.m.,” he said.

Faiz Al-Shamlan, who has been working in the cell phone market for six years, said that customers actually prefer expatriate shopkeepers to Saudis.

“Some women are allergic to Saudi men working in these shops wearing thobes (Arab long shirts worn by men) and shumagh (Arab male head scarves),” said Al-Shamlan. “Once they see them inside, they simply go to another shop. Some Saudis wear jeans and shirts in an attempt to attract customers.”

Al-Shamlan also says that Saudis tend not to have the patience to tolerate inquisitive customers that ask a lot of questions, whereas expatriates have more of a customer-is-always-right mentality.

“Saudi shopkeepers are now developing customer service skills,” said Al-Shamlan.

Al-Shamlan added that the rent prices of kiosks vary depending on their location. “I have rented this kiosk for SR5,000 a month. I would have been paying much more if I had gone for the first kiosk in this line,” he said.

Telecom Market vendor Tarek Al-Hujeilan said he earns from SR3,000 to SR4,000 a month with his phone stall.

“I have both used and new mobiles,” he said. “This is important because there are some people who come looking for second-hand phones. Others come to sell their mobiles and get new ones instead. We gain anything between SR50 and SR200 when reselling phones. It depends on the phone and how clean it is.”

Al-Hujeilan said that youths tend to change phones more frequently than older and more mature customers, because youths value being at the zeitgeist of whatever mobile trend arrives on the market.

“I have some customers who buy a new mobile every month,” he said. “One of these customers told me that he does so in order to preserve his respectable image in front of friends and colleagues.”

Al-Hujeilan lauded the Interior Ministry’s efforts to register all phone vendors in the market in order to crack down on the black market trade of stolen phones.

Samir is a Syrian shopkeeper who offers download and installation services for mobile phones.

Samir said he earns about SR1,000 a month after paying rent on his 1.5-square-meter kiosk.

“I charge SR10 for every five ringing tones or every four images that I download for customers,” he said. “A phone software application, however, can cost anything between SR15 and SR20. I might get SR50 or SR150 for downloading different kinds of stuff for a single mobile.

Samir says occasionally the morality police inspect him to search out songs that he has downloaded.

Samir also says that many of his customers are expatriates, but some of them are drivers sent by Saudi women to obtain songs and images. He warns customers who give their phone to other people to be careful.

“While working with phones I often come across personal images,” he said. “Passing your phone to another person can be dangerous because anything on the phone can be copied and distributed.”