We hate the Albanians, but love their money!

See also the version in Albanian here

Everybody is presumably familiar with the famous quote “I love mankind; it’s the people I can’t stand” by the cartoonist Charles M. Schultz. Imagine what would happen if multinational corporations, which operate in every corner of the world, took this funny philosophical quote and used it as bedrock principle in their policies toward the customers. They might have done so, but without the slightest doubtithasn’t been within the borders of the western world; outside the west everything can happen with Albania being perhaps the worst case of all.

Albanian consumers are humiliated, abused and ripped off by public utilities, banks and healthcare services like nowhere in the world. Taking advantage of their monopolistic status, complete lack of regulation and government’s unwillingness to protect consumers from fraudulent practices, companies that offer public services have gone wild in their campaigns to fleece Albanians with any means possible, violating every standard and business ethics.  

Czech Republic-based company CEZ, which operates the electricity retailing and distribution to consumers, tops the list of notoriety. There is hardly any household in Albania that hasn’t been a victim of the CEZ’s unfair business practices and frauds that include a wide range of scams such as billing the consumers with unbelievable amounts sometimes up to $48,000 for a one-person household, sum that is roughly the same with what United Nations pay for electricity in a month or, the collective punishment by applying massive and permanent power cut in areas where majority of household accounts are delinquent. Resorting to this drastic measure to coerce delinquent household to pay their bills, the company also penalizes those who pay regularly and on time. To such flagrant violation of human and consumer rights, the company’s Reps respond with comments like: “it’s the only way we can get people to pay their long overdue bills”, with no regard to consumers’ rights or damages they inflict on honest people and businesses in those areas. Another worth mentioning scam is the delay of billing date, so that the household would exceed the lower-priced consumption limit of 300kwh a month, and would be therefore obliged to pay the rest at double price. It’s no exaggeration at all to say that CEZ’s daily operation in Albania is a quest for finding ways to milk the poverty-stricken Albanian consumers. I don’t know how CEZ operates in EU, but one thing I know for sure that, if it were operating in the United States and followed such practices, the company, not only would be closed immediately and its assets would be distributed to consumers as compensatory damages, but its executives would become cell buddies with inmates serving several life sentences, and would eventually become lap dancers and beauty queens of the most notorious prisons in America. But they operate in Albania, where everything is allowed.

But CEZ is just a link in a long chain of malpractices and humiliating behavior toward the consumers, on the part of the public service companies, which, as it is dawning each day that passes, are owned by or have close ties with government officials. Another link in the chain is Telekom Albania that applies sophisticated scams with limited internet downloading capacities, policy that seems to be applied only in Albania just to empty the pockets of the already penniless Albanians. But “the peach” of the unethical business conduct is in the banking system with commission being charged on every direct deposit, personal transaction and even the accounts. Albania is the only country in the world where an individual can deposit money on a checking account in the bank and, at the end of the year, the money in the account would be less than the amount deposited. No, it’s not stolen or anything, at least not by robbers. The truth is that, in Albania all banks have agreed to charge commissions on checking accounts, about $2.00 a month, because they keep costumers’ money safe, just like a safe box!!! It works like this: suppose you put $1,000 on a checking account. At the end of the year you will have $976, because the bank took $2.00 every month out of your account as commission for keeping your money safe. I know that this is hard to understand. When the bank loans money it charges interest, which is the payment that borrowers make for using other’s money, known as the cost of the loan. We get that! But when the bank borrows money from the customers in the form of deposits and accounts, normally it must pay interest or, in the case of checking accounts the interest is zero, but to charge commission on borrowed money, that we don’t get! And all these policies are designed and pursued by banks based almost all in the European Union - go figure!

But none of this can be compared to the inhuman and dangerous practices provided by healthcare services. Dirty hospitals empty of medications, even the most basic, and doctors and nurses turned into merchants of human lives, always looking for ways to con patients, without even caring about their health conditions

The healthcare service in Albania is transformed into a commonplace retail business; you pay first and then get the service, just like you buy a hotdog from the guy at the subway entrance. If you don’t have money, you die. It’s that simple! The same treatment is reserved even to people who are insured, because health insurance in Albania is just another scam to rip people off. When it comes to health, it’s worthless.

But even if you pay an arm and a leg just to have your tonsils removed, there is always an elevated risk of you dying due to physicians’ negligence or malpractice, Thousands of people die in Albanian hospitals each year, because of the negligence of medical staff, wrong treatment or wrong prescription. No doctor has ever been prosecuted, even when the malpractices have been really obvious and hit the media. On the contrary, quite often they even get promoted. The mess gets dirtier the deeper you dig.

Surprisingly, the many consumer protection associations that are based in Albania never speak about such wrong practices, and they can’t, because they are all government-sponsored.  In face of these blatant violations of human rights, the Human Rights Organization of Albania stay put voiceless. That’s understandable if you consider the fact that the Chairwoman of this organization appears almost every day on talk shows, mumbling about politics, where she openly positions herself on the government side, meaning she approves of these wrongdoings.

It’s obvious that these dummy companies hate Albanians, but love their money. Perhaps it’s time Albanians gave them tit for tat. The people might not be a match for their government, but if organized, they can give these charlatans their dues by kicking out those who do not deserve to do business in this country.