Beeline CEO makes an address

Beeline Armenia CEO Andrey Pyatakhin refuted the claims that ArmenTel CJSC sued a soldier serving at the front for AMD 27, 280, which appeared in media yesterday.

The address of Beeline Armenia CEO says: “Media publications contradict reality and damage the reputation of the company.

Here we present the essence of the issue in detail. Armenian citizen Albert Karapetyan became our subscriber on May 18, 2015, when he wasn’t a soldier yet. Total sum of the client’s debt is a little over AMD 27, 272, and AMD 20, 000 out of it is the cost of the “Silver number”. The subscriber stopped paying for connection since July 2015, and received the first SMS about the debt with notification that payment’s required in August 2015.

We found out from articles in the media that the subscriber has been serving for 6 months, therefore, he was not a soldier at the moment the debt was formed. Nevertheless, the company called the client 3 times and informed him through SMS 4 times.

The company’s system doesn’t allow to determine if the subscriber is a soldier or not and where he serves, at the front or, let’s say, in Yerevan.

Summing this up, I will say that since the moment Albert Karapetyan became our subscriber, made a debt, didn’t pay it, and the case was taken to court, Arman Karapetyan wasn’t in service yet.

I’d like to stress that we haven’t received any official letter from the subscriber or his relatives with any information on this problem till this moment, we only learned about it from the media.

Now I want to address certain media outlets and websites and say that I’m sorry they speculate this painful subject in the hard times for us and the country, using a soldier’s name not to solve the issue but to increase their ratings and traffic.

They should find a real way to solve the problem, contact us and see how to do that, but they bother the people’s ache instead, play with the reputation of our company, don’t go into details and don’t even ask the other side for comments.

I consider this approach extremely unprofessional and unethical.

What I’m going to say wasn’t in the press, but the situation makes me. Beeline employees and I untied in the hard moment for the country and, as the majority of Armenian people, collected as much as we could for people of Artsakh and defenders of the borders. Beeline employees gathered a very large sum to purchase essentials for the soldiers and army: food, medicine, hygiene items, etc. Ten families who suffered from military actions received financial help, and I personally met NKR President to discuss social programs that our company will realize on the territory of NKR.

As I mentioned, it wasn’t in the media, as we chose not to use even our own good deeds for PR, and we regret that some people play with the love and respect Armenian people have for their defenders - soldiers for self-PR and ratings.

On behalf of the company, I wish us all peace and confidence in tomorrow.”