M A Wal-Ikram

Software that always does 50% of the promise.

That's the only way to describe Odoo. I've used it when it was OpenERP almost 20 years ago, and now, for the second time in 2 years, I tried the SaaS version because I had the opportunity to switch software - as we were setting up a new legal entity in a different Emirate -primarily for accounting, help desk and email marketing.

First of all, in the UAE, there is new e-invoicing regulation. There is no information about this anywhere on odoo.com. Raising a support ticket led me to a 'business advisor' who said Odoo is getting certified and invoices will become compliant before the deadline. Great news.

Then I set off to setup the chart of accounts and migrate from Xero. Well, the UI promises connecting bank accounts and bank journals - so I tried connecting Stripe via the Yodlee interface on that screen. Technical error - several times. Contacted the 'business advisor'. His answer: third party integrations are almost certainly unavailable in the free trial. So we upgraded to a paid subscription, for 1 user only for now.

2 hours after the upgrade, same problem. 'Business advisor' now checks with the 'technical consultant' who says Stripe is not a bank account and cannot be connected in this way. The only ways is to connect it as a payment provider (via API keys, which was already done but only useful for invoicing) and then for the reconciliation we will need to manually import CSV exports from Stripe. Seriously, in August 2026, when everything has an API? Why does the UI have it in the first place? It's had it there for a few years, but it has never worked (and this time I was led to believe it was because I was in the free trial).

When I asked the 'business advisor' why he said what he said about integrations in the free trial period, his answer was that 'I just work in sales how would I know these things'. And of course, I asked for a refund in hour 3, but there is a no refund policy, even though this is all the result of incorrect information from Odoo staff.

So, the sales and technical team, at least in the UAE, are rather useless. When I asked for a refund again, he then proceeded to share solutions like writing my own API integration, etc. - a standard for sales guys in the GCC who will sell you a scooter when you asked for a car and then try to tell you what else to do to try and make it into a car.

But all the other apps follow the same premise. They're effectively skeleton apps that need other connectors, or some manual work, or some other custom integration or development to actually work.

If you're buying software to simplify your business processes and get things moving, Odoo is not for you. If you want a project to manage alongside your business, Odoo is for you.

I now created a new Xero account. It look about 15 minutes to connect and sync 2 Stripe accounts, 2 PayPal accounts and the bank account. This is simply not possible in Odoo.

After 15+ years of using Expedia, I can only say they have become deceptive and cheats.

Changed a flight, and they told me it was the same airline (Emirates), but actually changed to a different operator. Did not even disclose this. When I asked why, they said I didn't ask who was operating it. Seriously? If it's the same airline, why should the operator be different. Of course, charged the money.

Asked for the cancellation, got charged the cancellation fee by the airline, but no refund has shown up.

Now, Emirates says Expedia is the Travel Agent and they will issue the refund. Expedia says Emirates will issue the refund.

Hours of chats with Expedia customer service, and there's just a lot of waiting.

Woe to unto those who setup businesses without being able to properly serve their customers.

Those = Expedia, in case it isn't obvious.

Don't use them. Any time you make a change, you'll lose your money and your booking, both.

Poor service. No refund even after 24 hours.

Tried to setup a Kubernetes cluster. Does not work on their network. Within 24 hours asked for a refund (had to subscribe to a quarterly plan for rDNS when using VPS' and I got 5 of them).

The refund policy says there's a refund. But now with their poor English they claim there are no refunds. So, basically, they've billed me $150 with no services whatsoever.

Not recommended.

Melbicom has some good locations and the network also appears to be good, but the support is, simply put, poor. And support is extremely important when you don't have the servers in front of you to debug and fix issues.

I purchased several VPS servers to build a Kubernetes cluster (as I have on multiple other providers). One of the servers had a very unstable connection over the overlay network (something that has happened only once before to me with another provider), and this can happen for many reasons: hardware incompatibility, some VPS misconfiguration, hardware fault, etc.

I simply asked support to move the VPS to another physical host (I did not ask for any refunds or anything). They responded with a no, asking that I prove with traces and packet loss evidence that there was a problem. Now, to do this on a cluster requires me to invest a couple of hours to build custom docker images with the right tooling track and trace all of this. And I should do all of this so that support does nothing and because I am paying EUR 22 for a VPS?

For whoever reads this, the right thing to do is to always solve the problem first, then work on a root cause analysis. With other providers, when I've had such issues, we always move the VM to a host work and get the customer's workloads up and running, and then we work to see what the problem is. Imagine if I had diverted production traffic to these clusters, I'd be dropping requests and losing revenue just because your customer support team thinks I need to provide them evidence that I am someone foolish who does not know how things work.

The better answer would have been to simply move the VPS to another host (I didn't ask for help to debug any issues from support anyway). If you were that keen on a root cause, you should have just added some credit to our account so we could spin up a new VPS to get our workloads up and running immediately, and then I'd be more than happy to help you figure out what the problem was.

No one should run their services on a provider who puts their own needs and wants (out of arrogance, perhaps) of an analysis before resolving the customer's request. You cannot trust a provider like that.

Now, instead of having a customer who was planning to spend several hundred EUR a month with Melbicom, they'll have one who spends zero (of course, they don't appear to want to refund anything I paid for the servers which I've barely used for 3 days before running into the problem either, but that's okay - everyone will get what they have deserved in the end).

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UPDATE: Subsequent to this review, Melbicom have refunded the money on the servers and unprovisioned them as I had requested. It's a shame that this did not work out, but as a business they must be called out for their honesty in this matter. So thank you, Melbicom.

Everything is fine, until something goes wrong, and it usually happens with expensive items that also cost more than AED 150 to deliver to Dubai.

I have multiple parcels that arrive in Dubai and then sit with Aramex for over a week. When I chase them, they say the packages are damaged. On one occasion they delivered the package and it was damaged (Shipment no. 9554108815), but they say their system says it was not found to be damaged (after at least 5 separate cases were opened with them and 3+ weeks of chasing). I even sent them pictures of what they delivered, but you can only argue so much with incapable people?

They have a habit of creating multiple cases. Every Customer Service query I make gets case number. They respond by saying they are looking into it, and have closed the case, and give me a new one to track the case under. When I respond to that, the same thing happens again. So now, for 1 item, which was delivered damaged, I have at least 6 case numbers. I've filed a complaint with Dubai's Consumer Protection Department - I recommend you do the same and maybe it will lead to some justice.

They also decided, recently, to synchronise Aramex and Shop and Ship accounts. Of course, technical incapability is a rampant problem in some companies in this part of the world, but this surpasses that all on many levels. The Aramex and Shop and Ship web applications use the email address as the primary identifier, but the Aramex mobile app and their database uses your mobile number as the primary identifier. Also they seem to have started this sync recently, so they take the phone number and email address from a defunct Aramex account (which you can't delete by the way) and overwrite all the details in my Shop and Ship account with that account. So I end up with the wrong email and the wrong phone number, and they complain I am not reachable. I can't add my mobile number to the account because their app says the number already exists (yes, for my active Aramex account). Try explaining this to customer service over the phone. A shipment 9540765942 sat around for 7 days. I opened a case. Low and behold, my account information was changed, and they claim they attempted delivery (which is a lie as I was home throughout the week) and sent me an SMS and tried to call me on the wrong number which they had updated the Shop and Ship account with. I've sent several emails about it, and this morning I called them and I was told the parcel is actually damaged and undergoing investigation. What's interesting is that a cheaper and smaller shipment 9440150230 arrived in Dubai after this one, and was delivered even with the wrong phone number in the Shop and Ship account.

Summary, I pray to God what is already ordered gets delivered, and hope to never use them again.

Time is our most precious asset, and you will waste lots of it trying to get Shop and Ship and Aramex to do what you actually already paid them to do, so it's best to save yourself the hassle.

Flower arrangements are good, but delivery is never on time. Second year in a row on the same day the delivery will be many hours late. The staff has no explanation either. The website offered one time, the order confirmation email had another, and the scheduled delivery time is different from both of those.

If it's an important occasion, don't order from them.

Thoroughly disappointed.

First time everything worked. Second time they want additional identification. When I provide that, they claim it's not clear and they can't identify me or read the details, when it's the same copy of the passport they used to verify my business account.

Then they came up with some stuff about regulation changes, but none of the other transfer companies seem to have that requirement.

Top top it all off, they said verification would be approved or declined in one day. 3 days, and I had to chase them, and then I get someone who is clearly unable to deal with the issue.

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Just taking into account the Wise response. My business account is also with Wise, so there's no other provider in the picture here.