FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Everything you wanted to know about Haiati
Detailed answers across 7 categories — about, pricing, the 5 pillars, verification + trust, account + privacy, languages + geo, and mobile.
About Haiati
- What is Haiati?
- Haiati (حياتي, "my life") is a verified marketplace and community platform built for the Arabic-speaking diaspora across Europe. We bring five things together in one place: a directory of trusted Arabic-speaking professionals (doctors, lawyers, driving schools, accountants, etc.), open jobs, classified listings, community events, and a Q&A board.
- Who is Haiati for?
- For everyone who lives in Europe and feels more comfortable getting things done in Arabic — first-generation arrivals, second-generation diaspora, students, professionals, families. Also for the Arabic-speaking businesses, doctors, hosts and sellers who serve this community.
- Who runs Haiati?
- Haiati is operated by Blue Bear GmbH, an Austrian company based in Vienna (DC Tower 1, Donau-City-Straße 3, 1220 Wien). Registered: FN 609915 i (Commercial Court Vienna), UID ATU81583403. Managing director: Mahmoud El-Gamal.
- Where is Haiati available?
- Haiati operates across 22 European countries. Strongest activity today is in Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, and Luxembourg.
- What languages does Haiati support?
- Three languages with full UI parity: Arabic (RTL), English, and German. Search works cross-script: typing "halal" in English finds Arabic-language listings of حلال, and vice versa. Verified professionals tag the languages they actually speak so you can filter for Arabic-fluent doctors or German-fluent lawyers.
Free + Funding
- Is Haiati free?
- Yes — always free for users. No paywall. No "premium" tier locked behind a subscription. Browsing, searching, posting, RSVPing to events, asking questions: free. Listing your business as a verified professional: also free.
- How does Haiati make money?
- Donation-funded. Community members who find Haiati useful chip in voluntarily — usually small monthly contributions. The model lets us avoid two tradeoffs we refuse to make: serving ads (selling community attention) or charging professionals to be found (which would price out small Arabic-speaking businesses).
- Are there ads on Haiati?
- No third-party ads. We don't run AdSense, retargeting pixels, or any external ad network. The only "promotions" you'll see are featured events that organisers pay nothing for — they're editorially picked or community-voted.
- Can I support Haiati?
- Yes — through the Support page. Recurring contributions of €3, €5, or €10 per month keep the platform running. One-time contributions also welcome. All contributions go to infrastructure (Vercel, Neon, Sentry) and to keeping the team small but sustainable.
Pillars + Features
- How does the Services pillar work?
- Browse a directory of Arabic-speaking professionals — doctors, lawyers, dentists, driving schools, accountants, real estate agents, beauticians, and more. Filter by city, country, language, specialty. Each profile shows verification status, languages spoken, opening hours, and contact methods (phone, WhatsApp, website). Verified pros carry a checkmark.
- How does the Jobs pillar work?
- Open positions posted by Arabic-speaking employers and verified businesses across Europe. Filter by job type (full-time/part-time/contract/freelance), category, salary range, remote/onsite, country, city. AI-assisted cover letters help you apply faster. Saved searches email you when matching jobs land.
- How does the Marketplace work?
- Classified listings — apartments, cars, household items, second-hand goods. Posted by community members, browsed by community members. Free to post, free to browse. Listings auto-expire after 60 days unless refreshed. Price-drop alerts on saved searches.
- How does the Community Q&A work?
- Ask anything about life as an Arabic speaker in Europe — legal, medical, cultural, practical, school, taxes, housing. Anyone can answer. Karma points reward useful answers. AI-assisted responses fill in when no one's replied yet, but human answers are always tagged differently and can be marked "accepted" by the asker.
- How do Events work?
- Iftars, weddings, sports leagues, cultural nights, religious gatherings, family meet-ups, business meetups. Hosts post for free; attendees RSVP for free. Capacity limits + waitlist supported. Calendar invite (.ics) attached to confirmation email. QR-code door check-in. Post-event reviews. Recurring events (weekly Friday gathering × 8) supported.
Verification + Trust
- How are professionals verified?
- Verification checks four things: business registration (Firmenbuch / SIRET / Kvk / Handelsregister), professional licence where required (medical chamber, bar association), real-world contact details (address, phone reachable, working website), and a manual review by our moderation team. Verified profiles carry a checkmark.
- Can I trust unverified listings?
- Use your judgment. Many honest businesses haven't gone through verification yet. We surface the verification badge clearly so you can prefer verified pros for high-stakes services (legal, medical, financial). For low-stakes (a community event, a marketplace listing), the community-rating signal is usually enough.
- How do you handle scammers?
- Every page has a "Report" button. Reports go to our moderation queue and are typically reviewed within 24 hours. Verified profiles failing a re-check lose their badge. Marketplace and event posts that violate our policies are removed. Repeat-offender accounts are banned. We log every moderation action for accountability.
- Can professionals fake reviews?
- Reviews are tied to authenticated user accounts and we cross-check signals (device, IP class, account age, behaviour) for review-spam patterns. We also pull aggregate Google reviews where available to ground the signal. A pro with 5/5 from 3 sock-puppet accounts looks suspicious next to their Google profile, and our algorithm flags it.
Account + Privacy
- Do I need an account?
- For browsing, no. You can read every Q&A, every event, every provider profile, every listing without signing up. You need an account to: post a listing, RSVP to an event, ask a question, leave a review, save searches, message a provider, or list your own business.
- What data does Haiati collect?
- Only what we need: email + name (signup), profile data you choose to add, content you post (questions, listings, events), basic interaction logs (which page, when, anonymized) for performance + abuse-prevention. No location tracking unless you opt in (Near-Me feature). No third-party trackers. Full list in our Privacy policy.
- Is my data shared with anyone?
- No selling. No sharing for advertising. Data is shared only with our infrastructure providers (Vercel for hosting, Neon for database, Sentry for errors, Resend for email) under standard GDPR Data-Processing Agreements, and only what's necessary for them to run their service. We will never sell your contact data.
- Can I delete my account?
- Yes — anytime, from Dashboard → Preferences → Delete account. Deletion anonymises your profile rows, removes your sessions and accounts, and complies with GDPR Article 17. Public content you posted (questions, answers, listings, reviews) stays attached to an "Anonymous" placeholder unless it falls under the same delete request.
- Where is my data stored?
- EU. Database in Neon EU-Frankfurt. App on Vercel's EU Edge. Email through Resend (EU region). No data leaves the EU under normal operation. We use HTTPS/TLS in transit, encrypted-at-rest, and Row Level Security so a programming error can't leak across tenants.
Languages + Geo
- Does search work in Arabic?
- Yes. Native Arabic typing, RTL UI, hamza/alef variant tolerance (طبيب أسنان matches اسنان variants), and a synonym graph so "حلال" finds "halal"-tagged content too. Full search across Arabic / English / German in one query.
- Can I see results across all of Europe?
- Yes — switch the geo-scope chip from your country to "Europe-wide". Useful when looking for specialist services that don't exist in your immediate area (e.g. Arabic-speaking child psychologist, halal mortgage advisor, kosher caterer). Empty results in your country also auto-suggest "X matches in Europe →".
- How do you handle city names?
- Every European city we serve has three names stored: Arabic, English (international), German. Search and filters work in all three: Wien / Vienna / فيينا are the same row. Districts (Vienna's 23 Bezirke, Berlin's Ortsteile, Paris arrondissements) are not separate cities — your search snaps to the parent city.
Mobile + Apps
- Is there a mobile app?
- Native iOS and Android apps are coming. The web app today is fully responsive and installable as a Progressive Web App (Add to Home Screen on iOS Safari or "Install Haiati" on Android Chrome) — works offline for browsing, push notifications enabled.
- How does Near-Me work?
- Tap "Near Me" on any pillar list. Your device asks permission to share location (one-time prompt). We compute distance to listings via PostGIS spatial index — sub-25-km on Services + Events, configurable up to 100 km. Location is never stored on our servers; only the resolved nearest-city ID is sent.