€ircon charging for unterminated calls ?

wexfordman

Just wondering if anyone had come accross this littel gem. I complained to comreg by the way, and they werent interested (said its the customers fault not €IRCONS).

Anyway,

I recently had the need to dial a certain number from my landline at home(eircom line using UTV CPS). I dialed the number, which rang a couple of times, then I got "connected" to the "€ircon call answering servicve". The following message was then read to me:_

"You are connected to the €ircon call answering service, we are sorry, but the €ircon customer you are calling has not acticated their €ircon call answering service, Goodbye".

Fair nough, but I redialled (I kne they were home, but just busy and really needed to get hold of them). Got the same thing again, but kept retrying as I really needed to get through. Finally got through, had a chat to my mate, no worries.

3-4 weeks later I receive my UTV phone bill. Low and behold, I was actually billed for the "unterminated" calls to the unactivated €ircon call answering service. Complained to UTV ,who said it was because €ircon and sorry, but it is €ircon who decided to answer the call and replay the prerecorded message, and as such you were billed.

not good enough I thought (not UTV;'s fault, which is fair enough), so I wrote an email to comreg, with a softcopy of my phone bill explaining the issue. Comreg replied saying they had been in touch with €ircon about the matter, and €ircon said its not their fault the cust has not activated the service. Fine I said, but it is their fault that they decide to answer the call and play me a pre-recorded advertisement for €ircon call answering, and then bill me for the privelage. They could have just turned off the pre-recorded message for customers who have not yet activated the service. Comreg still not interested, and agree with €ircon that its the customers fault.


Interestingly enough, its happening more and more often I notice. Mainly to takeaways etc, where the line would be busy and people would keep trying to call. Good tactic if the aim was to generate extra revenue by answering EVERY call to that number, wether the customer wants it or not.

Wexfordman

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman

Interestingly enough, its happening more and more often I notice. Mainly to takeaways etc, where the line would be busy and people would keep trying to call. Good tactic if the aim was to generate extra revenue by answering EVERY call to that number, wether the customer wants it or not.

Wexfordman

Good point, Eircom also increased their charges to Porn and Casino Dialler countries earlier this year......by a hell of a lot, again the calls are inadvertent a lot of the time.

A non activated voicemail is a non existent number and should simply produce a Number Unknown tone after a short engaged tone from Eircoms SS7 cloud. The same situation can be handled by signalling ringback (or ringing) while playing the No Activation message back the B channel. This does not constitute an answer but your get the message about the Voicemail not being in use.

You should not have to pay to be told that Paddy Mac did not activate his voicemail, you should simply get NU tone with no answer. Whether Paddy activated his email or not is between PADDY MAC and Eircom. It is not an agreement between third parties and Eircom so why pay 5c to be told.

Paddy will get charged on his OWN bill for the voicemail service, let him read the feckin thing

M

wexfordman

Thanks Muck,

But what now, who do I complain to. It happened to me again the other day making a call from my mobile on the way home from work. €ircon I think fobbed comreg off saying technically they could not do it any other way, if I could find the email still it would be interesting for you to have a look.

If comreg are'nt interested then what do you do ? I reckon quite a lot of termination charges are being made on these types of call if you look at it from a nationwide perspecitve. Basically it means that all €ircon have to do is provide a voicemal service and thier quids in no matter what happens. If the customer enables it they make money (fair enough, I can live with that, cos I'll get to leave a message), and if the cust does not enable it, they'll still make money (in fact probably more due to repeat calls etc which you would not make to a working answering service).

THis is a joke, and comreg seem happy to play along.
wexfordman

spongebob

Ombudsman office.

Eircom laugh at Comreg and Comreg don't care, the excuse is sh1te and can be dealt with easily in SS7 so as not to produce an ANSWER signal to the ORIGINATING switch thereby incurring a CHARGE which is the nub of your complaint.

Tell the Ombudsman that Comreg refuse to intervene even though you are being billed for calls that are not being made, Eircoms divert to voicemail does not function because there is nowhere to divert to , that is what you are being charged for.

In allowing this Comreg are not representing the Conumers Interest as they are required to do and I doubt if Oftel would tolerate this in the UK from BT .

Therefore the main number is engaged and there is nowhere else to go, the result should be Busy Tone (re main number) and/or NU (re the diversion divert) , Busy and NU are not billable because no call is completed by the caller.

M

wexfordman

Found the response meail from Comreg below if anyones interested.

Dear $%$%^$

Apologies for the delay in replying to your e mail.

With reference to your question below, the voicemail service is an additional service that eircom provide to its customers. Unfortunately the onus is on the customer to make sure the voice mail service is activated. The service is enabled at the exchange by eircom and that is all they are required to do. If the consumer does not activate his mail service after requesting it a message will be played stating that the customer does not have the voice mail service activated, this message is played as the customer has requested the service but has just not activated it.


So unfortunately if the customer does not activate the voicemail anyone who calls the customer will be charged for connecting to the messaging service.

I hope this clears answers you question.

wexfordman

My response to Comreg below. I was going to copy and paste some of Mucks info on SS7 signalling etc, but did'nt want to scare them off:-

Mary,

Thanks again for your reply. Once again, I have had the same thing happen to me, and no doubt again I will be billed for the call, which was not put through to either the person I was trying to contact, nor to a working operational or activated voicemail service which would allow me to leave a message, and as such get the service I am paying for.

I find it hard to believe that this practice is allowed. I also find it hard to accept that eircom do not put in place a more appropriate method of dealing with this type of call, as technically, they are able to identify the voicemail service has not even been activated, and should provide the same type of response as the line ringing out.

I would appreciate it if you could advise me as to why you see no issue with this facility. Are eircom allowed to do this because of technical reasons, or is it acceptable to bill people for a service that has not been provided ?

Also, can you advise what similar telcos are doing in these instances, eg, esat BT, NTL etc to their voicemail services, and also what is the situation in the UK

Regards

oscarBravo

Originally posted by wexfordman
...this message is played as the customer has requested the service but has just not activated it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't call answering enabled by default on newly installed phone lines?

I get that message fairly regularly, and I sincerely doubt that all those people rang 1901, requested a call answering service, and then just forgot to activate it.

The Brigadier

I doubt people have ORDERED this service......

Eircom & Comreg are so cosy in bed together it makes a mockery of having a regulatory body at all...

SkepticOne

Wow. Nice little earner there for Eircom. They've worked out that by adding the extra bit of inconvienience for the customer for 'activating' a service that's already been requested, they get more more money from others trying to contact the customer. Where previously there would have been an engaged tone and no charge, now there is message of little value to the caller and a termination charge even though the call didn't get through.

Obviously, if they didn't get to charge mugs for attempting to connect, then they woudn't bother with this extra 'activation' step. They would automatically activate the service with a default message. This is what most people would expect when they order the service.

Eircom get to charge for inconveniencing people and providing no service.

spongebob

Activation is dial 171, put a password on it and customise the voice prompt. Therefore it is correct that it should be inactive as there is no PIN set up to protect it.

Until then it should return a number unobtainable which is what it is, an unobtainable mailbox.

How can this entity 'answer' a call when it has nowhere to put the data ? By the SAME logic you should pay line rental if Eircom have a pair of wires in your house, even if you do not use them.

M

SkepticOne

If it must be a two stage process, with separate ordering and activation stages, then I agree that customers should not be charged for hearing a message about activating the line.

I don't fully see why the ordering and activation can't be done in one step, though. This would seem to make the most sense.

As far as I can see, an 'inactive' mail box is no good to anyone except Eircom who get to charge for incoming calls.

For all we the consumers know, Eircom may in fact do all the setting up and activating after the 171 call. The initial ordering may only be an entry on a database of the intention to create the mail box.

Originally posted by Muck
By the SAME logic you should pay line rental if Eircom have a pair of wires in your house, even if you do not use them.

Don't give Eircom ideas.

They will turn ordering a new line into the same process.

1. Order the line. People calling the the line will be charged for hearing that the line is not yet activated.

2. 'Activate' the line.

Mr_Man

Eircom,

know exactly what they are up to here. A couple of years back they had a big push on where they offered free voicemail. Now I had an answering machine and never requested this service however one day while ringing home from work I discovered that this service had been enabled on my phone.

I then rang Eircom sales and they had the nerve to tell me that it had been requested, I ask them to show me where this request was made and bu whom at which point they backed down and said it must have been an internal error. I told them to take the voicemail off my phone as I didn't want to have people charged for finding out that the phone was engaged.

There were several articles in the paper about this tactic and a lot of complaints. It may be that some people never complained as it didn't cost them anything - only the people who were phoning.

M.

wexfordman

B£$st$%ds must be on to my, my phone line went down this morning. They wont even think about fixing it now till Monday!!!!!

What an utter joke of a company.

I want out....... but the rats wont let me
wexfordman

Our man in Havana

Vodafon€ charge you if you get the out of coverage/powered off message. I have noticed this on my bills. Vodafon€ drones said that they charge for all calls answered by a recording.

So its not just €ircon.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Bond-James Bond
Vodafon€ charge you if you get the out of coverage/powered off message. I have noticed this on my bills. Vodafon€ drones said that they charge for all calls answered by a recording.

So its not just €ircon.

That's quite a different situation - all mobiles have voicemail, and knowing that a person is out of coverage is potentially useful information (you know that there's no point sending an SMS - they're not going to get it). But an unactivated mailbox on a landline is of no use to the caller or the callee, and charging the caller to tell them about it is a scam of the highest order.

mrblack

Mr_Man is dead right on the Eircom voicemail ordering CONJOB. Both my parents and my wife's parents had voicemail installed by Eircom without their permission or their knowledge. The first they knew about it was when we all started complaining to them that whenever we call them and their phone is unanswered/engaged this useless message comes on- I never even thought that we got charged for it. In both cases I rang Eircom who disconnected it straight away. Actually the girl told me that Eircom had installed this new service on all customers residential lines but without telling them.

I think that what happened Wexford is tantamount to fraud on the part of EIRCOM if the actual customer did not order the service and even if they did it is an unacceptable business practice to charge customers unknowingly- I am going to call Eircom right now and complain vociferously-Fat lot of good that it will do but I must have some fun today!

PS I have NTL BB so I give Eircom the 2 fingers!

mrblack

The lady from Eircom says that the caller is definitely not charged when the voicemail service has not been activated by the recipient-She says that the message does not trigger a charge and that a charge is only levied when the caller leaves a message. She seemed very sure about it so I let it go at that.

Our man in Havana

I got a new line a month ago and I can confirm that there is no call answering service setup on it. There was call waiting but I turned it off.

seamus

Originally posted by Bond-James Bond
I got a new line a month ago and I can confirm that there is no call answering service setup on it. There was call waiting but I turned it off.

Are you sure?

I got a new line about 3 weeks ago now. 3 or 4 times I specifically stated that I didn't want call waiting, call answering or anything else (the line is purely for net access). Today I use eircom's online bill checker, and see that in fact, yes, I do have 'Call management services" on my account. I have never seen incompetance of this scale in my life - they originally charged me for a brand new line, despite me telling them 6 (six!) times that it was a reconnection, and not a new connection.

:rolleyes:
Off to 1901 I go.

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by seamus
Are you sure?

I got a new line about 3 weeks ago now. 3 or 4 times I specifically stated that I didn't want call waiting, call answering or anything else (the line is purely for net access). Today I use eircom's online bill checker, and see that in fact, yes, I do have 'Call management services" on my account. I have never seen incompetance of this scale in my life - they originally charged me for a brand new line, despite me telling them 6 (six!) times that it was a reconnection, and not a new connection.

:rolleyes:
Off to 1901 I go.

I am sure seamus there was no call answering.

Same thing happened to me. Wanted a recoonection and was charged for full install. Was made wait over 1 month. Wrote a scathing letter to JG Ryan about.

Got 2 months free rental and a refund of coonection charge. I then quickly changed to UTV:D

wexfordman

The lady from Eircom says that the caller is definitely not charged when the voicemail service has not been activated by the recipient-She says that the message does not trigger a charge and that a charge is only levied when the caller leaves a message. She seemed very sure about it so I let it go at that.


__________________
Lets go to work!

Mr Black,

I would'nt trust what the nice lady is telling you above. I have a soft copy of my telephone bill which says otherwise. The same copy I emailed to comreg. Eircom also told comreg that they do charge for the "unterminated" call, as it is up to the customer to activate it and its not their fault if the cust omer does not activate the service.

Oh yeay, we got our line fault fixed today (reported it last friday morning, so its been out all weekend). Local farmer cut the overhead line by mistake, took down at least eight neighbours and my own phone, but eircom werent bothered and said they wont fix it over the weekend. Wonder should I try get some line rental back!!!


wexfordman

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by wexfordman
The lady from Eircom says that the caller is definitely not charged when the voicemail service has not been activated by the recipient-She says that the message does not trigger a charge and that a charge is only levied when the caller leaves a message. She seemed very sure about it so I let it go at that.


__________________
Lets go to work!

Mr Black,

I would'nt trust what the nice lady is telling you above. I have a soft copy of my telephone bill which says otherwise. The same copy I emailed to comreg. Eircom also told comreg that they do charge for the "unterminated" call, as it is up to the customer to activate it and its not their fault if the cust omer does not activate the service.

Oh yeay, we got our line fault fixed today (reported it last friday morning, so its been out all weekend). Local farmer cut the overhead line by mistake, took down at least eight neighbours and my own phone, but eircom werent bothered and said they wont fix it over the weekend. Wonder should I try get some line rental back!!!


wexfordman

Dont waste your breath. The Biddy will tell you that they are covered by their T&C's.

From the biddy's own site:
Repair - under the terms of our customer service guarantee it is our aim to clear all faults within 2 working days, if we fail to meet this deadline you can claim the equivalent of two months line rental. Also if you have a complaint to make about a repair we aim to have the complaint resolved within 2 working days of receiving the complaint.


See if you can hit them for that.

manic_monster

Have you got a link to those T&Cs

Thanks

vibe666

always the same.

i got re-connected when i moved into my new place, and when i got connected i found that the answering service from the old tennants was active with their answering message on it.

methinks corners were cut.

seamus

Originally posted by Bond-James Bond
Vodafon€ charge you if you get the out of coverage/powered off message. I have noticed this on my bills. Vodafon€ drones said that they charge for all calls answered by a recording.

So its not just €ircon.

I only thought of this last night. The big problem is the minimum call charge. Mobile operators charge per second and have no minimum call charge. So if you ring someone's voicemail 5 times and hang up each time, you'll only be billed for the 2 seconds or so that you're on each time. The same call with eircom will cost 6c per go.

They're making a killing on it. Every single time someone makes a call that lasts less than 5 minutes. - Whether it lasts 2 seconds or 299 seconds, eircom are pulling massive profit from it. And people make a LOT of these types of calls, believe me.

I do beleive eircom should be obliged to remove the minimum call charge from the 1892 range.

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by manic_monster
Have you got a link to those T&Cs

Thanks

here you go

€ircoms code of conduct

Makes interesting reading

wexfordman

Got a response to my most recent mail to Comreg, posted below. At least they are looking a bit further and I should get a more conclusive answer:-

Dear %^&%^%^

I would like to acknowledge your e mail dated the 14th of October.

I am investigating your query further and will be in contact as soon as
I have a response.

Best Regards
%^%^%^
ComReg

---

Original Message

---

From: £$£$£$£%$%
Sent: 14 October 2003 00:27
To: %^%^%^%^
Subject: RE: FW: Customer Fixed Query



Hi,

Thanks again for your reply. Once again, I have had the same thing
happen to me, and no doubt again I will be billed for the call, which
was not put through to either the person I was trying to contact, nor to
a working operational or activated voicemail service which would allow
me to leave a message, and as such get the service I am paying for.

I find it hard to believe that this practice is allowed. I also find it
hard to accept that eircom do not put in place a more appropriate method
of dealing with this type of call, as technically, they are able to
identify the voicemail service has not even been activated, and should
provide the same type of response as the line ringing out.

I would appreciate it if you could advise me as to why you see no issue
with this facility. Are eircom allowed to do this because of technical
reasons, or is it acceptable to bill people for a service that has not
been provided ?

Also, can you advise what similar telcos are doing in these instances,
eg, esat BT, NTL etc to their voicemail services, and also what is the
situation in the UK

Regards,
$%$^%$%$

wexfordman

Well, I got what looks like a final reply from comreg, and they are basically repeating what was said in the first email, see pasted response below:_

Mr £$£$£$£$

In response to your query regarding eircom's Call Answering Service (CAS), eircom have informed us that this is an opt in facility that is requested by the telephone user. This service is supplied by eircom only after the user has agreed to have it put on their line. The CAS becomes active once eircom set it up from the exchange.

It therefore seems that the issue which you have raised arises when the person, after opting in and receiving the CAS, fails to set up their mailbox. In such circumstances the call will be completed but a message can not be left because the customer has not set up their voice mailbox . When voicemail is active on a consumers account, they have to be put through to a message. The message in this case is that this customer has voicemail but has not activated a message. The calling party is charged as the call is completed to voicemail.


ComReg does not therefore propose to pursue this matter further.

Sincerely
%^%^%^%
%^%^%^%^%

Looks like thats the end of it, I cant beleive they accept this practice....... Any comments ?

SkepticOne

Originally posted by wexfordman
Looks like thats the end of it, I cant beleive they accept this practice....... Any comments ?

ComReg seems to miss the point here.

Dear ComReg,

Thank you for your reply, but the essential point seems to have been missed:

Why do Eircom need to notify other callers that you have ordered CAS (and charge for this)? In this instance, money is being taken but no service is being supplied.

Ordering CAS is simply an entry in a database. It would make far more sense for Eircom to take the order but not modify the line until the CAS has been fully activated.

Is there any technical reason why a recorded message (which is charged) is played? What the customer ordering CAS would normally expect is that the line would continue to behave in the normal way (continue ringing if unanswered, or present the engaged signal if in use) until the CAS service is activated.

Yours...

spongebob

Originally posted by wexfordman
In response to your query regarding eircom's Call Answering Service (CAS), eircom have informed us that this is an opt in facility that is requested by the telephone user.

You normally have to TELL them NOT to provision it, Request is too weak a description.

It therefore seems that the issue which you have raised arises when the person, after opting in and receiving the CAS, fails to set up their mailbox. In such circumstances the call will be completed but a message can not be left because the customer has not set up their voice mailbox . When voicemail is active on a consumers account, they have to be put through to a message.

Arse, Eircom did not complete the activation, they require the customer to do so instead. Eircom provisioning should configure the mailbox to take messages and let their customer figure out how to get them in that case. Most mailboxes do not have a personal message of any sort anyway in my experience, "welcome to the Eircom etc etc !"

THEREFORE there is NO Mailbox in the absence of the act(s) of completion.

THEREFORE there should be no call completion charge.
Eircom charge at least €1 a month to the dipstick who never configured their mailbox, that should be enough for them.

By the same logic,Comreg would charge at the tollbooth on the Westlink even if there was no road beyond the TollBooth.

M

SkepticOne

I think one of the points ComReg aren't getting (judging from their replies) is that it is not the customer ordering call answering that is being charged, it is those calling that customer that get to pay.

The 'opt in' aspect of it is irrelevant.

What needs to be investigated is whether or not their is a technical reason for this or whether it is simply a sharp practice by Eircom.