Eircom I-stream Hidden charges

mobby

As i have just discovered if you require Tech Support with Eircom Broadband I-stream Starter you have to ring a premium rate 1550 number at 0.75c per min
to receive such support, your also charged €150 if you cancel your account within 12 months not mentioned when you sign up to their expensive service at €54 per month

Beware of the Hidden charges

ando

yeah that tech support line is a joke, I had to ring them twice so far and it cost me a few good euro....
Its unreal, I work in IT and have to ring companies like HP, Epson, lexmark etc etc for tech support nearly daily, but I have never EVER come across one of them having a premium number for tech support

mobby

Does anyone know if the other ISP have such charges?,

dahamsta

Originally posted by ando
yeah that tech support line is a joke, I had to ring them twice so far and it cost me a few good euro....
Its unreal, I work in IT and have to ring companies like HP, Epson, lexmark etc etc for tech support nearly daily, but I have never EVER come across one of them having a premium number for tech support

Was it their fault? If it was, bill them for it. Add up what it cost you, plus the cost of the bill, postage and your time at say €100/hour, and send it to them c/o of the company secretary whose contact details are plastered all over this forum. Tell them you expect a response within a week, and if they don't come back send them a reminder, tacking on the cost of THAT. Within a couple of weeks the amount will have built up to enough to take to small claims court.

Oh, and for god's sake, whether you do that or not, complain to Comreg about it. Loudly and often. It's a disgrace that /CUSTOMERS/ should be forced to pay for support on their lousy service.

adam

seamus

Originally posted by mobby
Does anyone know if the other ISP have such charges?,

IOL are surprisingly low on details on their website... but i does say there is a 12 month minimum contract, so I assume you have to pay the balance if you cancel early.

UTV have the same 12 month clause, but their tech support line is charged at local call rates.

Having premium rate numbers for paying customers is basically telling them they're not valued, IMO.

Lex_Diamonds

Yeah iol's various tech support numbers all charge. Its local rate, but still.

-Wheeler-

Originally posted by dahamsta
Oh, and for god's sake, whether you do that or not, complain to Comreg about it. Loudly and often. It's a disgrace that /CUSTOMERS/ should be forced to pay for support on their lousy service.

adam

I did just that - complained to both eircom and Comreg. Won't hold my breath though :rolleyes:

I urge others to do the same.

dahamsta

No need to hold your breath, just make sure you follow up on it.

Hang on a minute, won't the same thing happen to me if my DSL line goes down?

adam

yellabelly

Having to pay a premium rate for phone support is a disgrace considering you will be handing them over €600 for the year.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the €150 cancellation fee is for the modem assuming that you don't return it.
In their favour they have the best modem and from the small print it isn't just on-loan for the period of service like iol & utv.

seamus

Originally posted by dahamsta
Hang on a minute, won't the same thing happen to me if my DSL line goes down?

Oh look, if your DSL line goes down, you have to ring a premium rate number. And since your line is down, that means you'll probably have to use your mobile.

I mean WTF. These lines are pure profit lines since eircom don't have to pay themselves for the priviledge of having a premium line :rolleyes:

I don't see why Comreg wouldn't instantly step in on that.....

Hah!!!

Wait untill you have a problem with your voice line.

As a *Valued customer*:rolleyes: of Eircom i stream starter pack you will have to call that 1550 number to report a fault on your normal voice line aswell.

Indeed worse than that, if your entire line goes dead or something and you have to report the fault, you must also ring 1550 from your mobile.

1901 won't deal with it, they say it's none of their business anymore as I found out in september

Even though you pay line rental

Incidently I complained to Eircom and comreg about all this two months ago .

The reply I got from Eircom completely missed the point as the biddy that replied banged on about having to pay for "trained support engineers".
That wasn't what I was complaining about, my line was dead or nearly dead due to weather damage and I was complaining that I had to ring a 1550 number to arrange to get it fixed.

It was an issue with nothing to do with DSL at all ..!!
I replied to emphasise that and never got a reply back.

Never got a reply from Com Reg either.

Grrrr :mad:

The curious thing is, that if you are on net farce or any of the others you can still ring 1901 to get someone out to fix a physical fault on your line, theres no 1550 garbage.
This appears to be an Eircom money making racket Grrr!! :mad:

mm

mobby

I have Written a Letter of complaint to Eircom which they are obliged to respond to, so I will await their response before contacting Comreg. But I have no intention of letting this drop without a fight. I have premium rate numbers barred from my phone
Eircom advised me to use a mobile or get my landline unbarred, the whole thing is a joke

MagicBusDriver

Well, I think tech support should be a premium charge, as Why should other customer pay for someone to fix problems you created or deal with your inability to use your computer. Most support calls are on such matters. Club Internet, NetSource used premium rate numbers and so do all the free 56K ISPs.

Its annoying if you have to pay 74c a minute if you have a line fault, but how often does that happen?

captainpat

Report all problems as Line Faults. Wait until you get service to have your installation checked. If it is not a physical problem, the engineer will give you a report. Then you take your chances on the 1550 number, unless the engineer has given some advice.

This is not official, just a pointer.

dahamsta

Indeed captainpat, but there have been reports of people calling 1901 to report line faults - /line faults/ MagicBusDriver, not n00b computery problems, EIRCOM faults - and being told to call the premium rate number because their line was DSL. If this is the case, I would be concerned.

adam

mobby

Well MagicBusDriver good for you if you want to pay premium rate charge for something that may not be your fault, the point is Eircom should inform there "valued" customers of these charges before they use there products not after

Serbian

Originally posted by MagicBusDriver
Well, I think tech support should be a premium charge, as Why should other customer pay for someone to fix problems you created or deal with your inability to use your computer. Most support calls are on such matters. Club Internet, NetSource used premium rate numbers and so do all the free 56K ISPs.

Its annoying if you have to pay 74c a minute if you have a line fault, but how often does that happen?

I agree MagicBusDriver, we should just bend over and take it! :rolleyes:

If you have a phone line you are already being shafted, as the rental on these lines (as I'm sure most people already know) are the most expensive in Europe. Since you are only renting the line, why should you have to pay 74c a minute to fix a line that you don't own, and more than likely was damaged due to circumstances beyond your control?

If you have a DSL line on top of that, the inflated monthly charge of €54 should absorb all cost of having 'highly trained specialist engineers' at the other end of the phone telling you to restart your router and call back if that doesn't work.

There is no getting away from the fact that is a rip-off of epic proportions, and there is no way anyone should have to pay premium rate phone charges to call for support.

Originally posted by dahamsta
Indeed captainpat, but there have been reports of people calling 1901 to report line faults - /line faults/ MagicBusDriver, not n00b computery problems, EIRCOM faults - and being told to call the premium rate number because their line was DSL. If this is the case, I would be concerned.

adam

And that is the case for i stream starter pack people, who i suspect form the majority of their DSL customers.

If you are on solo, you have an 1850/1890 number.

Either Eircom are running their DSL outfit more ineffeciently than the others or they are ripping off customers.
The latter methinks Grrrr :mad:

mm

dahamsta

I don't think my question has been answered: I'm a UTV customer. I was under the impression that if I ring Eircom on 1901 with a line fault, they'll redirect me to one of these premium rate lines, even if the fault is specifically with the line (which I pay Eircom for). Is this true?

adam

No.
As far as I am aware, if your line is dsl and you have a physical fault with it, you can ring 1901 and get an engineer out to fix it.

It's only with Eircom i stream starter that you will be told to ring the 1550 number.

And in the case of solo, you will be asked to ring their low call rate number

There the "ridiculousness" of it.

I stream customers are being denied service on physical line faults unless they spend a couple of euro explaining the problem on a 1550 number first.

Thats is CRAZY and Comreg shouldn't allow it given that we all pay the same line rental.
Eircom apparently own the line we rent it, and they should pay for the cost of an i stream customer reporting a fault on it , the same as everyone else who rents a line.

mm

novahugh

I think it's outrageous. I had DSL installed on my phone line, then the line did not work at all - for DSL or voice calls.

When I rang regular Eircom line faults they denied responsiblity as it was a DSL line. I rang DSL, and they referred me to regular line faults again. WHo referred me back to DSL.

I then got a call from some bloke in Eircom business support saying he was going to log my call but in future to call a 1550 number. Premium rate tech support for something that isn't my fault or problem?

It's a disgrace. Someone sort it out and bring it to the notice of the media.

H

Davey Devil

Originally posted by novahugh


It's a disgrace. Someone sort it out and bring it to the notice of the media.

H

Why don't you????

novahugh

Well I emailed Rte and 2fm about it (national coverage), but then I realised that the feed i was listening to Rte Radio 1 on (I listen to the radio over the internet in work), was sponsored by EIRCOM!!!

Hilarious.

So, I obviously didn't get a reply.

Someone please bring Denis O'Brien back and plead with him to invest a few of his hard earned bucks in a completely new loop, just as he suggested we shoud do.

H

dahamsta

Originally posted by novahugh
Someone please bring Denis O'Brien back

Not long now, by all accounts.

adam

-Wheeler-

Originally posted by dahamsta
Not long now, by all accounts.

adam

mobby

Oh and if you think you maybe able to email Tech Support
Guess what;


http://broadbandsupport.eircom.net/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=84,E=0000000000007272571,K=6732,Sxi=0,Case=obj(540)




Carlsberg don't do Broadband but if they did............... etc etc

-Wheeler-

Thats what really pissed me off about the whole thing and prompted me to lodge a complaint. It's one thing to have a premium rate support number, but to then withdraw all email support for i-stream starter customers is just unacceptable. It's eircom's cynical way of forcing all customers to ring the premium rate number as it is now the only way of communicating with eircom.........what a joke.:mad:

I did receive an email back from eircom saying that they had passed my email on to the relevant person who deals with complaints (I'm sure it's a full time job). Still heard nothing back from COMREG.

novahugh

i didnt get any email replies.

I eventually rang up and got a nice bloke who saw my history and was genuinely sorry... and broadband was working the next day.

After over two weeks.

H

tonky

Only two weeks!. Lucky you.
I'm going into my fourth week after the enable date, (4/11/03). Exchange problems (Swords). The starter deal is supposed to welcome you to Eircom Broadband!!. Customer Care my arse. History is almost beyond belief and will be posted later. As the say - Eircom Broadband just got better - maybe - but not for iStarter customers.

eth0_

Originally posted by Lex_Diamonds
Yeah iol's various tech support numbers all charge. Its local rate, but still.

So bloody what? You get what you pay for, only companies like Cisco, Sun etc have freephone support numbers....and you can only access them if you have an expensive service contract. There's no such thing as a free lunch and all that...

-Wheeler-

Originally posted by eth0_
There's no such thing as a free lunch and all that...

What the hell are you talking about. In just the 5 months that I've had i-stream I have paid eircom €514. Thats just the broadband charges for 5 months (incl. modem & connection) and does not include my phone charges etc. To add on top of that a premium rate support numer (1550 at €0.75/min) which you have to ring to report eircom problems is just unacceptable. I could accept a local rate number. It's the fact that it's premium rate that really annoys me.

eth0_, I am very aware that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but how that statement applies here when i-stream users are paying through the nose for the service in the first place, is just beyond me. I think we are justified in being annoyed about the fact that we are being loaded with yet another excessive charge.