Another instance of €ircon stealing calls!

govinda

Just after my last post, I received the following email from the Eircom escalation department


Dear *********
_
I have now been in contact with the area who deals with customers leaving eircom and returning to eircom for call traffic. They have informed me that your calls returned to eircom on 18/06 following completion of an order to upgrade your line to Isdn.
_
The normal process in a situation like this, is that the Cps code (which signifies the customer's calls are with another carrier) is automatically re-applied to the customer's account once the order is completed. Due to an oversight on eircom's part, this was not done in your case. I apologise about this. I have now highlighted this case to the department who issued this order and I am doing everything in my power to ensure that this does not happen again.
_
Cps was re-applied to your account on 21/06 and when your next bill arrives, I have now problem in crediting the calls that are on that bill to your account. If you contact me when you get your bill, I will issue this credit.
_
I hope this brings this case to a close but if you have any further queries, please don't hesitate in contacting me back.
_
Thanks for your time
***********


OK, so hopefully that is *my* problem solved. However, I'm still p*****d that this could happen in the first place, and is probably happening to all CPS subscribers who upgrade and who maybe aren't as persistent as I am.......


Dear Sir

Thank you for your reply. That solution is acceptable to me and I will contact you again when my bill is issued.

However, I still take issue with the fact that Eircom do not provide any information at all about the CPS agreement being cancelled when the line is upgraded.

Ms. **** *****, supervisor in Eircoms Galway call centre, told me that if I had ordered ISDN by phone that I would be informed of this which leads me to believe that the CPS agreement is not always reinstated automatically. Why is it that this information is not on the Eircom website and not included in the automatic order confirmation emails sent to customers who order via the website? If I were to ask a friend to place an ISDN upgrade order via 1901, would they be informed of this by the representative?

Do you have any comment on the fact that I first became aware of this problem via an FAQ on the UTV Internet website and that if I had not done so, I would only be aware when my Eircom bill arrived at the end of this month? Ms **** (supervisor)was unable to comment on this.

ComReg provide neither access to nor a synopsis of the CPS Industry Guidelines which are supposed to protect the consumer, so I would like to raise these points with you.

Thank you for your assistance.

********

malls

Facinating read.

Thanks for that Govinda.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by govinda
The normal process in a situation like this, is that the Cps code (which signifies the customer's calls are with another carrier) is automatically re-applied to the customer's account once the order is completed.

Rampant horse-hockey - there's enough anecdotal evidence to indicate that your experience (and mine) is SOP, and I've yet to hear of an ISDN upgrade that didn't involve a loss of CPS.

Ms. **** *****, supervisor in Eircoms Galway call centre, told me that if I had ordered ISDN by phone that I would be informed of this

I ordered ISDN by phone. I wasn't informed.

spongebob

Originally posted by govinda
Just after my last post, I received the following email from the Eircom escalation department

Dear *********
_
The normal process in a situation like this, is that the Cps code (which signifies the customer's calls are with another carrier) is automatically re-applied to the customer's account once the order is completed. Due to an oversight on eircom's part, this was not done in your case. I apologise about this. I have now highlighted this case to the department who issued this order and I am doing everything in my power to ensure that this does not happen again.

Well done Govinda.

This thread is a textbook example of how to pin Comreg and Eircom down in the one operation and get your rights asserted as a consumer. Had you not proceeded in parallel with both and had you not posted the sanitised versions of the correspondance then I fear that you would be another victim of the inept 'nothing we can do we have no power' culture in Comreg and the fraudsters in Eircom.

As the quote above came from a senior Eircom person I would name that person in here and to Comreg , quoting the above.

Essentially, if a senior Eircom manager has put it on the record that their 'standard procedure' is ( or should be) to reapply all existing CPS instructions immediately upon completion of an access path change then I suspect that quite a few readers of this Board would like the name so that they can claim the refunds that were denied to them by Biddy ......... in direct contravention of that standard practice.

Alternatively you could name the manager to Comreg, ask Comreg to confirm the authenticity of the 'standard procedure' to you by email ....and name the person in Comreg who has taken ownership of the issue instead of the Eircom person.

Many people have been sent from pillar to post by Eircom/Comreg when seeking restitution for this form of breach of contract . Its time we had a single point of contact in either organisation to deal with these in future otherwise the farrago will continue.

One name is all we need

M

govinda

Muck, I have cc'd both the ComReg representative Paul Brennan and Bobby Hannan on all my correspondence with this Eircom representative but they are no longer responding to my emails. As with Dermot Ahern and the Department of Communications, it seems that SOP for ComReg is to ignore problems and hope they go away.

I visited their website yesterday and saw this:

ComReg04/76 - Information Notice - ComReg finds eircom in breach of the Carrier Pre-Selection Code of Practice

I thought great! Finally they're cracking down on them, but no - it was more winback regulation. I suppose that makes a change from them proofreading advertistments......but as regards slamming, they just don't seem to care. Words from Bobby Hannan (such as those in his email above) are fine words, but I've also found fine words from Etain Doyle made during her time in the then ODTR promising that slamming would be brought to an end:

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/09/25/story432262924.asp

It is time for action on the part of ComReg. If neither Eircom nor ComReg are going to warn the consumer, then I think I'll write to Joe Duffy and see if this message can be spread by other means. Its fine and all for me to post on boards.ie and ripoffireland.org but there are still consumers out there who could potentially find themselves in the same situation as I did and who wouldn't browse these forums. Like I said above, prior to this I would have considered myself wise to the Eircom agenda.....you live and learn, eh?!!!!!!!

Thanks again to everyone who offered help and advice, its much appreciated.

For those who wish to make a complaint, I've been dealing with Thomas Ryan, Escalation Manager - tmryan@eircom.ie

spongebob

The thread itself is explanation enough of your position and of how Eircom slammed you.

Another pernicious form of slamming is when the Eircom Winback mob go around to peoples houses, get told to bugger off , and Forge signatures on Winback forms which are then submitted to Eircom for processing unchecked .

A victim may have a 2c a minute rate to the UK or similar with another carrier so they carry on oblivious that Eircom have stolen back the traffic through forgery. Shock horror later , Eircom bill arrives and they are stung for 20c a minute instead while Eircom say that the victim signed themselves over to them and refuse to refund the money they stole.

Both slamming practises together would be a jolly good 45 mins of Radio .

Make sure you tell Joe to carry on regardless with the program if Eircom dont show up on the day despite promising to do so (they hate dealing with the public live on air ) . Joe would get a whole week outta porn diallers but thats another story entirely

M

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Rampant horse-hockey - there's enough anecdotal evidence to indicate that your experience (and mine) is SOP, and I've yet to hear of an ISDN upgrade that didn't involve a loss of CPS. I ordered ISDN by phone. I wasn't informed.

Mine didn't actually. Did my upgrade online. I didn't loose my cps to UTV at all.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Bond-007
Mine didn't actually. Did my upgrade online. I didn't loose my cps to UTV at all.

Interesting - when was your upgrade?

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Interesting - when was your upgrade?

31st March I got ISDN installed- Ordered it on the 29th

oscarBravo

Originally posted by Bond-007
31st March I got ISDN installed- Ordered it on the 29th

Right - after the fuss that was raised on this board about the practice.

Not that I'd dream of suggesting for a moment that that's anything other than a coinkydink...

spongebob

If Bobby Hannon is still ignoring you then escalate to HIS boss, Mike Byrne. Mike would also have some questions to answer on his attitude to 'pricing' and Porn Diallers. Mike is also personally responsible for the infamous 0k " Functional Internet Access " fiasco. The 1st anniversary of that latter farce is on the 25th of July, I shall organise a celebration .....anon.

Market Operations - Director: Mike Byrne
Market Operations handles day-to-day issues concerning
the regulation of the market including such issues as
interconnection, dispute resolution and unbundling the
local loop. Supervision of pricing and ensuring a universal
service for all consumers in respect of eircom is a
principal activity of Market Operations. This Division also
administers the Consumer Affairs section.

mike.byrne@comreg.ie should get to him

M

_Kaiser_

Hi all,

OK..... I'm a UTV Clicksilver customer and as such all my calls are supposed to be routed through and charged by them....

But..back in March I contacted UTV because I was being billed by eircom for several months and upon investigation they discovered that eircom had at some point reappropriated my calls (back somewhere before Christmas).
However, they promised to look into it and have this corrected ASAP and all was well again

(I should add at this point that I pay my UTV bills directly from my credit card and the eircom bill comes outta my bank account through billpay.ie).

Today (while reading this thread actually ) I remembered that I wanted to check with UTV that all was still ok and I discovered that this month's bill is for approx €175 and includes calls back to October!!

So I ring UTV who, while she was very nice, tells me that there's nothing she can do as the payment requests have already been issued and that as far as she can tell it's not something they've done - apparently these calls got "lost" and it's an Esat issue. They also - in fairness to them - offered a payment plan but that doesn't really solve the underlying cause of the problem.

Rang Esat so, and he tells me that nope, it's a UTV issue and that I as a customer shouldn't really be dealing with it at all - it's UTV that need to follow up on it.

I then rang eircom and spoke to customer service and he has a record alright of the "slamming" in March but doesn't think it's something he can resolve - he suggested I contact UTV again.

At the end of all this then I'm stuck with a rather sizeable bill that will be charged to my credit card in the next day or so as a result - as I see it - of some sort of f*ck up between UTV, Esat and eircom and they're all blaming each other!

So before I ring UTV back, has anyone any suggestions on what to say and what I can demand (if anything) to ensure that this doesn't happen again and anything else that might be useful here.

Any advice appreciated folks!

spongebob

.....not till you tell us how ESAT came into the equation

M

_Kaiser_

UTV (and ESAT) say that they get their bandwidth from ESAT (who buy it from eircom) and so ESAT charge them for the calls.

spongebob

UTV are entitled to bill you for calls you made. If you already paid Eircom for them you should not have to pay for them again though.

How did you find out you were slammed in March ?

M

_Kaiser_

cause my bills were coming in from eircom with call charges on them and the online statement from UTV was showing nothing at all except for the monthly sub charge. When I rang UTV they said that for some reason the CPS to route the calls to them had been changed back to eircom. (reason I didnt really twig this before then was that the line is mainly used for internet access so rarely use it for voice calls).



Anyway..off home now so will check back when I get in.. cheers!

parsi

I got a call yesterday from a friend who I had setup on UTVip and they suddenly got a bill from eircom for 2months of calls and the same 2 months were blank from UTV.

I have advised her to ring UTV and eircom and see what happened and then proceed to complain to Comreg.