Yet another Eircom gripe

aodh_rua

I got a new phoneline installed a month ago, and the day the line passed the adsl test I rang up Esat and signed up for IOL BB and one of their call packages. They said I could expect to be up and running within three weeks. That three weeks is up tomorrow so I rang Esat to see what the story was. Apparently in the last few days Eircom got back to them to say that my account info was incorrect. What seems to have happened is that Esat applied to Eircom to enable my line using the details I gave them. They also transfered my billing etc. over. At the end of September, Eircom disabled the account I had with them in order for Esat to take up its maintainence. As a result, when it came to enabling my adsl, Eircom found that the account info was stale and sent the order back to Esat as an error. Now I may be back at the same point I was at three weeks ago, waiting to be enabled.

From talking to the Esat people, Eircom are being inundated with IOLBB request because of the free offer, and they're throwing back any orders that present even the smallest problems, rather than trying to figure things out and get the customers connected. Maybe they figure the surfing public will get frustrated and sign up for their lesser product.

ShadowFax

Eircom are scum. They do nothing only RIP you off. I have first hand experience. KEEP WELL AWAY.

Lets rid the world of em

aodh_rua

Right just got off the phone from my fourth (or was it fifth?) Esat person in two days. They are resubmitting my application, which puts me back at the end of the queue and means what they initially told me could take 3 to 5 days will now take six weeks. They weren't willing to offer anything in return for their mess.

My advice is don't take Esat up on their bundled calls (with all inclusive billing) and broadband package.

Borris

not esats fault eircom fudge them over.
esat have to apply to eircom for all res lines/dsl cuz they own the stinking network

its not right but eircom fail any small faw in any order etc

aodh_rua

I was prepared to give Esat the benefit of the doubt - but this time Eircom aren't solely responsible. The reason I'm in this state is because I went for consolidated billing. Esat telephony and broadband departments weren't in contact with one another and so one department cancelled my Eircom account and transferred it to Esat while the other tried to connect me through the stale account. I suppose Eircom could have flagged forwarding details for the account, but similarly if Esat are advertising a combined calls and internet offer, they should really know how to ensure that customers aren't messed around like I was.

machalla

You could try UTV's offer which is cheaper again than Esats and has a better telephony offering (for calls in Ireland and the UK anyway).

They seem to be reasonably with it in all my dealings with them

aodh_rua

I came very close to doing that yesterday, but the clicksilver site seems to say that once the free trial is over you have to pay the €99 connection if you keep the service. I really don't understand that, and I can't find a number on the site to clarify things with a human.

simonm2

The connection is on the u-tv site. Esat do the same - don't think there is a way of avoiding the 99 charge with any provider.

byrnenj

I heard that once the free trial is over with Esat you have to pay the 99 euro connection fee, whether you keep it or not...you'd want to have a good read over the T&C's!

As for Eircom not getting your order through, you all seem to think that there is an evil gremlin sitting in an office in Eircom messing things up! In this day an age, we have computers to do most things, like billing / orders etc. and computer like things done right. If it's not done right, it throws an exception and orders aren't processed.
That seems to be what happened here. As aodh_rua said, it seems to be a case of Esat's left hand not knowing what it's right hand was doing!

I have BB with Eircom and I have to say, It's damn good...never had a problem with it! Personally i'd prefare for my money to go to an Irish company (Eircom) than to be sending it over to England (BT) for their economy to grow even stronger than our!

the_syco

aodh_rua wrote:

From talking to the Esat people, Eircom are being inundated with IOLBB request because of the free offer, and they're throwing back any orders that present even the smallest problems, rather than trying to figure things out and get the customers connected. Maybe they figure the surfing public will get frustrated and sign up for their lesser product.

Just out of curousity; why should Eircom fix a problem for Esat, when Esat will get the business?

simonm2

byrnenj wrote:

! Personally i'd prefare for my money to go to an Irish company (Eircom) than to be sending it over to England (BT) for their economy to grow even stronger than our!

What makes you think Eircom is Irish? It is owned by Valentia Telecommunications ltd which in turn is (or was) backed by Soros Private Equity Partners, Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity Partners. Have a look at the board of directors sometime. If you look up Eircom's credit rating, you'll find that some of its debt is classed one step above junk bond at 3b? by Moodys and Standard and Poor.

byrnenj

They're a lot more Irish than Esat!

Board of Directors - OK I'll give you 1 non-Irish person!

Moriarty

Eircom is a UK registered company. They don't even pay tax in this state afaik. EsatBT is as much, if not more, of an irish company than eircom is at this stage.

byrnenj

They are registered on both the Irish and London Stock Exchange!

How are Esat BT in anyway Irish?

Moriarty

They aren't really

damien

aodh_rua wrote:

Esat issues...

Aodh_rua, email your story to info@irelandOffline.org

Include all necessary details such as billing no, phone number, full name etc and I'll see what I can get done for you.

byrnenj

simonm2 wrote:

If you look up Eircom's credit rating, you'll find that some of its debt is classed one step above junk bond at 3b? by Moodys and Standard and Poor.

Fair enough!
However, ANYONE who has eircom shares has just made profit! The eircom share price is higher than it's launch price. It's at it's highest ever at the moment!
You can argue that credit rating, after all it's only an opinion of the above, but you can't argue with profit! No matter which way you look at it, in whatever light it's still profit for those sharholders. Think they are only corporations or something anyway, but still!

Anyway, this is all getting way too serious for me and way off topic! I'm a happy customer! There's will always be happy and disgruntled customers, whoever the company are! That's life as we know Jim!

parsi

byrnenj wrote:

Fair enough!
However, ANYONE who has eircom shares has just made profit! The eircom share price is higher than it's launch price. It's at it's highest ever at the moment!

I think the share price referred to is the price of the "reflotation" shares which were only available to institutuons and not the public unlike the first batch of shares which were eventually bought back by Valentia..

byrnenj

Yep they're the ones I was talking about! Refloated at 1.55, dropped down to about 1.35 at one stage, but are on a good run at the moment and are at 1.57. I think the current rise in share price is thanks to Business and Finance Magazine putting Eircom in the top 10 IRISH companies!

parsi

Hmm , says he in a deep and meaningful way that suggests that there is more to this than meets the eye..

aodh_rua

the_syco wrote:

Just out of curousity; why should Eircom fix a problem for Esat, when Esat will get the business?

Because the regulator would consider it an abuse of position if Eircom were trying to frustrate their competitors business by not responding to their requests as quickly as internal ones.

As for connection fees - Esat's T&C's do say there's a connection fee at the end of the free period. The mind boggles - connection to what? The work has already happened - ah well.

parsi

I suppoe it is a connection fee that is postponed for 3 months so if you stay you get lumbered but if you don't you don't.

aodh_rua

OK - so here's an update. Today (four weeks after my initial order) the day came to ring Esat to get my connection date. Rang them up, and their guy says that Eircom have rejected the order, because another broadband order is open on the account. He says its "100%" Eircom's fault and that I need to ring them to get a cancellation code against the order that's blocking the Esat one. Now I've no order with Eircom or anyone else so I'm getting that old sinking feeling again.

Before hanging up, I took another opportunity to express my dissatisfaction at the delay, and that it all stems from my taking Esat's bundled calls & rental product. His response - well there are always glitches early on. My reply - so I'm suffering this endless delay because you launched a product without fully testing it, I mean that the account issue I'm having is a pretty obvious one, isn't it?

So I ring up Eircom and get transferred to their broadband department (I can't actually talk to Esat's one as the customer support staff (even the ones covering bb orders) don't have the extension number). Right so I'm talking to a very helpful Eircom staff member, and lo and behold she reports no open orders on my phoneline. Not a one. Zip. On top of that they've no record of any orders open on the account. Obviously I can't get a cancellation code for a non-existent order so I return to Esat and triumphantly report my findings. I can't talk to a human who can help, so instead their customer service guy promises to email their broadband people, explaining that Eircom have no open order. He says he'll get back to me when they get back to him. Whenever that happens (cue prophetic sound effects) I see myself back at the start of another three week wait.

Am I alone?

Hardly.

ZENER

Sounds to me like Esat are blaming Eircom for their own fcuk up, they know that 9 times out of 10 people will believe Eircom made a mess. The guilty ones are those of us who subscribe to the belief therefore adding weight to it.

Every other week some telecoms company or other call me claiming they can save me 30% on my phone bill, when I ask them to explain how they plan to do this they can never give me an answer that comes to 30% or anything near it. I don't work for them but I do believe they take too much stick for other companies screw ups.

ZEN

Ripwave

byrnenj wrote:

Personally i'd prefare for my money to go to an Irish company (Eircom) than to be sending it over to England (BT) for their economy to grow even stronger than our!

Since when did Eircom become an Irish company? If you bother to check you facts, you'll find that the holding company that owns eircom is actually a UK company, not an Irish company.

Goldman Sachs, who are paid millions to know this sort of thing, made the same incorrect assumption that you did:
http://investorrelations.eircom.net/news/rns_17.htm

aodh_rua

Right - just wanted to update this....

It's now six weeks since I put my order in. I am no closer to getting my connection sorted. I'm in a limbo where Eircom still say no problem, indeed that if I opted for them they could put the order through no problem, while Esat say there is nothing they can do until Eircom lift the open status. I really feel that no human beings are involved in the communication between the two. It is so frustrating.

Anyone else having a similar experience?