How Eircom Tried to Screw Me

turbot

Eircom majorly tried to screw me over about two years ago.

When DSL was first released, I signed up to have it installed. The installation cost was €200. The installation engineer arrived without all his equipment, plugged the modem in and because the light went green, told me it worked.
He couldn't get it to work on my PC but assured me, with a bit of fiddling, it would.

I have a degree in computer science and have been using modems since 1992 and computers since I was a young child. If anyone can fiddle and get something to work, it is I.

Anyway, after exhausting all possible options, I spent approx 1 1/2 hour and a half on the phone to tech support, who concluded there was a line fault, and advised me an engineer would be out the next day to fix it.

Friday: I arranged to be at home, but no engineer showed. Called, they rescheduled for Monday.

Monday: No engineer showed. Called them, the promised tuesday.

Tuesday: No engineer showed. Called them, they said maybe Wed, def Thurs.

Wed: No engineer showed.... and nor did anyone show up on Thursday.

On thursday they said Monday... and eventually on Tuesday another engineer came and got it working.

So I spoke to their DSL dept who told me that for my inconvenience, they wouldn't charge me the install fee. So I didn't pay it.

After I got my next bill, they cut my line off for non payment of charges.

I sweet talked the credit controller into reconnecting my line.

Come the next bill. The same thing happened. And I convinced the next credit controller to reconnect.

Three bills later (6 months) they cut my line off and told me they wouldn't reconnect unless I paid everything I owed.

I spent 15 hours (no exagerattion) over approximately 4 weeks on the phone to everyone I could call in Eircom, because I often work from home and need my phone and DSL line. I had to use the local phone boxes because my line had been disconnected.

Heads of departments promised they'd call me back the next day and they didn't. I was appauled and outraged. But I wrote down every name and every date I'd been in contact with them.

Eventually I called various government consumer affairs organisations, who referred me to ComReg.

I sent ComReg a 10 page letter detailing my problems with Eircom and their interactions. 3 days later a member of their customer services team called me, and gave me a €700 euro rebate (refund for accrued over charges, not actually a credit...) and reconnected my line.

I'm certain this wouldn't have happened had I not involved ComReg.

This whole incident cost me a lot of time, money and basically left me with no confidence with Eircom, who in my experience, are a travesty of an organisation, who at the time, seemed to have been structured so that people would simply give up trying to get a resolution.

I considered sueing them but had lost so much money in not being able to use the 'net from home (working as a web designer) in order to survive I had to get very busy professionally.

My advice if you have a problem with Eircom:
- Don't give up
- Write down every name of every person you speak to, the date and time of your conversation so you have a detailed diary of your interactions with them
- Contact ComReg.
- Publicise your experience

If anyone from any of Eircom's competitors read this, I'll gladly furnish you with the document I sent to ComReg.

From a personal perspective, my experience of Eircom affected my confidence in Irish Services big time. As one of the core providers of infrastructure within Ireland, their behaviour towards me was way beyond unacceptable; it was professionaly debilitating and immoral.

Sponge Bob

I must warn you however that Those charges could lurk on the Eircom billing system for up to 5 years before they sell the debt to the likes of Intrum Justitia who will chase yo ass for money which is not owed at all. See this example of what I mean .

You never got a letter from Eircom saying clearly "Dear Turbot , we accept you do not owe us any money" . Therefore you have no idea how they kludged their billing system back then.

The best way to deal with this is to email the head man , phil.nolan@eircom.ie , to get this reassurance in writing (for your big file) in case they do sell off this accrued amount to the likes of Intrum or some other debt collector in future .

Rozie

Eircom really are terrible. We were without a phone line for well over a week because some idiot backed into a pole with a truck, and Eircom said they'd be up tomorrow, then the next day, then the next day, etc.

They're pretty ridiculous, in general. Their Broadband is terrible. The best slogan they could come up with was "Sure, there's no stopping you!" which really has to be some kind of ultimate irony. Using irrelevant Irish Colloquial phrases in attempt to charm people is hardly the greatest marketting plan, and is close to an admission of defeat. We have the worst internet in europe, and that's a fact.

You've nothing to boast about eircom. You are a terrible, ridiculous company that's held this country back far too long.

federerfan

What they said....^

Maskhadov

€irCON is the biggest RIP OFF in this country. Its a sham, a mafia run organisation aimed at fleecing ordinary decent irish people

RainyDay

Sponge Bob wrote:

I must warn you however that Those charges could lurk on the Eircom billing system for up to 5 years before they sell the debt to the likes of Intrum Justitia who will chase yo ass for money which is not owed at all. See this example of what I mean .

You never got a letter from Eircom saying clearly "Dear Turbot , we accept you do not owe us any money" . Therefore you have no idea how they kludged their billing system back then.

You could submit a request under the Data Protection Act for a copy of any data they retain in relation to you. They are obliged to respond within 30 days. This will give you some security that stuff isn't lurking around in their system. See www.dataprivacy.ie for more details.

Br@nkin

Well,

At least you can get broadband =[

parsi

RainyDay wrote:

You could submit a request under the Data Protection Act for a copy of any data they retain in relation to you. They are obliged to respond within 30 days. This will give you some security that stuff isn't lurking around in their system. See www.dataprivacy.ie for more details.

It's 40 days. Then you can write to the Commissioner and complain. And start waiting for them to answer...I wrote to an organisation and after 40 days when I hadn't received a reply I wrote to the Data Protection Office and they haven't replied either :-(

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote:

The best way to deal with this is to email the head man , phil.nolan@eircom.ie , to get this reassurance in writing (for your big file) in case they do sell off this accrued amount to the likes of Intrum or some other debt collector in future .

the DP route costs money .

FlyOver

turbot wrote:

I'm certain this wouldn't have happened had I not involved ComReg.

Well now you know. You might want to ring Joe Duffy as well just to get it out of your system.