eircom greedily keeping my account number for two weeks

generalmiaow

So after long deliberation I decided BT was to be my post-clearwire telephone and internet service provider. Upon contacting BT I was told that I needed to have eircom activate my line first. You've all heard that before. Eircom activated my line within minutes of my calling them, and I thought, great, I need only sign up to BT now. However, BT, as I would assume all the telcos do, require my eircom account number. Needless to say, having received no eircom bills, I have no eircom account number. I rang them up and after arguing with a machine, asked for my account number from the operator. He said it they would try to send it to me in a week (how long does it take to send a number through the post??).

Am I being unreasonable here? Surely this is unfair. I know eircom own the copper, etc, went to all the trouble of turning on my phone line and might I add, were impressively quick in doing so, but they're already charging me a connection fee and line rental for the privilege of having a phone service from another company, now they're insisting I stay with them while they struggle to post a letter.

machalla

Well, you know Eircon. Not a great company when it comes to new-fangled communications technologies like the post.

If you were to ask them to sign you up to Eircon BB I wonder how long it would take...

I think someone had a guide on here somewhere as to how to switch your BB provider without all the down-time that is usually involved. Can't remember the theadname but someone else might.

Urban Weigl

If Eircom can activate your phone line over the telephone, they should also be able to give you your account number over the telephone. They're a telephone company after all!

Sponge Bob

it would be available on the spot if he signed up for eircom BB, funny that

paulm17781

It is a security thing though. Two weeks is rediculous really but you could put half of that down to An Post. While it is irritating I am happy they don't give it out over the phone. I doubt you would like if a bank gave your account details out over the phone, the only way to verify it is you is to send it to the account holder address.

kaizersoze

What if you tell them that you wanted it so you could sign up online for Eircom BB and avail of the free connection and wireless router offer for online orders? The offers are not available over the phone.
Now I'm not suggesting that you actually sign up with Eircom.
Or, a friend of mine told them he needed it asap for the dept. of Social Welfare.

smashey

paulm17781 wrote:

It is a security thing though. Two weeks is rediculous really but you could put half of that down to An Post. While it is irritating I am happy they don't give it out over the phone. I doubt you would like if a bank gave your account details out over the phone, the only way to verify it is you is to send it to the account holder address.

While this is certainly irritating, I think the blame lies only with Eircom and not An Post.

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

It is a security thing though.

How so? They let you activate your phone line over the phone as well, and it's up within minutes. Wouldn't that be a security issue too? And what about them being able to magically give you your account number if you order Eircom's own broadband.

Besides that, it isn't like your Eircom account number is some super secret thing.

paulm17781

Smashey, they have to post it to you for security. It is half down to An Post as they are hardly reliable. For all we know Eircon post it the day you ask and they say two weeks to prevent customers going crazy.

Urban Weigl, send me your Eircom account number, I'll get some credit cards, mobile phones and sign you up to various pyramid schemes. How? I will be able to get all your details with that one little number. Alternatively realise that this is why they only post it. Activating a line doesn't require a confidential number which can be proof of address, if you are getting a line they can work out where you live, hence it is you.

Do they send you your account number for BB or do they carry out the order over the phone? Two different things.

Now, do I agreee with the two week thing? Absolutely not, I don't see why other companies can't fast track this, they have to go back to Eircom anyway. The point is if they don't post it to the registered address they are liable for giving out confidential details over the phone. I guarentee you if you were a victim of identity theft as a result of this you would probably be asking "Why did you give them my account number over the phone?"

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

Urban Weigl, send me your Eircom account number, I'll get some credit cards, mobile phones and sign you up to various pyramid schemes. How? I will be able to get all your details with that one little number. Alternatively realise that this is why they only post it. Activating a line doesn't require a confidential number which can be proof of address, if you are getting a line they can work out where you live, hence it is you.

An Eircom account number honestly won't let you set up a bank account or Visa card. A lot more is needed. As far as "all my details", I suppose you might be able to get my address, which you could find many ways. Your statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Anyway, I'm not saying it should just be given out like that, Eircom could easily do some security checks. For example, they could check that you're calling from the actual phone line the account number is related to, and ask some security questions. Now you'll have to break and enter and know answers to security questions to get it if you're not who you say you are.

As far as An Post, yes they aren't as quick as they ought to be, and maybe I'm lucky, but 9 out of 10 times my mail arrives the next day. On the rare occasions when it doesn't, it hardly ever takes longer than 2 days. Certainly nowhere near 2 weeks. Maybe it's because I live out in the sticks, and it would be slower if I was in Dublin?

Foxwood

When your eircom phoneline has been connected you will be sent a confirmation email.

The e-mail will contain:

* Your NEW eircom home phone number.
* Your NEW personal eircom account number.
* Details of how to sign up to eircom broadband time.
* Details of how to sign up to the direct debit for the eircom talktime.

That's from the eircom website - www.eircom.ie, click on "Products & Services" then "Phone Lines", click on "Find out more". (I can't post a direct link because of eircom.ie's stupid session management crap).

paulm17781

Urban Weigl wrote:

An Eircom account number honestly won't let you set up a bank account or Visa card. A lot more is needed. As far as "all my details", I suppose you might be able to get my address, which you could find many ways. Your statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Do you want to test it? An account number is all that is needed to get all your details. Best case scenario I would just cancel your services. I assure you though, I could have a few credit cards and bank account in no time.

Security questions are the same thing. People can still know them. This comes down to: Do you want your details safe or not?

Now, as I said, it is rediculous that they can't tell other operators your account to enable broadband, especially if they will let you order it over the phone with them. That is probably anti-competitive.

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

Do you want to test it? An account number is all that is needed to get all your details. Best case scenario I would just cancel your services. I assure you though, I could have a few credit cards and bank account in no time.

Unfortunately I do not have an Eircom account number, as otherwise I'd love to test it. If what you say is true, however, whoever is in charge needs to be informed immediately of this very serious breach.

That being said, I bet you couldn't get an account with Rabodirect. Took me months to gather all the information they needed, they certainly wouldn't have been happy with an Eircom account number.

Anyway, once you get to that level, you might as well just steal my mail.

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

Security questions are the same thing. People can still know them. This comes down to: Do you want your details safe or not?.

Which is why I'm suggesting they only give it if you're calling from the actual phone line that it's related to.

Once you're in my house, you could just look at any ol' Eircom bill anyway and get it off that. No additional risk.

Urban Weigl

And if An Post suck as much as you say (I'm not saying they don't), this would add additional security, as it will prevent the letter with the account number getting into the wrong hands!

generalmiaow

Foxwood wrote:

That's from the eircom website - www.eircom.ie, click on "Products & Services" then "Phone Lines", click on "Find out more". (I can't post a direct link because of eircom.ie's stupid session management crap).

They never asked me for an email address. I assume this relates to activating phone line on the web. I have to say I was pleased with how quickly eircom activated my phone line and they have been very polite to me on the phone, but it's unfair that I should have to wait in order to leave their service.

There is reasoning behind not giving the number over the phone. Once you have the number you could probably sign me up to all kinds of crazy eircom services that I don't want, but I mean, I can get my EBS account number (though not my other bank accounts) over the phone provided I give them my address and date of birth and so on. I fail to see how a letter would be more secure. If someone really was going to get into my house secretly use my phone (or else if they don't need to use my phone, why can't eircom use some technical method to determine that I'm sufficiently in my house to be me when I'm using my own landline?) to ring up eircom and steal my account number, they would be better off just reading it off the phone bill which would probably be stuck on the fridge.

Interestingly, I rang BT to tell them about this, since they asked me to call them back after I'd activated the phone line, and they said this is a common problem, and that the only way to solve it is by persistently badgering eircom. I have even thought of asking them to fax the number to me or walking to eircom myself and asking for the number, but I doubt they would give it to me either way.

I also doubt it's An Post's fault. Eircom were never late sending advertising or phone bills to my parents' house. It only takes a day or two to send a letter.

I suppose my main problem is that there's a flaw in the whole "sign up to eircom and then sign up to your other phone company" piece-of-crap way of doing things. How can this be allowed to continue? It's insane.

probe

generalmiaow wrote:

I suppose my main problem is that there's a flaw in the whole "sign up to eircom and then sign up to your other phone company" piece-of-crap way of doing things. How can this be allowed to continue? It's insane.

Let’s get realistic here for a second:

1. Assuming you call eircom using the line in question, they have your caller ID and a traffic data record to prove where the call came from in case of a later dispute, and your account number and other details will presumably pop-up on the screen of the person you are talking with at eircom.

2. How many cases do the Gardai have to handle of someone breaking into one’s house, calling eircom to find out one’s account number (which could probably be found anyway in a drawer somewhere) and using it to order telecommunications services against one’s wishes?

3. Should the one case in a billion happen where some nutter was to try this crime, it is a simple matter for the parties involved to “undo”. No valuable goods have or could be stolen in the process of doing a HP style “pretexting” job from your own home phone number.

There is no logical or practical basis for this so called “security” measure. It is just example # 999,999,999,999,999 of eircom enforcing its monopoly with the blessing of the incompetents who are charged with regulation of same.

Suggest that you send a complaint to the Competition Authority, with a copy to ComReg, because no doubt one or both parties will say it has nothing to do with them. But they’ll have to put it into the complaint statistics and if everyone affected does the same, the numbers at the end of the year will look awful for eircom & co.

probe