Eircom billing issues

donutheadhomer

I moved from BT to Eircom in November 2008 to the 7mb eircom family bundle which is 65pm inc vat and inc line rental.
I got my 1st bill at xmas and just paid it without reading just thought it was a bit expensive.
The most recent bill is for €177 inc vat and there were no calls made outside of the free calls limits. It should have been 65*2=130inc VAT. I checked the previous bill and the same error happened there. It looks like the a/c was not setup on the bundle and I'm being overcharged.
I called eircom on 2 occasions since and they advised to pay the bill and they would fix it. I requested a new bill to be issued as the current one is wrong and why should I have to pay a wrong bill, they refused.
I know eircom are strict on disconnects when you don't pay the bill and I'm certainly not going to pay a wrong bill. What should I do about it. I have emailed a complant to eircom this morning.

_Whimsical_

EurasianBadger wrote: »

The most recent bill is for €177 inc vat and there were no calls made outside of the free calls limits. It should have been 65*2=130inc VAT. I checked the previous bill and the same error happened there. It looks like the a/c was not setup on the bundle and I'm being overcharged.
I called eircom on 2 occasions since and they advised to pay the bill and they would fix it. I requested a new bill to be issued as the current one is wrong and why should I have to pay a wrong bill, they refused.
I know eircom are strict on disconnects when you don't pay the bill and I'm certainly not going to pay a wrong bill. What should I do about it. I have emailed a complant to eircom this morning.

I have had the exact same problem.I signed up for a bundle but they never applied the discount to my package.I've rang and complained numberous times and been told that the discount had been applied,that I didn't understand their billing and that I was reading it wrongly etc (even from supervisors).

Then finally last week I managed to talk to someone with a grasp of the completely obvious who admitted that Eircom had indeed over charged me by €240!Now they are insisting I pay my bill for this month of €177(way too much!) and then they will recredit me the total amount owed.

Sorry I don't really have any advice OP.The lady I spoke to there told me that not paying my bill this month would create major hassle for them as their system couldnt alter bills that were already sent out.She said not paying at this stage would result in confusion and possibly more inaccurate bills in the future .I really couldn't be bothered taking the chance and ending up arguing with them again so I paid.

Anyone on a bundle package with them,particularly anyone paying by direct debit, should examine their bill.

namloc1980

*SNAP*

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Signed up for 7mb broadband and phone package at €60 per month in November. The package includes free calls to meteor mobiles in the evening and weekends. We hardly use the house phone except for local calls (which are free also). Got the bill in Feb for the December an January period and it was €177. Checking the bill they never applied the bundle discount and they also charged us for the meteor calls.

The wife rang eircom and after explaining the position the girl agreed that we had been billed incorrectly - the bill should have been c.€130. We asked for for a new bill to be issued and the eircome girl refused. She said it would be credited to our next bill and they can't reissue a bill!! She pointed out it was eircom's fault and they would be taking money off us incorrectly. She said nothing she could do but we could ring 'Credit Control' who 'might' be able to do something but they were gone home for the evening!

ROUND 2: The Mrs. rang 'Credit Control'. Some dude on the other end said he could do nothing. My wife pointed out it was eircom's error, the credit control fella said the direct debit would take the full amount but we would get it back in the next bill (in 2 months time!!). The wife then said this was not good enough and that we should only be billed €130. The credit control dude then said "ah come on...it's only 40 euro"!!! This sent the Mrs round the bend!!!

RESULT: We cancelled the direct debit and paid €130 in the Post Office which was the amount owing. Haven't heard a word from them since

_Whimsical_

Hmm thats a weird coincidence that we'd all have recieved a bill for €177 despite being on different packages. Mine included a handful of calls to mobiles also.Did either of yours include calls?

deffin

chilly wrote: »

Hmm thats a weird coincidence that we'd all have recieved a bill for €177 despite being on different packages. Mine included a handful of calls to mobiles also.Did either of yours include calls?

Bit too much of a coincidence....!!!!!!!

Zxc

I had a recent issue with an Eircom home phone/broadband bundle a/c too.
They called us and offered an upgrade broadband. I asked repeatedly if there would be an extra charge and was told no. Also on the same call, I was told landline to Meteor calls would be free but when the next bill arrived, all calls to Meteor lines were charged for. It was while sorting the Meteor calls I discovered that the broadband upgrade wasn't free at all, but the charge would kick in after three months.

Eircom's last bills were supposedly designed to make things clearer. But I've always found them difficult to understand, even the new layout.

Also, there's the confusion of pricing everything per month but billing everything by two months.

donutheadhomer

deffin wrote: »

Bit too much of a coincidence....!!!!!!!

far too much of a coincidnece.
I'm going to pay only what I signed up for a see what happens. Will go nuts if they disconnect my line/broadband for not paying the bill though and then I'm sure there will be time without the service and a reconnection fee.
I work in an a/c dept and this seems like a simple credit and reinvoice to me but what would I know.
I've received 3 auto replies from the online complaints dept. Hopefull this will get it sorted.

---

Original Message

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From: ME
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 2:08 PM
To: ccm@eircom.ie
Subject: RE: CustomerCare (KMM4547703I20425L0KM)

I've still not received a reply to my request barring the autoreply

I notice that this issue is being reported by many eircom customers here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055503903 and they all complain about the incompetence of Eircom staff in resolving the issue. I can certainly agree with this.

ME

donutheadhomer

namloc1980 wrote: »

*SNAP*

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Signed up for 7mb broadband and phone package at €60 per month in November. The package includes free calls to meteor mobiles in the evening and weekends. We hardly use the house phone except for local calls (which are free also). Got the bill in Feb for the December an January period and it was €177. Checking the bill they never applied the bundle discount and they also charged us for the meteor calls.

The wife rang eircom and after explaining the position the girl agreed that we had been billed incorrectly - the bill should have been c.€130. We asked for for a new bill to be issued and the eircome girl refused. She said it would be credited to our next bill and they can't reissue a bill!! She pointed out it was eircom's fault and they would be taking money off us incorrectly. She said nothing she could do but we could ring 'Credit Control' who 'might' be able to do something but they were gone home for the evening!

ROUND 2: The Mrs. rang 'Credit Control'. Some dude on the other end said he could do nothing. My wife pointed out it was eircom's error, the credit control fella said the direct debit would take the full amount but we would get it back in the next bill (in 2 months time!!). The wife then said this was not good enough and that we should only be billed €130. The credit control dude then said "ah come on...it's only 40 euro"!!! This sent the Mrs round the bend!!!

RESULT: We cancelled the direct debit and paid €130 in the Post Office which was the amount owing. Haven't heard a word from them since

I'm sure also there is a law against them taking a direct debit if the a/c is under query

none

Hi,
After reading this I got a feeling that I may also have something similar. Wanted to check online bills but failed to find a list of previous bills in my account, there's only access to the current one. Am I missing something obvious or there's really no way to check bill history with eircom? With BT it was possible.
Cheers

dub45

EurasianBadger wrote: »

I'm sure also there is a law against them taking a direct debit if the a/c is under query

No unfortunately there isnt!!!!

The direct debit system has unfortunately many faults and this is one of them. The scheme rules state that a direct debit amount which is being disputed should not be debited thats all. Now the rules of the scheme are more honoured in the breach than in the obsevance by companies sadly while the bil payer is lashed financially if he misses a payment date.

Ring IPSO (www.ipso.ie) who are 'responsible' for running the scheme and complain about Eircom's antics in this matter as they are way out of order.
By the way the rules of the scheme are available for download there. It is disgraceful that there is no readily available bill payers guide to the dd system in print.

Also as the billing amounts are clearly wrong go to you bank and tell them you want a refund under the direct debit guarantee. Eircom have no right to refuse a refund.

It is unfortnate that people only realise the perils of the direct debit scheme when it goes wrong for them - it is a woeful system totally biasied in favour of the companies and banks.

derekroconnor

Up to the end of Feb 2009 I had phone-line rental and calls from Perlico and Flat Rate dialup from Eircom, all on a Perlico bill.

My problem started when I ordered Eircom broadband + phone and switched from Perlico. Here are some excerpts from a letter I have just sent to the Eircom Collections Manager, Overdue Accounts Office.

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Excerpts

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I am writing to you directly because I have not had a satisfactory response to my phone calls and emails to Eircom about this billing error.

I received your letter of Mar 16 2009 demanding that I pay my bill in full immediately. This bill is not correct and I will not pay until I receive a correct bill.

I emailed and phoned Eircom demonstrating clearly that I have been overcharged and asked for a correct bill. So far, Eircom has not responded to my requests.

< --- boring chronology of phone calls and emails to Eircom --->


As you can see from this chronology, it took Eircom from Jan 13 to Feb 25 (6 weeks) to deliver a standard broadband package.

Your bill issued 17 Feb 2009 which has call charges for the period 11 Feb to 15 Feb 2009 only, contains a charge of \euro{27.0472} for calls to 1893 numbers. The only calls I made to a 1893 number were to Eircom's Flat Rate at 1893-150-150(see Attachment 3). I paid Perlico in advance for these calls up to the end of February, and so they should not have appeared on my bill.

I rang your 1901 number at 2.30pm Mar 24 2009 and tried to explain all this to a male operator. After much to-ing and fro-ing he said he would look into it and get back to me in 48 hours. I explained that my hearing is poor and requested an email reply. He said he would try but could not promise an email reply. I find this ironic: A company that supplies Internet services will not use email.

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end Excerpts

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What I did not mention in this letter was that Perlico's last bill (Feb 2009) is wrong also. I immediately cancelled my direct debit to them and the bill will not be paid as usual. I'm waiting to see what happens.

My advice is this:

1. Do not pay phone companies, ISPs etc. by direct debit.

2. Worse still: do not pay by direct debit on your credit card. 6 or 7 years ago I was with Esat-BT and paid by direct debit from my credit. When I got a wrong bill and rang the CC company to cancel the direct debit the CC woman said that I had signed a contract with Esat-BT and I could not cancel this without Esat-BT's permission.

She was very sympathetic and said -- off the record -- that she would never use her credit card for direct debit.

A friend of mine in the US told me that they had similar billing problems in New York city --- in 1909.

wmpdd3

The only people who can sort this problem is eircom ever decreasing credit control team. Often there are less than 10 people manning the phones for the country.

As far as I know a bill can't be reissued, but a note can be put on the account not to disconnect. Then the next month the credit should appear and sort it out. Obviously this will only work if the overcharge is also sorted.......

Totally aggree with the DD from credit card, had a disaster with sky a few years ago.

derekroconnor

In case my advice about not using Direct Debits, and especially Credit Card Direct Debits, gave the impression that I don't like credit card companies, I assure you that I have been very happy with credit cards. I have been using them for over 40 years and have had just 2 problems in that time: the Esat-BT problem 6 years ago (above) and a recent overseas triple-billing problem by a very dodgy company called TranX. This company is a middle-man between buyer, seller, credit card company, and your bank. These 'financial services' companies have sprung up since the invention of Online Shopping.

When I saw the error in the credit card bill I emailed TransX and got an auto-reply and nothing after that. I got to their website and found this notice : "TransX ceased trading on 31 Jan 2009". I then sent a letter to the credit card company about being charged 3 times for the same transaction, along with a copy of the email to TransX and a copy of their webpage notice. The email to TransX and website notice were crucial. The CC company would have done nothing unless I had tried to obtain a refund from TranX myself. The CC company took a month to reply but they refunded me in full. Here is part of what I said in the letter:

I got my first MasterCard from Mellon Bank, Pittsburgh in September 1968, when I started working for Westinghouse Electric Corp. I have been using MasterCard and the Internet for online ordering since about 1985 (email only, no Web then). In general, I have had very few problems with Internet ordering, which relies crucially on credit cards and delivery companies (DHL, UPS, etc).

I rely on my bank (BoI) and credit card company (MasterCard) to exercise due care when handling transactions. How do I check online that my MasterCard transactions are being handled by a reputable company? When ordering online from a website it is not always obvious who is handling the transactions, despite the display of the MasterCard logo on the website.

Incidents such as this can only lessen my and others' faith in shopping online with credit cards.

This and my previous post may leave the impression that I am a crank and enjoy writing detailed letters with enclosures (attachments?) to Eircom, banks, and credit card companies. Yes, I have become cranky (comes with old age -- born 18 April 1945 -- Hitler committed suicide 10 days after I was born) but I do not enjoy writing letters to Eircom etc., nor to this discussion group. But I hope others will write detailed, direct, complaining letters to these companies who are causing us such misery, and refuse to be badgered into paying bills we know are wrong.

wmpdd3

Unfortunately I think your complaint letter has ended up under a massive pile of other complaint letters in an Eircom office somewhere.

They are also sent to credit control, usually credit control have to sort these out in between taking calls!!

Try some one higher up, If you have a business get your account manager to sort it.

sexmag

you all know that the majority of people that work in eircom are people just like you and i and have not set out to cause you a problem,the clientele of eircom is in the 100s of 1000s and im sorry but yous just seem to be that percentage that are estimated to have problems,all i can do is hope it gets sorted for you guys because im sure its not intentional by eircom employees and its not like you never had a mishap in work

jkmanc1974

sexmag wrote: »

you all know that the majority of people that work in eircom are people just like you and i and have not set out to cause you a problem,the clientele of eircom is in the 100s of 1000s and im sorry but yous just seem to be that percentage that are estimated to have problems,all i can do is hope it gets sorted for you guys because im sure its not intentional by eircom employees and its not like you never had a mishap in work

Think that part of the problem is management(pre 84 etc) with regards to Eircom issues, sure most of the front line staff nowadays(1901 etc) are not even employed by Eircom, they are employed by Capita!!!

Brgds
Johnny