UPC problem [CLOSED - OP please read warning]

jimmynokia

HELLO TO ALL
this is a situation that happened to my father with UPC the other day

here is how it goes
having made the switch from NTL my father (in his 60,s )moved to UPC with the TV ONLY to start with.
he then got calls about getting the phone line in which is where all this starts
he got the phone in on tuesday and simply asked to have the phone where the old phone was which is in the hallway as most people would have it this was an eircom line previously.
the UPC guys called up and after some talking amongst themselves they said that they cant put there phone where the current phone was rather strange.
my mother was there and they said it would have to go into the sitting room mother been mother said ok go ahead and never thought anything different.
I must state that my father already had said that he wants it where the phone already was.
now the UPC guys said that they cant put the phone there as there is powerbox in the way so howcome eircom had their line there it was a simple hole through the porch.
so they proceeded with their duty and put a big black wire across the house you could see this down wire from down the road not only that it was going around all the walls inside the house and it was a tacky job at that.
next of all there was more boxes than a powerstation put in too,where they put them was just amazing,behind a unit in the sitting room needles to say the workmanship was so bad the unit was left half way out on the floor as it would not go back in due to these boxes(modems)
my father called them up an asked them to come out and put the phone in the hall as already requested they said they cant but they will get somebody up to have a look at it.4 days passed and nothing so he rang them up and they said they got no call and somebody will be in touch within the next 24hrs.
again nothing for 2 days so he called them back and they said AGAIN they have no report,so he then said take the phone out of the house and they said its a 100 euro cancellation fee as there is a waiver,so he said he wont be paying (rightly so)and that he will take them to court,next of all they said ohh i see your complaint logged here and i will have somebody up .
another 2 days passed and nothing.
father calls them again and said take it out and the TV line
they said that you can take the modems out yourself and we will have a courier come and collect it.so he said what about the wires all over the house and on the wall at the front.
they said you can take them down yourself and conversation ended,
so i would like to know has anybody had similar experiences as this is downright outrageous.
on initial installation of the tv and line they could not come quick enough to install and then turn around .:mad:

Tony

Might be an idea to put this in the correct forum UPC are cable, this is the satellite forum.

Outkast_IRE

jimmynokia wrote: »

HELLO TO ALL
this is a situation that happened to my father with UPC the other day

here is how it goes
having made the switch from NTL my father (in his 60,s )moved to UPC with the TV ONLY to start with.
he then got calls about getting the phone line in which is where all this starts
he got the phone in on tuesday and simply asked to have the phone where the old phone was which is in the hallway as most people would have it this was an eircom line previously.
the UPC guys called up and after some talking amongst themselves they said that they cant put there phone where the current phone was rather strange.
my mother was there and they said it would have to go into the sitting room mother been mother said ok go ahead and never thought anything different.
I must state that my father already had said that he wants it where the phone already was.
now the UPC guys said that they cant put the phone there as there is powerbox in the way so howcome eircom had their line there it was a simple hole through the porch.
so they proceeded with their duty and put a big black wire across the house you could see this down wire from down the road not only that it was going around all the walls inside the house and it was a tacky job at that.
next of all there was more boxes than a powerstation put in too,where they put them was just amazing,behind a unit in the sitting room needles to say the workmanship was so bad the unit was left half way out on the floor as it would not go back in due to these boxes(modems)
my father called them up an asked them to come out and put the phone in the hall as already requested they said they cant but they will get somebody up to have a look at it.4 days passed and nothing so he rang them up and they said they got no call and somebody will be in touch within the next 24hrs.
again nothing for 2 days so he called them back and they said AGAIN they have no report,so he then said take the phone out of the house and they said its a 100 euro cancellation fee which is lies as there is a waiver,so he said he wont be paying (rightly so)and that he will take them to court,next of all they said ohh i see your complaint logged here and i will have somebody up .
another 2 days passed and nothing.
father calls them again and said take it out and the TV line
they said that you can take the modems out yourself and we will have a courier come and collect it.so he said what about the wires all over the house and on the wall at the front.
they said you can take them down yourself and conversation ended,
so i would like to know has anybody had similar experiences with this shower of sc*mbags as this is downright outrageous.
on initial installation of the tv and line they could not come quick enough to install and then turn around and traet you like a dog.:mad:

Get onto UPC and request an engineer to come out and have a look at the state of the installation, once the engineer comes he will get a decent crew out to sort it .
The problem is a lot of these installation crews arent UPC employees just subbed in as needed and just want to do things as quick as possible. I had a similar situation got an engineer out and he got it all sorted ASAP

jimmynokia

Tony wrote: »

Might be an idea to put this in the correct forum UPC are cable, this is the satellite forum.

if a mod can move it great

jimmynokia

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Get onto UPC and request an engineer to come out and have a look at the state of the installation, once the engineer comes he will get a decent crew out to sort it .
The problem is a lot of these installation crews arent UPC employees just subbed in as needed and just want to do things as quick as possible. I had a similar situation got an engineer out and he got it all sorted ASAP

they wont come out thats the point they just said put modem in a bag and they will send a courier up to pick it up:mad:

SnowY32

I think anybody that falls for the trap of these other phone company's is a dope really they make it seem like your getting a better deal somewhere but in fact your losing out somewhere, bigtime with upc as they are not a irish provider and dont have a regulater to answer to! Stick with your local company keep the money in the economy as well!

jimmynokia

SnowY32 wrote: »

I think anybody that falls for the trap of these other phone company's is a dope really they make it seem like your getting a better deal somewhere but in fact your losing out somewhere, bigtime with upc as they are not a irish provider and dont have a regulater to answer to! Stick with your local company keep the money in the economy as well!

hope you aint calling the old folks dopes LOL:D


THEY ARE SWITCHING BACK ANYWAY

mjsmyth

Stick with your local company keep the money in the economy as well!

So everyone should stop using UPC and switch to an Irish owned Telco, Is there an Irish owned Telco that covers all of Ireland??

What about the massive job losses at UPC if everyone quit. Thats less money in the economy. If we are to quit UPC, what about Sky, Vodafone, O2, Three and so on, should we quit those too?? Where does it stop? Do we stop buying foreign cars? Books not published in Ireland? Should we not go tosee foreign movies in the cinema?

I'm all for buying local, but suggestions like the one above are just silly.

MJ

JDxtra

The phones are wireless DECT. You could have got a second one and put it in the hall.

It's not always possible to put a UPC connection point exactly where you want it. Unlike an Eircom line, it needs power.

There should only be one UPC modem and a phone (some customers have separate wireless routers for broadband). What other modems are you talking about??

JDxtra

jimmynokia wrote: »

hope you aint calling the old folks dopes LOL:D


THEY ARE SWITCHING BACK ANYWAY

I would expect they would have to pay a cancellation fee if they choose this. At the install time, it was agreed to put the phone in the living room due to difficulties with the first preference location.

By all means ask them to tidy up the cabling outside.

Kensington

SnowY32 wrote: »

I think anybody that falls for the trap of these other phone company's is a dope really they make it seem like your getting a better deal somewhere but in fact your losing out somewhere, bigtime with upc as they are not a irish provider and dont have a regulater to answer to! Stick with your local company keep the money in the economy as well!

ComReg will intervene with UPC just as much as they will with Eircom (who, by the way, are no more Irish than UPC are).

Eircom's phone line is run over twisted pair which runs from your house to your local telephone exchange. Your phone pulls the power needed to work down this twisted pair via the equipment in the exchange.

UPC is not actually a phone line at all, it's a phone service. It does not use the twisted pair to the exchange, like most other third-party providers (Vodafone, Smart etc.) The black box which they install and into which your phone connects, is a cable modem with a VoIP terminal adapter which runs over UPC's own cable network. It needs a cable TV connection AND it's own local power source which is why they can't simply just put in the same place as your existing phone may have come in.

Do your parents only have one phone point in the house? You can connect the cable modem to any phone point in the house and then UPC's phone service will work on all phones - disconnect the eircom landline coming in first!

If you still want to cancel, go ahead. There should be a cooling off period whereby you are free to cancel within a certain number of days without penalty. Frankly I don't know why you would, if your parents are entitled to free phone line allowance then it will only get them a phoneline with eircom, but it will get them phone AND broadband with upc.

jimmynokia

Kensington wrote: »

ComReg will intervene with UPC just as much as they will with Eircom (who, by the way, are no more Irish than UPC are).

Eircom's phone line is run over twisted pair which runs from your house to your local telephone exchange. Your phone pulls the power needed to work down this twisted pair via the equipment in the exchange.

UPC is not actually a phone line at all, it's a phone service. It does not use the twisted pair to the exchange, like most other third-party providers (Vodafone, Smart etc.) The black box which they install and into which your phone connects, is a cable modem with a VoIP terminal adapter which runs over UPC's own cable network. It needs a cable TV connection AND it's own local power source which is why they can't simply just put in the same place as your existing phone may have come in.

Do your parents only have one phone point in the house? You can connect the cable modem to any phone point in the house and then UPC's phone service will work on all phones - disconnect the eircom landline coming in first!

If you still want to cancel, go ahead. There should be a cooling off period whereby you are free to cancel within a certain number of days without penalty. Frankly I don't know why you would, if your parents are entitled to free phone line allowance then it will only get them a phoneline with eircom, but it will get them phone AND broadband with upc.

It was only installed all this started from the day of installation and a 14 day cooling of period or waiver
its nothing to do with getting anything free they where told that the phone can be put in place of old one which should be no big deal but the made a complete bolli* of it
ignored calls lied then told the truth then lied and treated them like dirt no engineer would call up and they turn around and say put modem in bag we will send courier and take the wires down yourself thats just fcuked up if you ask me to treat people no matter what age they are like that.
they dont need internet just phone line and tv so no need for broadband i must get the photos and stick them up of the workmanship too.
my reason for asking this was to see if any others have been treated badly as a matter of interest.:D

bet they didnt treat graig doyles folks like that

HooterSnout

Yeah they are bad alright. My experience was nowhere as bad as the one you described but it still annoys me.

My wife was the only one in when they came in to install the UPC. Now my TV was connected to a Sky box at the time but I didn't have a contract with them or whatever, but I was using the box for the FTA channels. That connection came in through a black cable just under the window. My wife said that they were discussing where to drill the hole through the wall to put there cable when one of them noticed the sky cable. They didn't give my wife a chance or ask or anything, just happily cut off the end of the sky cable and pushed their one through.

Also they used the sky boxes power lead to connect the UPC box. And they left a good bit of debris on the floor from attaching the box to the wall, but I know I wouldn't expect an Irish company to clean up after themselves.

On saying that though, apart from that I'm happy enough with them. It's much better imo than the alternative of broadband with eircom who are bare faced robbers.

jimmynokia

There service prob is good but the treatment during this process is dogmatic

rebeve

Why not leave the eircom phone where it was ,and tune it into the upc base station .Seems very simple to me.I find the upc phone and broadband the best
around .

tmcw

HooterSnout wrote: »

Yeah they are bad alright. My experience was nowhere as bad as the one you described but it still annoys me.

My wife was the only one in when they came in to install the UPC. Now my TV was connected to a Sky box at the time but I didn't have a contract with them or whatever, but I was using the box for the FTA channels. That connection came in through a black cable just under the window. My wife said that they were discussing where to drill the hole through the wall to put there cable when one of them noticed the sky cable. They didn't give my wife a chance or ask or anything, just happily cut off the end of the sky cable and pushed their one through.

Also they used the sky boxes power lead to connect the UPC box. And they left a good bit of debris on the floor from attaching the box to the wall, but I know I wouldn't expect an Irish company to clean up after themselves.

On saying that though, apart from that I'm happy enough with them. It's much better imo than the alternative of broadband with eircom who are bare faced robbers.

I suspect they did damage to my own wiring, but unfortunately I don't have any proof. Last year they were installing themselves in our estate, and the access box on the front of my house originally had two ends of co-ax in the box, one end going to the upstairs bedroom at the back of the house (through the attic), and the other end going to the living room at the back of the house (presumably between floors, or behind plaster along the ground floor).

I had the connections in the access box connected together, and an aerial in the attic on the line up there, so that it would loop down to the living room. Anyway, someone snipped off the loop connection I had out in the box. I have satellite coming into the back of the house, so didn't notice the RTE was gone until maybe a fortnight after they were out of the estate. I was pretty pissed off when I saw that.

Like I said, no proof, but can't imagine it was anyone else, and it was snipped sometime around when they were in the estate.

icdg

OP, I'd have moved your thread to Cable/MMDS, but for the tone of your post and in particular the original title of the post which I have had to change.

By all means post your problems about UPC, but the title of your post didn't indicate what your problem with the company was. In fact it sought to tar the entire company with a particular brush which we cannot allow.

If you wish to repost the topic - over in Cable/MMDS - stick to the facts please, and leave out the hatred. Just because one crew doesn't do the job right, doesn't mean you brand the entire company with a particular label.

Thread closed. Use that sort of unparliamentary langauge in a thread again and you will be serving a week's ban.