Changing from eircom to vodafone

velcro_ie

We moved from Eircom to Vodafone on the 15th of march this year. We were told that Vodafone would look after everything in the change over from our original provider.

When we received our last bill from Eircom there were charges for not giving the required 30 days notice for cancellation of our account with them, despite the fact that the years contract agreement had ended.

We phoned Vodafone about this and were told that this was the first time they had heard of a cancellation time for an Eircom account.

Eircom are avid that they did not receive the 30 days cancellation and therefore we are liable to pay the charges

We requested the terms and conditions that applied in January 2011 when the agreement was entered into. We did not receive the terms and conditions but instead received a Solicitors letter and still no customer agreement was forthcoming. It took another long winded telephone call to receive these terms and conditions and even then they are the 2012 papers and not those existing at the time that we entered into the agreement.

Surely Vodafone should be aware of the 30 day cancellation of an Eircom account and should not be able to transfer the account until this period had lapsed. Can the two companies not communicate in a way that is beneficial to the customer? Interrelating companies have their own cancellation policy and should be aware of the cancellation policies on other companies that directly impact on their customer transactions.

Are the telecommunication companies working together to ensure that their customers are paying the maximum in penalties and charges?

eircom: James

velcro_ie wrote: »

We moved from Eircom to Vodafone on the 15th of march this year. We were told that Vodafone would look after everything in the change over from our original provider.

When we received our last bill from Eircom there were charges for not giving the required 30 days notice for cancellation of our account with them, despite the fact that the years contract agreement had ended.

We phoned Vodafone about this and were told that this was the first time they had heard of a cancellation time for an Eircom account.

Eircom are avid that they did not receive the 30 days cancellation and therefore we are liable to pay the charges

We requested the terms and conditions that applied in January 2011 when the agreement was entered into. We did not receive the terms and conditions but instead received a Solicitors letter and still no customer agreement was forthcoming. It took another long winded telephone call to receive these terms and conditions and even then they are the 2012 papers and not those existing at the time that we entered into the agreement.

Surely Vodafone should be aware of the 30 day cancellation of an Eircom account and should not be able to transfer the account until this period had lapsed. Can the two companies not communicate in a way that is beneficial to the customer? Interrelating companies have their own cancellation policy and should be aware of the cancellation policies on other companies that directly impact on their customer transactions.

Are the telecommunication companies working together to ensure that their customers are paying the maximum in penalties and charges?

Hi velcro_ie,

The process for cancelling accounts (since 11th March 2011) is that all customers must give us 30 days notice. You can view the terms and conditions relating to Telephone Service here under section 5.1. This was introduced to line up with other companies who also require a notice period for cancellations. We had to notify all customers through national newspapers and most also got a note with the bill stating the new process. This is the correct route we have to take when making changes to T&C's.

The problem for us in this case is that when switching provider the new company don't contact us on your behalf. The point at which eircom see the order is when the request is already placed and at that point we can't cancel the order of another company. I understand that Vodafone may not have advised you of this process, perhaps their agent was unaware of it but as I said, most companies require some kind of notice period.

It is unfortunate that things have not gone as smoothly as we'd like however we can't go outside of the process as it's a one-for-all rule.

Regards

James