Unethical sales practice - warning to other customers

qwe123456

In an unsolicited call, an Eir sales team member sold a new bundle plan to my mother over the phone. My mother is not the account holder, my father is. At no time did the Eir employee seek to speak to my father, or get his permission to have any changes made to his account.

We were on the cheapest plan, which included unlimited broadband, free evening landline calls, and 30 mins mobile. My mother was not clear on what was involved, but was assured that the new plan was better value (it is not), and assured that she could easily cancel the contract within the 14 day cooling off period. When I spoke to her that evening, she stated that she felt she had made a mistake, didn't really understand what she had signed up for, and wanted to cancel it.

When we sought to cancel the contract within this period, and explained that the actual account holder at no time gave his permission for any changes to be made to his bundle plan, we were told that we could not return to our previous cheaper plan as it 'no longer existed'.


I feel this is extremely unfair, first, because the sales team member didn't actually speak to the account holder, and secondly, because although the ease of cancelling the new contract was stressed, it was never stated that it was not possible to return to the conditions of the previous contract.

After much wrangling over the phone with customer support we were offered a small amount of credit, but told we could only be put on a plan that involved the same rate as had been charged for broadband, but no more free evening calls. I believe this is unacceptable, as the changes to the account were made through dishonest and unethical practice on the part of Eir, and my father is now just expected to suffer the consequences.

Clearly it is in Eir's interest to move customers to more expensive plans, and I have no issue with a company seeking to make profit, if, it is done in a legitimate manner.

I am concerned that older, or more vulnerable customers in particular (but anyone really) could be liable to be sold such bundles over the phone, secure in the knowledge that they can be canceled, only to find themselves in the same position as my parents. Clearly, this works in Eir's favour, as even though they were entirely in the wrong, my father has still been moved to a more expensive plan. All he wants is to be returned to the original bundle plan he signed up for, and never gave permission to be moved from.

my3cents

Just call up and ask for the current number to register an official complaint and call it and register one with Eir on Monday (don't think they are open during the weekend) then follow up with a complaint to the Data Commissioner about the breach of confidentiality and another to comreg regarding Eirs sales lies, bad practice and refusal to honor the cooling off period.

Nothing new here tbh this is the way that Eir(con) has always done business.

If you really want to wind them up ask (it will cost iirc €6.50) for a copy of the contract or a recording of a standard to validate the contract that shows that Eir where dealing with the account holder. Under data protection legislation you can request all information including recordings held about you (the account holder) and a small std fee for administration can be charged, the company have 40 days to comply.

eir: Stacey

qwe123456 wrote: »

In an unsolicited call, an Eir sales team member sold a new bundle plan to my mother over the phone. My mother is not the account holder, my father is. At no time did the Eir employee seek to speak to my father, or get his permission to have any changes made to his account.

We were on the cheapest plan, which included unlimited broadband, free evening landline calls, and 30 mins mobile. My mother was not clear on what was involved, but was assured that the new plan was better value (it is not), and assured that she could easily cancel the contract within the 14 day cooling off period. When I spoke to her that evening, she stated that she felt she had made a mistake, didn't really understand what she had signed up for, and wanted to cancel it.

When we sought to cancel the contract within this period, and explained that the actual account holder at no time gave his permission for any changes to be made to his bundle plan, we were told that we could not return to our previous cheaper plan as it 'no longer existed'.


I feel this is extremely unfair, first, because the sales team member didn't actually speak to the account holder, and secondly, because although the ease of cancelling the new contract was stressed, it was never stated that it was not possible to return to the conditions of the previous contract.

After much wrangling over the phone with customer support we were offered a small amount of credit, but told we could only be put on a plan that involved the same rate as had been charged for broadband, but no more free evening calls. I believe this is unacceptable, as the changes to the account were made through dishonest and unethical practice on the part of Eir, and my father is now just expected to suffer the consequences.

Clearly it is in Eir's interest to move customers to more expensive plans, and I have no issue with a company seeking to make profit, if, it is done in a legitimate manner.

I am concerned that older, or more vulnerable customers in particular (but anyone really) could be liable to be sold such bundles over the phone, secure in the knowledge that they can be canceled, only to find themselves in the same position as my parents. Clearly, this works in Eir's favour, as even though they were entirely in the wrong, my father has still been moved to a more expensive plan. All he wants is to be returned to the original bundle plan he signed up for, and never gave permission to be moved from.

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]Hi there. Thanks for getting in touch. I'm very sorry to hear this. I can appreciate your frustration completely. As we have recently rolled out new packages our sales team are making a number of outbound calls to try upgrade customers to better suited packages. I can only apologise that this is not the case for your parents. The agent on the call should have confirmed your mother had permission to speak on your fathers behalf or requested his confirmation on this. My only suggestion would be for your father to contact the accounts team & request the call to be monitored. The back office will listen to the call & if they find that this was not confirmed they will provide a resolution on this & possibly offer a further credit for the difference. He can contact the accounts team on 1800503303 (Opt 3). If he wishes to log a complaint you can view our complaints process online here; http://support.eir.ie/article/codeofpractice. Apologies again for this inconvenience. Stacey[/font]

my3cents

I don't think Eir(com) have ever asked me to prove who I was before speaking to me about our phone line and my name isn't on the bill. 

I forgot to mention that the OP can also report Eir for making an unauthorised change to their parents service. If the person making the call doesn't have the user on record as identifying who they are then there is no contract just the same as if the person is identified and they are not the account holder then the change was unauthorised.

Fighting this on the bases of an unauthorised change of contract might be the better way to get the old service back.

FobleAsNuck

Don't listen to whatever Stacey offered. Cooling off period rules still apply - use it. Don't take credit for the difference. If you void the order they will have to revert to previous deal.

kooga

my parents as well plus 1

they were on fibre broadband and unlimited landline calls with 30 minutes mobile which was loads.................now have unlimited calls to irish landlines plus uk landlines irish mobile and uk mobiles....................totally irrelevant product for their needs!

rang up within the cooling off period and they cannot revert back to the old package.

really cheap shot by eir!

FobleAsNuck

of course they can. just cancel, it will automatically revert to what's been there previously

ScumLord

Cancel the contract. Do not try and get Eir to "resolve" the issue. They did a similar thing to a friends mother and it took 3 years to "solve". They handed me a broken phone when we signed up to them at work and 18 months later it's still broken, I gave up on eir support, the lies and inaction were giving me high blood pressure. Our only consolation is the contracts almost up, eir is now blacklisted at our workplace. If you have any sense take this as a sign of things to come and just get a different provider. 

chasm

qwe123456 wrote: »

In an unsolicited call, an Eir sales team member sold a new bundle plan to my mother over the phone. My mother is not the account holder, my father is. At no time did the Eir employee seek to speak to my father, or get his permission to have any changes made to his account.

We were on the cheapest plan, which included unlimited broadband, free evening landline calls, and 30 mins mobile. My mother was not clear on what was involved, but was assured that the new plan was better value (it is not), and assured that she could easily cancel the contract within the 14 day cooling off period. When I spoke to her that evening, she stated that she felt she had made a mistake, didn't really understand what she had signed up for, and wanted to cancel it.

When we sought to cancel the contract within this period, and explained that the actual account holder at no time gave his permission for any changes to be made to his bundle plan, we were told that we could not return to our previous cheaper plan as it 'no longer existed'.


I feel this is extremely unfair, first, because the sales team member didn't actually speak to the account holder, and secondly, because although the ease of cancelling the new contract was stressed, it was never stated that it was not possible to return to the conditions of the previous contract.

After much wrangling over the phone with customer support we were offered a small amount of credit, but told we could only be put on a plan that involved the same rate as had been charged for broadband, but no more free evening calls. I believe this is unacceptable, as the changes to the account were made through dishonest and unethical practice on the part of Eir, and my father is now just expected to suffer the consequences.

Clearly it is in Eir's interest to move customers to more expensive plans, and I have no issue with a company seeking to make profit, if, it is done in a legitimate manner.

I am concerned that older, or more vulnerable customers in particular (but anyone really) could be liable to be sold such bundles over the phone, secure in the knowledge that they can be canceled, only to find themselves in the same position as my parents. Clearly, this works in Eir's favour, as even though they were entirely in the wrong, my father has still been moved to a more expensive plan. All he wants is to be returned to the original bundle plan he signed up for, and never gave permission to be moved from.

kooga wrote: »

my parents as well plus 1

they were on fibre broadband and unlimited landline calls with 30 minutes mobile which was loads.................now have unlimited calls to irish landlines plus uk landlines irish mobile and uk mobiles....................totally irrelevant product for their needs!

rang up within the cooling off period and they cannot revert back to the old package.

really cheap shot by eir!

Hmmm Funnily enough I was on the package with 30 free minutes to mobiles as well and have been given the complete runaround from Eir for the last few months.

In my case, I rang to cancel my bundle in February and they offered me the same bundle that i was on for the new price of €45p/m instead of €57.(This bundle had 30 free mobile minutes included) The price of the bundle included a promotional discount of €10p/m + €2p/m direct debit discount.
I have had to contact Eir after every single bill as they failed to apply the direct debit discount and they took away my 30 free mobile minutes. They did credit some of the €2 DD discounts at a later date and an overcharge for a mobile call that should have fell under my free mobile minutes. Now, after the last bill Eir are claiming the €2 DD discount is not applicable to my account and that they have no record of me signing up to a new contract!They obviously forgot that they sent out an email acknowledging that order and they seem to ignore my questions in relation to removing my free mobile minutes.

I note now that a lot of customers are complaining on FB about the price increase coming in to effect next month and one thing i did notice was that some customers seem to be getting 60 free mobile minutes and €2 DD discount - so it seems Eir decided to take these off customers bundles so that they could apply them again at a later date and try to tell the customer they are getting a great deal!