Line Rental UTV talktime?

RicardoSmith

What is going on with line rental and the UTV talktime? I'm still paying mine to Eircom.

dahamsta

I seem to remember a note in my last invoice saying that it wouldn't be activated until at least the new year.

I'll tell you something, I've been a big supporter of UTV for a long time and I recommend them to all my smaller clients, but I'm starting to get right ticked off with them at this stage. Last month they invoiced me for about €50 worth of overages, even though I'd upgraded to Clicksilver Plus the month before. I sent a support request via their billing info system and all I got back was the ticket number, and I followed that up twice and nothing again.

I /could/ email the girl I've been dealing with all along, but I've had to ask her to sort out the tangled mess they call my account so many times now it's getting embarassing. I'm thinking of calling the whole thing a breach of contract and moving on to a wireless supplier tbh.

adam

TomF

I have found that when something goes wrong with my UTVip connection, it does no good to send an email to UTVip's Support--it just never gets answered. The only hope is to ring and wait until spider webs appear on my elbow until a real person answers. I'd say when something better or something equivalent with better customer service comes-along, UTVip is going to lose customers by the droves.

RicardoSmith

I only get my bill online and it just says to keep paying Eircom. No other info. I was only reminded when the eircom bill dropped in the door. We didn't get our last Eircom bill , (problem with post going missing) so suddenly I get a bill for something that I thought I was paying to UTVip on direct debit for the past 3 months. I usually get a reply back for the email support in 24 hours. While I like their product, I agree that their support is lacking.

overages - where did you pick that word? Had to look it up!

dahamsta

TomF wrote:

I have found that when something goes wrong with my UTVip connection, it does no good to send an email to UTVip's Support--it just never gets answered.

Ah sure I've recommended to other people that they do the same, but I've found in the past that a reminder can usually push them into replying. Now they're just ignoring email completely it seems. I'm going to ring them this minute and bollock them out of it.

adam

dahamsta

They're unbelievable. It took ten or fifteen minutes for them to answer the phone, and the support guy couldn't explain why they hadn't replied to the initial support request lodged ten days ago, beyond saying that they were having trouble with spam for "the last few days". He put me on hold for several minutes, and then told me that they'd sent an email telling me that my account wouldn't be upgraded until December 1, which I never received.

When he put me through to accounts I had to deal with this arrogant so-and-so that effectively said it was my fault that I didn't recieve this imaginary email, and that there was nothing I could do about it because the charge had already gone through, and that I couldn't take them to Small Claims because they're perfectly within their rights.

So I'm off to do a chargeback on the fee now, and research an alternative provider. When I cancel in January I'm going to refuse to pay the cancellation fee too, and if they try to charge my card I'm going to charge that back too. Then I'm going to take them to Small Claims for my expenses. Screw UTV.

adam

seamus

dahamsta wrote:

When he put me through to accounts I had to deal with this arrogant so-and-so that effectively said it was my fault that I didn't recieve this imaginary email,

Let's be fair now. More often then not, when someone rings up a customer support line and swears blind that they didn't receive a mail, it's because they didn't bother reading it or deleted it on sight. I'm not saying that you did obviously, but I have to deal with it quite a lot - "Why wasn't I told?", "Well, you were, we sent you an email". Of course, I don't have to always conform to "The customer is always right" idealogy, because I'm not dealing with customers.

The "not receiving emails" thing is a bit of a conflict point, since neither side can prove it was or wasn't sent/received. A good customer service line will stick by their point that they did send the mail out, but will resend the mail and increase any deadlines accordingly.

dahamsta

Well, they say they have proof they sent it seamus, and I have no cause to disbelieve them. But by the same token I have no reason to believe that I received it. Email is my lifeblood, it's what I do, even if it was tagged as spam by my OpenProtect installation I would have spotted it in my Junk folder, which I go through religiously several times a day. So it must have slipped through the cracks somewhere, which we both know happens. When they didn't receive a response from me confirming that I was happy to go ahead with this, they should have phoned to confirm.

Legally speaking we're probably both on dodgy ground, and I don't think either of us wants to go through the mess of setting precedent in Irish courts. But by god I'm pissed at them right now and I'l inclined to take the money back and let them sort it out. I'll tell you this much though, they just lost one of their most vocal supporters, the arrogant bastards.

adam

seamus

dahamsta wrote:

So it must have slipped through the cracks somewhere, which we both know happens.

That's really the crux of my second point. They should always default to assuming that the mail slipped through the cracks, regardless of what happened. Most people wouldn't be as meticulous about their mail as people like us

dahamsta

Kind of ironic when you compare their attitude towards email on this front to the attitude of their support department, who effectively ignore it completely.

God I'm mad as hell about this. Excuse me while I go punch a wall.

adam

jwt

What a shame that a company that generated so much business through customer interaction and setting precedents has fallen to this standard of customer support.

As a long time user of their service I have always been amazed by their woeful staffing levels and the delays this causes in answering their phones.

Reading their support newsgroups used to be painful with only one support technician brave enough and competent enough to answer queries there.

Constant connectivity problems within their network (always blamed on thier upstream provider)
As an ISDN customer I haven't had many problems with them, but those I've had didn't leave me feeling to enamoured of their support.

Sad tbh

John

dahamsta

I feel sorry for the support staff but it's still very hard to keep a level head and not argue with them. Like, the guy I was taking to - who was very patient, to be fair to him - was telling me that they're currently interviewing people for support. I wanted to say "look, I know it's not your fault", but I'm afraid this is the third time I've been round the block with them on non-existant email support, and probably the dozenth time I've had to contact them to sort out issues with my account, which have all been their fault.

So I had to say it: "You've had these problems for well over a year, you've been grossly understaffed since almost the beginning. Does it take a year to interview these people?" To which he replied that they have a turnover problem too. What does a turnover problem say to you? It says UTVi pay crap too.

So yes, it's a shame.

adam

Moriarty

Don't let slip his name or he could get fired for being honest with you, adam. UTV and Esat/BT both have a track record of warning/sacking any support staff that try and be helpful to people either over the phone or here on boards.

eircomtribunal

UTV pay € 20 something for the broadband wholesale product to Eircom, have to pay separately for the back-haul, there are ancillary costs to be paid to Eircom (to finance Eircom training staff to offer the wholesale!), then they have to market the service and do the billing and the technical assistance. And UTV bosses are on record of saying that they make a handsome profit on the service. And they have only a tiny number of customers (some 15 000 last time I checked).

You can figure out yourself the only way this is possible.

P.

dahamsta

Sorry to drag this up again, but I just remembered something: I checked my usage last month on the u.tv/csie page because I wanted to take maximum advantage of the upgrade. I know this because when I checked in close to the end of the month I found I'd actually used less than the allowance on the standard product, and went absolutely spare downloading Mandrake 10.1 Official and a rake of video.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Bandwidth Usage page used to tell you your allowance for the month? Because I'm damn sure mine said 16,384MB(?), and now it just tells you what you've used. I wonder why they took that down? Perhaps because they had complaints from lots of other people they'd fúcked up with? I thought yerone was a mite more prepared that I'd expect...

€63.81 they took off me, the robbing bastards. Who's got Scott Taunton's email address?

BTW, RicardoSmith, it's on the statement on the web, not the email announcing it. Here's what it says:

[font=MS Sans Serif, MS Serif, Tahoma, Arial]Excluding trial customers, we are still in the process of transferring line rental to ourselves. You will receive notification about this at a later date, until such time we recommend you do not cancel any payment arrangements with the company who currently charge for line rental as this may result in loss of service.[/font]

Moriarty, that's not going to happen, I'd never do that to a guy. Ok, I would, but he'd really have to piss me off.

Peter, I knew they said they were doing well out of it but I didn't think they were suggesting they were doing that well. If that's true, they're just as bad as everyone else.

adam

RicardoSmith

RicardoSmith wrote:

I only get my bill online and it just says to keep paying Eircom. No other info. ...

Thats what I said?

But like how long does it take? Whats the delay? Eircom I suppose.

RicardoSmith

Are Smart Telecom customers still paying line rental to Eircom or to Smart?

Paddy20

I would just like to state. That up to now the service that I personally have received from U.TV Internet telephony & U.TV Clicksilver has been first class.

I well remember when they first entered the market in the Republic, my God I was happy to get away from EirCoN and I am now more than happy with the broadband service and their charges.

As for the line rental charge's changeover to U.TV ?..Imho, It has to be EirCoN's dirty trick's department once again.

P.

Morgoth

Yeah I'd like to echo that. From my point of view, this thread seems like a big overreaction. o_O UTV have always been first class for me too, even in customer service. The only problem is that they are quite clearly understaffed - I expect to be on hold for anywhere between 5-20 minutes if I ever need to ring them, which is a shame. But I've never had a problem with email support and their customer service reps have always come across as patient, polite and knowledgable.

Today I had to ring them because my phone line went dead. As the line rental was still with eircom, I had to ring them, and it'll be "monday or tuesday" before an engineer comes out. ;/ But it's hardly UTV's fault the lines aren't being switched over promptly - they want it to happen remember!

oscarBravo

RicardoSmith wrote:

Are Smart Telecom customers still paying line rental to Eircom or to Smart?

Eircom. And I'm pissed off about it.

LFCFan

knowing what we all do about €ircon, does it surprize you that the Line Rental changeover has been such a disaster so far???

RicardoSmith

Morgoth wrote:

Yeah I'd like to echo that. From my point of view, this thread seems like a big overreaction. ...

Why? I was told I didn't have to pay my line rental to Eircom and I still am. I was wondering if anyone else is still doing it. I would have expected more communication from UTVip on this but theres been nothing other than a note on my online statement. I thought it was only a temporary delay but its been months now.

How hard is it to send a email or a letter. Just with an update. Its pathetic. While the other issues are not completely on topic its good to know what experiences other people are having. I reckon how a company deal with problems is a great indicator of how good a company is.

eircomtribunal

oscarBravo wrote:

Eircom. And I'm pissed off about it.

Are you sure about that?
Or have you just not signed up for their whole-sale line rental?

ComReg have, as outlined in the March 2004 Policy Direction, to report back to the Minister on a regular basis about progress on the WLR aspect of the Direction.

In its responses ComReg says the introduction and take-up does fully conform with the Directive's demands ( commercial availability from 31st March and the expected take-up and influence on competition etc) so that none of the actions threatened by D. Ahern (taking the line rental out of the basket) is necessary. ComReg continuously speak of the single billing product – Dermot Ahern had specifically taken out the wording "single billing" in the Direction (after the consultation), saying that WLR was not meant to be a single billing product, but single billing only being one element of the introduction of real competition to be achieved with the introduction of WLR!

In the end of June response ComReg speaks of companies experiencing difficulties with testing the product and "4 companies working at various stages on the roll-out".

In the end of July response ComReg says that two providers ( Smart and Access Telecom=GAA) have currently launched the product, with Esat/BT being available in September.

In the end of September response ComReg concludes:
" As previously reported WLR was successfully made available to Other Authorised Operators on 31st March. Following on from this a number of companies subsequently launched retail services....[33 000 customers to date]...
The Single Billing product is contributing to both enhanced competition and choice for consumers in line with ComReg's expectations when the concept was developed and introduced to the industry. The product in terms of both functionality and comprehensiveness is one the first of its kind in Europe."

ComReg admits that "Smart and EsatBT currently match the eircom retail rate", but that is of no concern as "in many instances they offer lower call costs. Despite the approach adopted to date, WLR based services have been available to end users and that take up has increased the number of OAO-provided telephone lines by approximately 75%.
The concept of 'Single Bill' as identified by ComReg is proving popular with consumers.."

We can all only applaud ComReg for putting Ireland again on first place...

P.

dub45

even though I'd upgraded to Clicksilver Plus the month before. I sent a support request via their billing info system and all I got back was the ticket number, and I followed that up twice and nothing again.

As a matter of interest did they require you to commit yourself for a further 12 months when you upgraded? They have been telling people recently that an additional 12 months is required and that it is a term and condition now!!!!

I /could/ email the girl I've been dealing with all along, but I've had to ask her to sort out the tangled mess they call my account so many times now it's getting embarassing. I'm thinking of calling the whole thing a breach of contract and moving on to a wireless supplier tbh.

Ah yes but which contract? UTV appear to me to be permanently in breach of their own terms and condition in that they never notify customers of any changes in T&C's even though their own T&C's require them to do so! (At least I dont know any one who has been notified of any such changes) Did you know that they have a T&C which states that they are not responsible for any defects in the service!

4.2 UTV Internet does not accept any responsibility for any defects or errors in either the Service or the Modem.

I have been querying them on T&C's for the last six weeks and cannot get an answer. The only time they will mention T&C's is when they quote them in their own favour (I realise that the other ISP's are probably just the same but thats not the point. T&C's should be there for both parties not just the business.)

He put me on hold for several minutes, and then told me that they'd sent an email telling me that my account wouldn't be upgraded until December 1, which I never received.

When he put me through to accounts I had to deal with this arrogant so-and-so that effectively said it was my fault that I didn't recieve this imaginary email, and that there was nothing I could do about it because the charge had already gone through, and that I couldn't take them to Small Claims because they're perfectly within their rights.

There are reports in the newsgroup on the spam problem ok and several people have complained about not getting emails and at least one person has complained of not receiving notice of her monthly bills being available - this arose because the 'so customer friendly' UTV advanced their biliing date this month to 13th from the 25th without giving any particular advice of it other than the billing time on the web page for their accounts.

On checking agan there are posts in the newsgroup referring to missing email from UTV as far back as 11th November.

UTV pay € 20 something for the broadband wholesale product to Eircom, have to pay separately for the back-haul, there are ancillary costs to be paid to Eircom (to finance Eircom training staff to offer the wholesale!), then they have to market the service and do the billing and the technical assistance. And UTV bosses are on record of saying that they make a handsome profit on the service. And they have only a tiny number of customers (some 15 000 last time I checked).

From the UTV interim 2004 report:

New MediaRevenues in this division grew by an impressive 56% in the 6 months under review, with much of that growth driven by an increase in broadband customers. As I have previously stated, greater broadband penetration is our key objective but customer acquisition costs do reduce margins in the early stages. Despite these costs and a one-off credit of £0.14m in the comparative figure new media operating profits were maintained at the same level as last year.

The operation profit for 'New Media' to the end of June 2004 (before amortisation of good will) was £532,000 on turnover of £2,520,000.

Hardly poverty stricken and certainly doesnt justify them asking people to commit to a further 12 month contract simply to changle between clicksilver products :mad:

eircomtribunal

RicardoSmith wrote:

Why? I was told I didn't have to pay my line rental to Eircom and I still am. I was wondering if anyone else is still doing it.

Quote from the ComReg response to the DCMNR: "As with CPS, there are a number of service providers who will resell a single billing product through a host OAO. One example of this, UTVnet has already announced the introduction of a Single Billing product in August."

That is the basis on which Noel Dempsey's department takes its decisions.

P.

RicardoSmith

Announcing it is one thing. The customer getting its seems to be something else entirely. 4 months? At this point I think you could cancel the contract with UTVip as they simply haven't delivered the product as advertised.

dub45

Paddy20 wrote:

I would just like to state. That up to now the service that I personally have received from U.TV Internet telephony & U.TV Clicksilver has been first class.

I well remember when they first entered the market in the Republic, my God I was happy to get away from EirCoN and I am now more than happy with the broadband service and their charges.

As for the line rental charge's changeover to U.TV ?..Imho, It has to be EirCoN's dirty trick's department once again.

P.

UTV have acknowledged that in fact it is their own fault if you check the newsgroup you will find the full post which I am quoting here posted there
on 5th November:

As I understand it, the fact that UTV are still working through the
line-rental part of the Talk product, this should not cause user's any
real problems - basically they are being charged the rental at the
same price - just by the 'wrong' company.

oscarBravo

eircomtribunal wrote:

Are you sure about that?
Or have you just not signed up for their whole-sale line rental?

I don't think I have a written contract, as I did all the signup process by phone.

But - you know me, Peter - do you think there's any circumstance in which I wouldn't have signed up for WLR?

dub45

oscarBravo wrote:

I don't think I have a written contract, as I did all the signup process by phone.

But - you know me, Peter - do you think there's any circumstance in which I wouldn't have signed up for WLR?

Isn't this the problem with this sign up by phone that when a dispute arises there is no record to go back to. Surely the time has come that when anyone 'signs' for anything either by phone or over the net a written copy of the agreement is subsequently forwarded to them? Any subsequent amendments to that agreement should be similarly notified to that person.

RicardoSmith

dub45 wrote:

Isn't this the problem with this sign up by phone that when a dispute arises there is no record to go back to. Surely the time has come that when anyone 'signs' for anything either by phone or over the net a written copy of the agreement is subsequently forwarded to them? Any subsequent amendments to that agreement should be similarly notified to that person.

The usual method of dealing with that is to send an email or letter with all the details of the conversation with something like, please confirm that this is correct etc, or reply if there are any errors in this.

dahamsta

dub45 wrote:

As a matter of interest did they require you to commit yourself for a further 12 months when you upgraded? They have been telling people recently that an additional 12 months is required and that it is a term and condition now!!!!

I ordered it through the web and they didn't tell me. I wouldn't have ordered it if they had - I'm leaving this flat in six months - so I was keeping an eye out for it. No Ts&Cs, no mention of a term, no nothing.

adam