Eircom: what a complete bunch of greedy ba$tards!

aidan_dunne

I posted a message up on the Webmaster forum a couple of days ago regarding a problem I was having deleting files off my free Eircom webspace. It was saying I didn't have permission to do it and that the files were invalid filenames and that kind of thing. I went through the online, interactive technical support section they have on their site to see if I could find a solution to the problem. No such luck.

So I decided to send them an e-mail asking if they could tell me what to do to solve this or, if that wasn't possible, would they be able to do it for me if I gave them my login details. This is the e-mail I sent them:

Hi there,

I’m having a problem deleting some files and directories from my free Eircom webspace. I’ve managed to delete most of them but there are a few directories left with files in them that I want to get rid of. I want to clear out my webspace completely to put a new site up there from scratch.

Anyway, it seems the problem lies in the way I named the files. It keeps saying that they are “Invalid filenames” when I go to delete them. This is probably my fault because I named them using square brackets ( [ ] ) which must be a symbol that isn’t recognised. For example, some of the names are armstrong[1].jpg, F40pic[1].jpg, etc. and it seems these are unrecognisable. As a result, I can’t delete them and, therefore, can’t delete the directories they are in either.

I was hoping that you might have some solution that I could try to delete them. If not, I was wondering if I gave my details would you be able to go in and delete all of them for me. If this is the only way to do it, please e-mail me back and I’ll give you my details and you can delete them.

Thanks for your help.

Yours Sincerely,

Aidan Dunne.

Seems a reasonable enough request, doesn't it? Anyway, here's the e-mail I got back from them today:

Dear Customer

Thank you for your recent email.

Unfortunately technical support is not offered by email to customers of our Go Free service.

However, you can get solutions of the highest standard from our interactive web-based support tool at http://support.eircom.net/

Alternatively you can ring our support line on 1550 233233 (8am- 10pm), 7 days; Calls charged @ IR 58p (€ 0.73) per minute).

If you are interested in our Subscription service please ring our Sales team at 1800 203204.

Regards

Customer Services
Eircomnet

I could not believe this when I got it. It's bad enough that this has happened to me on one of their $hitty servers, it's bad enough that I couldn't find an answer on the interactive support page but now they want me to ring a 1550 number giving them a gigantic amount of money and they probably still won't be able to do anything about it. Well they can go and shove their 1550 number right up their ar$e! What a greedy shower of f**king ba$tards. All the money they're taking from us and it's still not enough. They have to go and try to make us ring a premium rate number for technical support. And then, on top of that, they have the shameless, barefaced cheek to ask if I want to sign up to their subscription based service to give them even more money! Jesus Christ, what are these people on? :mad:

Snaga

In fairness though, you can hardly expect free email support on a 'free' service. The 1550 number is there to subsidise the service as they dont make any money from subscriptions.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by Snaga
In fairness though, you can hardly expect free email support on a 'free' service. The 1550 number is there to subsidise the service as they dont make any money from subscriptions.

Okay, fair enough, but why does it have to be a 1550 number? Why not a LoCall 1890 number? How many people do you honestly think are going to dial-up that 1550 number if they're having problems? Jesus, it would cost you a bloody fortune. Why don't they charge at the LoCall rate for the "free" service and a free 1800 number for the subscription service? I think that would be a hell of a lot fairer and, besides, we've got premium numbers barred from our phone so I can't ring them anyway.

Gadgie

Reply and tell them what to do with their tech support number, then ditch them for a decent ISP.

Glenn

dahamsta

I'd just like to point out the obvious by saying: It's not free. We all know it's not free. In fact, it's just occurred to me - rather bizarre that it never did before - that it might be worth mentioning this to the ASAI. Any IrelandOffline member want to put a little time into this? Fancy having a go? We're kinda busy at the moment.

adam

aidan_dunne

What's their e-mail address and any other information you think I might need and I'd try to come up with something to send them if you want, adam?

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by Glennus
Reply and tell them what to do with their tech support number, then ditch them for a decent ISP.

Glenn

I'm an IOL No Limits refugee so I use that most of the time anyway. It's just that I wanted to use the 20 MB free webspace that Eircom gives you.

I don't think replying would do any good because if you read the e-mail I got from them it looks like a pretty standard affair that they send out across the board. Besides, I've complained to them numerous times about things such as flat-rate and never even got a reply from them. I think they don't bother reading them or, if they do, they throw their eyes up to heaven, groan, "Jesus, not another one!", hit delete and forget about it.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by dahamsta
Fancy having a go? We're kinda busy at the moment.

adam

Hmmm, care to elaborate on that, adam?

Any word on David's attempts to get a meeting with Philip Nolan? I want to see him go in there and kick some serious a$$! And if ye need any backup, just ask. I've got a nice big pair of steel toe-cappers that are just waiting to make contact with Mr. Nolan's big, fat, flabby a$$! lol

dahamsta

Hmmm, care to elaborate on that, adam?

Nothing in particular Aidan, we just have a lot on. The European LLU hearing is coming up fast, and we need to arrange other meetings around that, there's something with ICT, Vampyre's complaint need to be followed up, the survey, the AGM, etc, etc.

Any word on David's attempts to get a meeting with Philip Nolan?

There's been a small development, we may need to postpone. Dave will follow up when we know more.

adam

dahamsta

What's their e-mail address and any other information you think I might need and I'd try to come up with something to send them if you want, adam?

I'll have a look tomorrow, but in the meantime you could have a look around on the forum, you might remember that someone recently filed a complaint to the ASAI on Eircom's DSL advertisements.

adam

aidan_dunne

Fair enough, adam. I just like to be kept informed of what's happening, that's all.

Oh, by the way, if you or David or any of the Ireland Offline gang ever need to borrow my steel toe-cappers for some a$$-kicking, I'd be more than happy to give you a loan of them!

Dustaz

www.asai.ie

You can file a complaint on the front page of the website. I did it the other day about the usage of the term flat rate in thier dsl ads.


I would however advise against it in this instance. I dont know what your talking about dahamsta, the service is free. The phone calls are not.

MrPudding

Having come to Dublin from NI where I had off peak access for the princely sum of 6 quid a month, I know exactly how much we are being ripped off here......but you will find that almost all off the free ISP's in the UK have a premium rate helpline. That just seems to be the way it is. I am not defending €ircon in any way, just pointing out that they are not the only ISP to operate their TECH support in this way.

Gordon

Yeah, I had problems with my webspace and email with them and got the exact message.

It is a free service with megs of space on their servers etc. You can't really complain about it can you?

It's like saying "I can say what I bloody well like" on boards.ie

dahamsta

I dont know what your talking about dahamsta, the service is free. The phone calls are not.

I dunno, perhaps I need a hand down off my horse, but it's not free, it's never been free, Eircom and the OLO's profit /directly/ from it. I suppose it's not exactly false advertising, but it's definitely intentionally misleading. Just another example of corporations being allowed misrepresent the facts as long as they print a yard of tiny print at the bottom I guess.

adam

yankinlk

i have to agree there with adam. is it not true that you cannot access your "free eircom email" unless you dial one of their phone numbers?

i for example can connect to elivefree.net and use their free email service but it doesnt matter where i dial from...they are also a free isp (no subscription) but i assume they dont make anything on the price of the call...or do they?

Gordon

I use my free email from eircod via a leased line, no dial up type thing. I can't use my ftp up to my webspace from this line though.

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by yankinlk
i have to agree there with adam. is it not true that you cannot access your "free eircom email" unless you dial one of their phone numbers?

You can check an Eircom address from any ISP, I mainly dialup with Esat and have no problem with my Eircom email account.
It's only with their webspace that IP restrictions come in.

Dustaz

Originally posted by dahamsta
I dont know what your talking about dahamsta, the service is free. The phone calls are not.

I dunno, perhaps I need a hand down off my horse, but it's not free, it's never been free, Eircom and the OLO's profit /directly/ from it. I suppose it's not exactly false advertising, but it's definitely intentionally misleading. Just another example of corporations being allowed misrepresent the facts as long as they print a yard of tiny print at the bottom I guess.

adam

Splitting hairs there mate. Eircom, Esat and any other 'free' isps are just that. They Provide an Internet Service for free. How you connect to that service is not the ISP's concern.
Of course Eircom make a bomb off the calls. There is however no court in this land so biased as they would rule that this is misrepresenting the facts.

sceptre

I've always had a bit of a problem with the use of the term "free" to describe Eircom's and Esat's basic pay-per-minute dialup service.

It was fine at the beginning when ISPs took on the original Freeserve model (revolutionary at the time, remember?) and used the term "free" to distinguish it from a subscription "pay us money every month and pay for your calls as well" package but it does confuse some people.

When I was working as a sysadmin I had at least three people try to install Eircom discs on their machines because they genuinely thought that it was "free" (as in beer), with no call charges. These were not stupid people. They just hadn't considered that there was no logical way that it was actually free (as well as not considering how it was going to work with a PC with no phone line connected, only to a server)

Perhaps "no subscription" was deemed less catchy than "free" at the time. Plus it had meaning at the time as a new product. These days, IOLFree and EircomFree are misleading names for products that are not in fact "free"

All MHO of course, but I think it's a valid complaint. All I need is to find one person that dialled up actually thinking it was costing them nothing.

dahamsta

Splitting hairs there mate.

I am and I amn't Dusty. There's plenty of other examples of this type of marketing/sales concept: there's mobile phones and airtime, razors and blades, printers and cartridges, and of course there's the old favourite: Microsoft Internet Explorer. (I've just given you four examples: Two of them are currently the subject of antitrust.)

Let's be honest: It's a scam. It's not Cartier replicas being hawked in a pub by Dodgy Eric, and it's not the Eiffel Tower in an unprecendent shock sale, it's a very expensive, very cleverly thought out, and wonderfully implemented sales & marketing strategy by large corporations. Which is just a scam wearing a thousand Euro suit.

I suppose you're right, it's a battle that can't be won, it's something that's become socially acceptable, and people would just laugh at us if we tried to tackle it. But that doesn't make it right...

adam