On another Note about Eircom's Uselessness

LFCFan

I recently got in a new phone line so wanted to get my account number off them so I could register on their site and avail of the Cirle of Friends thingy. Well, I rang them up 2 weeks ago and got some ignorant bitch who told me she couldn't give me the account number over the phone as it was company policy. I pleaded with her but to no avail. Instead she told me she would send out an unofficial bill which would have the account number on it. 2 weeks later there was still no sign of this unofficial bill so I decided to ring again and this time when I asked for the account number yer man had no hesitation in giving it to me. I told him about the previous phone call to them and he told me it all depends on who you get on the phone at the time. Some will accomodate you and some will just spout company policy at you. What a shower of **** Eircom really are. I feel sorry for the chap who helped me out. He obviously has a lot of pratts working with him. I'm not even gonna go into the crap they spout if you ring up about ADSL access.

Dustaz

Originally posted by LFCFan
I'm not even gonna go into the crap they spout if you ring up about ADSL access.

In all fairness i think your being too hard on the ADSL people. In my experience (and i have a lot of experience of calling and moaning at people:) ), the Eircom DSL support and sales people are brilliant. Its like talking to a seperate company - Helpful, Knowledgable and curteous.

Eircom could look at that department and learn a lot.

Urban Weigl

Reminds me of when I was trying to order ISDN (no-speed)... Luckily after the first few weeks I figured out that ringing them twice a day (once in the morning, and again in the afternoon) was the only way to get anything moving forward.

This allowed them to re-add my order each time they "lost" it. :rolleyes:

MrPudding

On a similar note, when I moved to Dublin I got my phone connected. I got all the stuff from Eircom telling how glad they were that I had chosen them (how little I knew them) and all that other rubbish you get. It also gave me my account number, unfortunatly it did not give me the phone number. The phone was working but I didn't know the number, I phone my family in the North but the number didn't come up and I didn't know anyone in Dublin at that time to phone. Eventually it dawned on me that I should just phone the operator, she would know. So I phone the operator and explain my predicament and she tells me that she cannot tell me my own phone number as it is against company policy, I asked her if there was a number I could ring which would read my number back to me but she said there wasn't. We argued for about 15 minutes, stuff like:

Me- It's my phone number, tell me what it is.
Her- If it was your number you should know it"
Me- I'm ringing you from it, I have answered all the questions you have asked me to prove who I am AND given you my account number what more do you want?
Her- If it is your number you should know it.
Me- How the F**K would I know it if you won't tell me it.
Her- It might be on some of the letters you have been sent.
Me- It's not.
Her- Are you sure?
Me- What is this are you accusing me of being illiterate now? Of course I'm sure.

Anyway you get the idea. So eventually, blood boiling I hang up and hit redial. I get some one else who just reads my number off to me and gives me a number you can ring that reads it back to you. Muppets.

De Rebel

Originally posted by Dustaz
the Eircom DSL support and sales people are brilliant. Its like talking to a seperate company - Helpful, Knowledgable and curteous

having a few likkie drinkies with our lunch maybe? or a spiff or two perhaps?

spongebob

The rotten Eircom has a load of droids, typically with an Intercert or even a Groupcert (a thickie intercert abolished 20 years ago) level qualification. Most of the women were hired as operator grade with those qualifications, then the local switches were automated over time. ISDN to them is a smart young pup asking them tricky questions. When you ring 1901 you end up dealing with these droids in their own areas, Tullamore one minute Tuam the next Terenure the next etc. Hang up and ring again. The men were hired to pull wires and stick them together.

You have about a 25% chance in any given call of getting someone who

a) Knows what they are doing
b) Will actually carry out a reasonable request for the customer in an efficient and civilised manner.

1000's of these morons were recruited in the late 1970's as civil servants in a Fianna Fáil plan for full employment and are still there, allegedly as 'customer services' personnel. They are a large useless rump of ignoramuses in their 40's , I speak as someone who went to school with some of them.

They are unemployable elsewhere at the pay rates that Eircom gives them so they are damned if they are leaving the place unless the redundancy on offer is huge. Nor will they get a pension of note from anybody else either.

The other Eircom is the one Dustaz mentioned. Eircom hired skilled and knowledgeable staff on a selective basis in the 90's. They were brought in and trained to fill gaps that the other lot couldn't be brought up to speed on.....ever. You will mainly find them in Eircom.Net or the Business Call Centre in Dublin, the words pleasant, efficient and knowledgeable come to mind. The business customer is deliberately diverted away from the morons lest Eircom give the country a bad name. The home user has a 25% chance of not coming across one.

M

strat

Originally posted by Dustaz
the Eircom DSL support and sales people are brilliant. Its like talking to a seperate company - Helpful, Knowledgable and curteous.

It's highly likley that you are so, this dept could be outsourced to a different company, its done alot in that business.

LFCFan

Originally posted by Dustaz


In all fairness i think your being too hard on the ADSL people. In my experience (and i have a lot of experience of calling and moaning at people:) ), the Eircom DSL support and sales people are brilliant. Its like talking to a seperate company - Helpful, Knowledgable and curteous.

You're taking the piss right or maybe you are one of the people who work in the ADSL department. I rang them up to enquire about getting it in. When they told me the price per month, set up fee etc I asked her was she having a laugh. She then went on to try and tell me that it was a very reasonable price and you wouldn't find other countries charging much less. I proceeded to tell her that in fact most countries charge a quarter of what they want. She proclaimed that she wasn't aware of this as she was under the impression that ADSL was a brand new technology and that Eircom were one of the pioneers of it in Europe. Needless to say I explained exactly what Eircom were(and it wasn't pioneers). After about 10 minutes on the phone she suggested that I should sign up for their 'High' Speed Service. After yet another fit of laughing I had to explain yet again that ISDN was as old as the hills and the greatest waste of money ever. Anyway, by the end of the call she thanked me for my time in explaining this stuff to her. What a joke. Eircom are most definitly the worst company on the face of the planet.

De Rebel

Originally posted by Muck
1000's of these morons were recruited in the late 1970's as civil servants in a Fianna Fáil plan for full employment and are still there, allegedly as 'customer services' personnel. They are a large useless rump of ignoramuses in their 40's , I speak as someone who went to school with some of them.

They are unemployable elsewhere at the pay rates that Eircom gives them so they are damned if they are leaving the place unless the redundancy on offer is huge. Nor will they get a pension of note from anybody else either.

Muck

Your posts are ont of the high points of a visit here. I think I am going to frame last weeks one about the "Howya can we stick this pole in your field" as one of the best social commentaries on the way 40s/50s/60s/70s Ireland did buisness.

I think I will keep this one for the next time I am in contact with an Eircom droid, and instead of getting angry I'll simply read the old biddy her biography.

Seriously, have you ever considered writing? You have a superb style.

spongebob

IMO this was the Post of the week last week.

Clinical and to the point, and with a wide application to many situations mentioned in here.

I was trying to explain land law in a 'technical' forum without boring too many people..

M

DMC

Originally posted by LFCFan
.... When they told me the price per month, set up fee etc I asked her was she having a laugh.

I think the P&T/Telecom Éireann's campaign in the 70's and 80's to be courteous on the phone must have washed over you......

LFCFan

Eh?

jd

Originally posted by LFCFan
Eh?

I think he's saying you may have been patronising on the phone ,perhaps..?

Originally posted by LFCFan
.... When they told me the price per month, set up fee etc I asked her was she having a laugh.

I dunno, I'm guessing here..

LFCFan

9 times out of 10 you get some gormless fecker who knows more about being ignorant then they do about Customer Services.

Out of the main service providers in this country, ie, Eircon, ESB, Bord Gais and NTL I have had to ring each one. On nearly every occasion of ringing Eircom I've come off the phone seething and wanting to punch the gob****e on the end of the line, same thing but to a lesser extent with NTL. NTL are just useless but their staff tend to be a hell of a lot better than Eircon. With the ESB and especially Bord Gais their staff are pleasant, helpful and seem to want to help you(nice to have that attitude in Customer Services). Also, if you buy a new house ESB and Bord Gais is free connection even though there would be a lot more to do to connect you than with Eircon or NTL yet Eircon and NTL charge you a bloody fortune to become a customer. Yet again they can get away with this because who else are you gonna sign up with? Bord Gais and ESB have no competition but they can provide a decent service. Why can't Eircon and NTL?

El_MUERkO

and gives me a number you can ring that reads it back to you.

Whats the number please?

Slutmonkey57b

I had the same problem before, much the same result but actually there is a reason why they're not supposed to give out account numbers - it prevents identity theft. If they give out your account number, someone can ring them up, say "uuh I'm moving out can you chage the name on the bill to J. Soap Esq", nick your bill and use it to set up id's - remember a lot of places asking for proof of residence will acccept --- household bills.

Stalkers tend to do it. Yeah I know, nobody's stalking you but...

Redshift

Originally posted by El_MUERkO


Whats the number please?

199000

Cheers
Redshift

kevinmcc

I rang up eircom.net bout a month back. I asked the guy if eircom had any plans to launch a flat rate internet package. He asked me what does flat rate mean because he wasnt up to date on these technical words???

billy the squid

love a good eircom moan

my old place had a dial up connection speed of 48,000 kps ... Spent months moaning about it to eircom until i got lucky and one of the eircom techs sorted it out for me. when I started using eircom.net from the north cular road here in limerick i was getting speeds of 36,000. and enjoyed the 48,000 speed when I had it.

so moved to the city centre of limerick what do I get, connection speed 33,666.

have found the people at my new exchange to be pig ignorant in-bread ignoramuses (or is that ignoramai)

have had three call outs from technitions who came into the apartment, scrached his rear end and said "eh theres nothing wrong with this line" and went away.

have them going out to the exchange now to put my line on a new pair and seing as im going to be paying 69 euro for it i'm gonna make them try every damn one in the exchange till i get one that works properly.

eircom net loses a bank draft for 100 euro and cause me serious inconvenience. the oul battleaxe I got on the fone from them was well a battleax.

well only a matter of days now and eircom is bye bye

kamobe

I rang up eircom.net bout a month back. I asked the guy if eircom had any plans to launch a flat rate internet package. He asked me what does flat rate mean because he wasnt up to date on these technical words???

Thought that warranted repeating.....


"I'm not up to date on all these "technical" terms...
What's this "MODEM" you speak of? "

sceptre

Originally posted by fcddunne
so moved to the city centre of limerick what do I get, connection speed 33,666.

May be a little late for you but I'm also in the city centre (very close to the Roches Street exchange - as I've said on occasion when I ring with a problem I'm not close enough for me to hit the tower with a stone but my GF probably could, her being a country girl:)) and get a steady speed of 33666 from eircom net

With UTV or Esat I get 49200 or 50600 every time. I once got 33600 when I dialled up to IOL but once out of about 900 times in the past two years isn't bad at all.

So in short: Eircom connects slowly in the city as a rule (at least on the six or seven lines I've tried on the Roches Street exchange). No other ISP does (unless it really is a line fault).

TBH I didn't realise it was even possible to get them to pop a line on a new pair (obviously possible on a technical level - just thought it wouldn't be on a customer service level).

LFCFan

In my new house I'm getting 53.2 Kbs which is the highest I've seen. I'm with Eircom Free. I hate it though when people go on about dial up connection being 56Kbs because in reality you're lucky if you ever even get 5Kbs. So when the ADSL people say that it is 10 times faster than dial up, they mean more like 100 times faster. Dial up sucks and even if there was a Flat Rate internet access package it would still be pants. Dial up was fine 5 years ago when all the web was was text and pics and you downloaded your e-mail. These days to really appreciate what the net can offer you NEED broadband. :mad:

jd

Originally posted by LFCFan
about dial up connection being 56Kbs because in reality you're lucky if you ever even get 5Kbs.

BITs and BYTES ie 56kb and 5kB

jd

Originally posted by sceptre


May be a little late for you but I'm also in the city centre (very close to the Roches Street exchange - as I've said on occasion when I ring with a problem I'm not close enough for me to hit the tower with a stone but my GF probably could, her being a country girl:)) and get a steady speed of 33666 from eircom net

With UTV or Esat I get 49200 or 50600 every time. I once got 33600 when I dialled up to IOL but once out of about 900 times in the past two years isn't bad at all.

So in short: Eircom connects slowly in the city as a rule (at least on the six or seven lines I've tried on the Roches Street exchange). No other ISP does (unless it really is a line fault).

TBH I didn't realise it was even possible to get them to pop a line on a new pair (obviously possible on a technical level - just thought it wouldn't be on a customer service level).

I *think* eircomnrt use lucent/ascend kit (for historical reasons) while all other isps use Cisco..Indigo's kit is cisco, and is generally housed in the sames comms room, so different speeds would be probably due to different implementations of v90 etc. I have connected at both higher and lower speeds to eircomnet (compared to other isps) using various modems, from various locations...

spongebob

if you get 48000 to ANY isp from your line then theres nothing wrong with it!

I have a lucent modem and find eircom.bet to be the most stable (I am not saying fastest) ...makes sense if they also have lucent kit.

iol used to be dead unstable but they must have improved it coz I didn't



M

Snaga

The IOL 1891121121 number brings you onto the Esat BT network now, so in reality its not the (old) IOL network at all. (check your traceroutes )