Not a homeowner? Explain yourself to the rat...

Slutmonkey57b

Recently moved to a new rented house (from a rented apartment), only to have to reconnect the phone, and was met with the following:

Eircom have decided that all customers living in rented accommodation must pay a ?150 deposit. But this is different:

Unlike previous times, paying by Direct Debit does not waive the deposit. Read my note to Eircom on the subject:

Dear Eircom

Recently I have moved into a rented house and have been told that I will be required to pay a 150 Euro deposit because I am re
nting, rather than being a homeowner.

I have several concerns about this:
1: Why am I being discriminated against simply for not being a homeowner? Am I to believe that those renting homes are inherently untrustworthy?
2: Previously customers could avoid paying a deposit by signing Direct Debit mandates or, possibly, paying by Credit card. Why has this policy changed? I refuse to sign direct debit mandates from any company nowadays, due directly to problems I have experienced with your company in the past in relation to direct debit procedures.
3: I am happily using another telephone provider to provide my calls and internet service. Am I to believe that this deposit is required to cover non-payment on services that I do not require from you?
4: If the deposit is required to cover line rental, might I ask why such a large deposit (over 8 months' line rental) is required?

5:My previous residence had a credit balance, which was not transferred along with the rest of my details. Why is it that your company can charge me a deposit for being an untrustworthy tenant, send me a threatening reminder notice (within 2 weeks of the first bill I received!), but fails to notice that you owe ME money?

6: Why was I informed when I called about the above, that unless I *REQUESTED* that the balance be transferred, it would not have been? How was it possible to transfer the rest of the details of my account while omitting this rather important piece of information?

7:Am I being sent threatening letters and charged a large extraneous deposit simply because I have chosen, and notified the operator while activating the account in my new home, to use a different telephone provider?

Yours Sincerely,
ME.

Response from the rat will be posted if I ever receive one.

sceptre

Obvious suggestion I suppose but you might just want to give the ODTR a bell. This is part of the reason they exist.

DC

I'm sure some thick skinned Rhinocerous will give your letter the once over (They couldn't get a thick skinned elephant to read customer complaints because we all know elephants are afraid of rodents!).

You have a very legitimate case. There must be some laws out there on how many multiples of a monthly fee a deposit should be. I mean nobody is expected to pay 8 months deposit on a flat or house. I know technically you can bypass UTVip to make eircom calls and have them add it to their bill along with the line rental, but thats no excuse.

Good luck in getting your 150 back.

spongebob

nor are you a new customer and you are in credit with them....

www.ODTR.ie has complaint form

use it

pencil

I recently had problems having my phone covered by insurance after it was stolen. Having tried my best to fulfill carphonewarehouses t&c, I missed their 48 hour 'report it to the police' deadline, they refused to pay up. I threatened to bring them to the small claims court - they changed their minds instead of dealing with the hassel.

You should do the same.

My mail to them is below, it may be of help, remember it cost you nothing to go to the small claims court - they on the other hand have to pay for a solicitor!!

---

Dear Sir/Madam,

Referral number: xxxxxxxxxx

Regarding your refusal to honour your insurance commitment to me, I would appreciate if you could read over the following circumstances, some of which are of Car Phone Warehouse's making, and reassess my claim.

My initial claim was refused because the theft of my phone was not reported to the Gardai (Police) within two days.

At 11pm on Tuesday the [date] my phone was pick-pocketed from my coat somewhere along Dame Street, Dublin. Immediately upon discovering this (within half an hour) I phoned 02 customer care and had my account cancelled.

At lunchtime the following day [date] I went down to the Car Phone Warehouse on Henry Street (Dublin 1) to collect the insurance form which you require the Gardai stamp upon reporting the Phone stolen. On arriving at the store (1.20pm) I found it closed. There where two carpenters working in the shop and three Car phone Warehouse staff chatting at the counter, I knocked at the door, hoping that they would have a form close to hand, but I was told the shop was closed.

The next day in the afternoon, my Girlfriend rang Car Phone Warehouse on Grafton Street (Dublin 2) to enquire what time they closed that evening. She was told that the shop would be open until eight pm. She arrived at the shop at 6:15pm but was met with a notice which read 'Closed for renovations'. Still no form.

I'm sure you can check the details of my story above with your staff in the two stores.

I finally got the form needed that Friday [date] in your store in Blanchardstown shopping centre.

You may argue that I could have Reported the theft without the form, but I believe that most people have more to do than visit a Gardai station twice in order to accommodate your store renovations and your restrictive 'terms and condition' policy. Also I believe that it is a waste of tax payers money if you force people to attend a Gardai station twice because of store renovations and restrictive 'terms and condition' policy.

I'm hoping that because of the many efforts I made in trying to obtain your form which has to be presented for stamping at a Garda station, you will process my claim.

If not, I believe I have a good case to bring before the Irish 'Small Claims Court' (details below) - a case which I shall be bringing. If you decide not to change your ruling, I will require the name and address of an individual within your organisation to whom I can address my 'Small Claims Court' claim.

http://www.oasis.gov.ie/justice/small_claims_court/small_claims_court.html

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

Me.

---

LoBo

good letter and good points - let us know how you get on.

pencil

The fu@kers paid up instead of dealing with an awkward bastard like me!! Pushing it saved me 200eurons

Fuzzbucket

Originally posted by pencil
The fu@kers paid up instead of dealing with an awkward bastard like me!! Pushing it saved me 200eurons

OT, but a similar situation exists with extortionate bank charges... If you call asking for an explanation and justification for each charge on your bank statement you should save yourself a few bob - if they can't reason it, it can disappear.

Slutmonkey57b

Well the final installment arrives:

Rat service representative calls the house at about 3pm (i'm asleep), advises my better half that "thy won't waive the deposit" and then sends me an email asking me to call back as apparantly it would be more convenient to speak to me than email me.

I write back pointing out that their office hours of 9-5 are the equivalent of 3am for me as I work nights, so I'd like a written response. I ask again for clarification of the policy and explain that I'll continue to pay usage charges but not the deposit until I'm satisfied - response:

Uuuh nothing.

Thursday: Mysterious engaged tone on the telephone! They wouldn't have cut me off for having the gall to question them would they??

We already know the answer to that.

So I get on to fault management to check... refers me to Credit management.
Monday morning, I call credit management (5 minutes getting through). I explain I am a previous customer, he checks the billing history and bingo... what do you know I should never have been charged it. Apparantly the Biddy I spoke to first time round set me up as a new customer. Despite the fact that I even gave her my old account number when activating the line.

So to all you that think Eircom is overstaffed:
It takes 4 Eircom employees to correct each mistake a Biddy makes.
(Biddies * Biddy mistakes per customer * Length of shift)/(Customer dissatisfaction * complexity of problem) = Number of employees required

And there was me thinking I was being harassed simply for switching to UTV...
We all know that wouldn't happen.

shabbyroad

Here's a good 'un in a similar vein

Back in 1994 I returned with my wife from the USA.
We rented an apartment in Dublin and applied for a telephone.

Was required to either have my parents as guarantors or pay a £500 deposit.

I pointed out that I was gainfully employed though neither of my parents were employed.
Didn't mater an iota.
I then asked if I could have anyone else as guarantor (seeing as I was 30-something it was kinda galling to have to go to mammy and daddy to get a freakin' telephone !)
Was told that anyone with a 'phone account could be guarantor.

So, I got my employer (one of biggest companies in the world with several billion dollars profit every quarter...you figure out the rest) to sign.
Eircom (or T.E. as they were at the time) refused (!) to accept my employer as guarantor.

I insisted at their Dame Street office that this was perhaps a pile of sh1t and asked to speak to the person's manager.
"oh he's on holiday". Ok I said...what's his name then ?

I went out to the payphone in the lobby and called T.E. asking to speak to this person.....who picked up the 'phone. "having a nice holiday I said".

repeated the story to him , told him that next call was going to be to a radio station who would no doubt find it hysterical that my unemployed mammy could be guarantor for a telephone but a big multinational software company couldn't.

The problem went away.....welcome back to Ireland eh ?

it has given me great pleasure to switch to UTV.

Dustaz

sorry to be so AOL about this but:

rofl shabbyroad, pld

Slutmonkey57b

Just as a matter of comparison, the three utility bills arrived at about the same week, guess which one was most expensive?
(All constitute basically 1 month's use + connection/transfer of account + VAT)

ESB: 28 Euro.
Gas: 34 Euro.
Eircon: 303 Euro.

No that isn't a typo.
Three
Hundred
and
Three.

After noting the false deposit, and the failure to transfer a credit balance from my old account, the figure for eircon falls to:
115!
Bargain, eh?
Still they've got all that expensive network that they got free off the taxpayer, not like ESB with its crusty old power stations and B.G. with its minor safety overheads & pipelining costs.