I was slammed. Advice?

VeeEmmy

I got ISDN (please don't judge me; i live in the sticks and was connecting at 16.8 - no reasonable alternative). Before ISDN, I was happily subscribing to UTV enjoying low costs. Lo and behold, I got my first 2-monthly bill from eircon after the ISDN, and it has all my utv internet calls on it and it's one WHOPPER of a bill!

Come to find out, when they connected my ISDN they took me back from UTV. I didn't request that change, I wasn't asked, wasn't told --NOTHING! I found out MUCH LATER via my bill (those internet calls also all showed up on utv bill!).

The internet portion of the eircon bill is now under dispute. They CLAIM that I was informed when I ordered my ISDN. I was not. That would be one little point I'd have noticed! I see nothing in their Terms of Service, etc about switching us back to eircon if we have CPS with another company.

Conclusion: I have been slammed.

I have heard nothing further from eircon since I first complained (more than a month).

MY QUESTION, to the experts, IS: how should I proceed at this point?

I think I should write to eircon (via registered post - what address? to whose attention? good luck finding it on a bill or website) requesting a decision to my disputed bill, and put them on notice that I have no intention of paying eircon for a service that I did not want, did not ask for, indeed signed papers saying I'M GONE. I will not talk to the first rep on eircon 1901- supervisors only from here on out.

Should I contact/cc ComReg etc (whom?)?

I want to document in writing what has transpired and create a paper trail from this point onward. Anything else? How best to proceed?

(Apologies if this is the inappropriate forum. The general topic appears to have been discussed here and Nets/Comms.)

Thanks for any advice.

spongebob

Damn sure its a slam, well explained.

Write to

JG Ryan
Company Secretary
Eircom
St Stephens Green House
Dublin 2

Registered post

Demand in the letter

1. Immediate Rectification of the situation , CPS back on.
2. Compensation (ya have the bills as evidence), tot up, also tot up your time at €25 an hour minimum + costs.
3. An explanation of how Eircom OVERRODE your explicit instructions to route traffic through UTV (actually Nevada)
4. Give JG until the 14/02/03 to rectify the matter in full, institute compensation, and to answer by Registered Post
5. If there is any sh1te remember that the small claims court is your friend .....JG can answer for himself in there

M

VeeEmmy

Thank you, Muck. I was hoping you'd be looking in. I've been reading your other relevant posts on this as well.

Many thanks.

(I think) I still have my original letter from eircom advising me I'd been changed over to another carrier. I also have an e-mail from the webmaster regarding the terms and conditions for isdn. I tried to do my homework to be well informed before signing on to the isdn. They did a bad.

Shouldn't I advise the ComReg as well?

Thanks again for your advice.

spongebob

JG Ryan is the company secretary.

Part of his fiduciary dutees are to ensure that Eircoms activities are compliant with the laws of the land. In this case they are in breach of the CPS regulations set out by a duly ap[pointed regulator and have cost you time and money which must be reimbursed in full.....promptly

Biddies have no fiduciary duties (a duty of care to Eircom if you will) , Biddies just take the money home at the end of the month.

I am suggesting you write to someone who HAS to do something about it rather than banging your head off the wall trying to get the Biddies to earn their keep.

M

the Guru

You should have been advised that when you upgrade your Line to ISDN from PSTN that you lines will come back to Eircom until you CPS again.

Did you advised the Eircom sales person that you where with UTV

Did they ask you where you with an OLO.

If you get your facts straight I think you have a good case.

and Do what MucK has advised you to do

I would Also get intouch with UTV straight away and also change you dial up number asap

VeeEmmy

Understood. I will most definitely be communicating with Mr. Ryan for appropriate resolution to eircon's actions.

I was just wondering should I *ALSO* inform the ComReg of the slamming? If we don't tell them, they'll think eircon are minding the rules, mightn't they?

The biddies (at ComReg, I assume you meant?) can bin the information if they like, and still collect their paycheck, but at least I'll have "done my part."

I'll give Mr. Ryan an opportunity to do the right thing before trying to get him/them into trouble, I suppose...

Thanks again for your help!

sceptre

Originally posted by Banished-She
I was just wondering should I *ALSO* inform the ComReg of the slamming?

Certainly yes, in my opinion. Apparently they're pretty much doing it to everyone.

Oh and the Biddies work for Eircom, not Comreg - most of the people in Comreg seem to pretty darn competent judging by what people have posted in relation to their experiences with them.

VeeEmmy

After months of registered letters, ONE (irrelevant) form letter reply, I finally received a call from an eircom person who capitulated and they are crediting my account with the approx €200 for calls they never should have charged me for.

Until the June bill, the disputed amount was only showing as past due, but I checked my online banking last Thursday(7th) and found that they had debited the full amount, not just the normal undisputed amount.

I had to raise the stakes then.

I rang 1901 informing them that it was a courtesy call before I rang my contact person at Com Reg and entered the legal system. Talked to a good guy who said he would change my "credit query" to "escalated query." He said I should hear from someone within 3 days. I said great, you have three days, then I proceed.

Someone rang me that night.

They capitulated- BECAUSE OF MY PERSISTENCE IN THE MATTER.

BUT GET THIS: they guy said that the setting on my account was not made which should have detected that I had a CPS order in operation, so they didn't know, and thus switched me without telling me. Because of that, he said eircom says "mea culpa and you get refund." (It has only taken 8 months...)

He indicated that it is not standard practice to switch ppl back to eircom when they get ISDN. Hmmm..... That is not consistent with what I've understood people to report here and elsewhere.

But anyway... just to encourage anyone who has a dispute with them (or anyone):

1. PERSIST
2. Communicate by registered post
3. If phone calls are necessary: note date, time and NAME OF PERSON to whom you speak
4. Reiterate facts, dates, documentation in each correspondence
5. PERSIST
6. PERSIST

Because they had not actually taken my money (and I should have been smart enough to suspend the direct debit order...), I did not go beyond sending them registered letters of complaint as soon as I got each bill, reiterating the facts. I cc'd as Muck suggested. (Had a nice letter back from a person at the Com Reg with a contact number and everything.)

I will report to Com Reg because I still think they did a no-no, regardless of their story. Even though it has been resolved to my satisfaction, it took too much of my time, effort and nearly €30 in postage to get the result. They should not be allowed to get away with doing it to other people who might give up the battle. €200 makes too much diff to my little bank account to let it go.

I am thrilled to have this tiny victory.

Ban

spongebob

Well done.

Eircom have finally capitulated on the money they took off you as a result of their breaking a CPS instruction. There are 2 outstanding issues as I see it. There is some hope for the many others in your situation (I'd say you might get a couple of OPM's on names and numbers and email addresses but thast another story).

1. Eircom have not refunded the ancilliary costs involved in your getting a resolution. These are

a) €30 in Registered letters over 8 Months . Jeez thats a lot.
b) Approx 10 hours of your time @ €25 an hour.

Bill = €280 , 1 day to pay by crediting it in full to your Eircom account , cc to phil.nolan@eircom.ie , your justification is the refund itself. Phil only has to contact JG

2. Comreg have not indicated to you how the system 'broke down' so badly even though You Kept Them Informed at all times.

In the case of 1) you are owed money , simple. I always recommend in such cases that Eircom be brought to inconvenient small claim courts such as ......... Moville or maybe Ballydehob and there forced to answer their case.

In the case of 2) you are owed an explanation from the Chairperson of Comreg personally as to what they did and why it took 8 months and what did Comreg do during the 8 months and why do complaints to Comreg take so long seeing as they are responsible for consumer protection in the Telcoms industry.

If it was a pet rat that died on the way home from the shop then the ODCA would have resolved your consumer rights long ago. Threaten Comreg with an FOI on their efforts to resolve your case and tell them you want full and immediate disclosure or its the Ombudsman ...actually a woman... for them (maladministration looms LARGE here) together with more compensation from Comreg themselves for the inordinate amount of time that Comreg took in your case.

If more people took Comreg to the Ombudsman then Comreg would get the finger out a lot quicker and require Eircom to do the same. I think you have a very good Ombudsman case, 8 months is a disgrace .....even by Comreg 'standards' .

Fair play to you for sticking with it though Those who help themselves and all that. Now its payback time.Nobody should have to put up with this crap beacuse of the unfortunate confluence of a criminally fraudulent Telco and a criminally negligent Regulator.

M

MDR

well done, congrats from the IOFFL committee, you've done us proud.

Paddy20

Great to read that the Rat has for once partially rectified a wrong perpetrated by them. However, have you considered writing to Eircom informing them that while you are accepting the credit to your account, it in no way compensates you properly for the unwarranted stress, damage to your health and general well being plus your time and expenses incurred. due to their incompetance, which they have now admitted by giving you a credit, and unless you are offered a satisfactory sum ! you will have "no alternative" other than to resort to the - Small claims court.

If you get the impression that I hate Eircom, you are right. I do?.

P.

dahamsta

Well done Banished-She, good to hear a success story. Follow Muck's advice now and hammer them for all the time and effort you had to put into this.

adam

VeeEmmy

Thanks for the nice words, y'all.

I was under the impression that the Sacred Rat was, by law, immune from "pain and suffering" and other-expenses-incurred types of remuneration.

inotherwords: If ya takes 'em to court all they has to give ya is the actual amount they "incorrectly" extracted from ya. Too bad about the rest.

It would cost me more in MORE time, pain, stress and anguish than it would be worth to squeeze another couple of hundred euro out of them.

I'm a nice lady. All I wanted was the charges off my bill. I got what I wanted. So that's enough for me.

... except I'll be tellin the Com Reg alllllll about it.



Ban

sceptre

Well done banished-She - you've only got what was due to you. I'll add my voice to Muck and Adam for you to go the little extra distance if you feel like it. It's not because it's Eircom in particular (nothing to do with it to be honest) - the same people would be encouraging you to get some amount of recompense for your costs and to find out what Comreg were doing (if anything) regardless of the company involved.

About fricking time (as I'm sure you thought yourself). Thanks for the update.

spongebob

Originally posted by Banished-She
Thanks for the nice words, y'all.

I was under the impression that the Sacred Rat was, by law, immune from "pain and suffering" and other-expenses-incurred types of remuneration.

inotherwords: If ya takes 'em to court all they has to give ya is the actual amount they "incorrectly" extracted from ya. Too bad about the rest.

No!

Your time and effort was dissipated over 8 months by Eircom. Their Company Secretary, JG Ryan , was most unhelpful.

It costs €8 to file a Small Claims Court Claim against Eircom and JG (and anyone else you wrote to). You may be sure that JG will not show himself in Ballydehob and that you will therefore win the case.

You need not bother with a lawyer, the SCC is a forum for plain english. You have enough evidence as is.

Pursue Comreg on the separate track I mentioned, maybe others would like to comment on their Institutional Failure (the Ombudsman Luuurrrrves to do "Institutional Failure" cases ) .

M

DeVore

This is why this forum is important. This ability to check with each other to make sure that we compare and filter the bull that we are fed by people who imho WILFULLY convolute the process in an effort to unlawfully extract cash from people who find the inertia of persisting too much to overcome.

More then ever I'm glad we have a neutral, fairly moderated place to exchange information.

DeV.

Delphi91

I had a similar experience......

I'm too far for ADSL, so I decided to try ISDN. Engineer came out, spent the day fiddling with stuff, including two trips back to exchange. Eventually he returned, said "No, sorry, we can't give you ISDN due to crap line" "Fine", says I in my best disgruntled voice. With that he packed up and left.

So, I went to connect to net - nothing.......Went to call 1901 - nothing.....Dialed UTVIPXL, and got through.

Anyways, the upshot of it was that for 2 weeks or so, maybe more, I couldn't make any calls on UTV's network except to their UTVIPXL number. I had to divert all my calls to Eircoms network using 13666. Rang UTV numerous times to complain, and was told they'd get their Telco to look into it. Never heard back.

EVENTUALLY met a guy and refused to let him go until I got satisfaction. Explained the ISDN story, etc, etc (like I had done many times before) and he contacted Eircom for me. Came back in 5 mins to suggest that CPS had not been turned back on.

Rang Eircom, got through to someone (Gotta say she was very helpful and interested unlike many others I've come across in Eircom). She rang exchange - CPS had been enabled. I said "No it hasn't" She rang again "Opps, you're correct" So it was switched back on. She told me that when they test your line for ISDN, they "kill" the account, do the test, then re-connect you if it fails. Yet they conveniently "forgot" to re-enable CPS!!!!

I haven't gotten my Eircom bill yet, but there is gonna be 2-ish weeks of calls when I had to use their network due to their incompetence. I presume that I can chase this up????

Interestingly enough, the engineer that came out to do the ISDN left without re-connecting phone extensions, etc which he had disconnected to test for ISDN. I eventually went into the attic with a pliers and re-connected things - could have lost me SKY subscription as a result!

Mike.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Delphi91
Rang Eircom, got through to someone (Gotta say she was very helpful and interested unlike many others I've come across in Eircom). She rang exchange - CPS had been enabled. I said "No it hasn't" She rang again "Opps, you're correct" So it was switched back on. She told me that when they test your line for ISDN, they "kill" the account, do the test, then re-connect you if it fails. Yet they conveniently "forgot" to re-enable CPS!!!!

I doubt very much that testing for ISDN requires removal of any CPS arrangements. Maybe some Eircom person like The Guru could explain.

gurramok

Well, they do remove CPS arrangements for some
Mine was also removed without informing me when i downgraded my isdn to ordinary POTS. It was also treated as a new install.

Only found out 2 months later when bill came that all calls went to Eircon rather than Cinergi. It took a few phone calls to change it back. Cinergi said at time noothing could be done for the infringement.
No extra money was charged to me as flat-rate internet was non-existent in those days (late 2001 post no-limits death letter)

De Rebel

Well Done Banished-She. That's no mean achievement.

I'm really sorry I missed your original post. I wrote a longish "how to write a letter of complaint" post last year . Its so important that people stand up to any of these big companies and their crass systems.

If I had seen your first post I would have urged you to add a paragraph in your letter to our good friend James G. about holding them liable for any damage, loss, consequential loss, profit forgone, out of pocket expenses, materials and time incurred, legal expenses and any other monies necessarily expended in resolving this problem which is wholly of eircom's making. Not that they would give a toss, but it would give you good grounds now to lob in a bill for a couple of grand for "services rendered in assisting you in resolving a problem of your own making".

As it is it might be worth preparing a short schedule of your expenses including an allowance for your quantified time. This will be easier if you are self employed and have a provable hourly rate.

But there is another angle to this. You are not the first to complain about tactics such as this. Muck makes a number of good points. it would be well worth having a go at them. Eircom do have a case to answer.

There are a number of angles. Try this one: Eircom contend that removal of the CPS is necessary in order to carry out the test. You authorised a test. You did not authorise permanent cessation of your CPS arrangement. Eircom were negligent in not restoring your CPS following the test. The onus was on them to do so. Eircom should be required to prove their contention that removal of CPS is in fact necessary. Eircom should be required to prove that their systems have the appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that CPS is restored following a test.

Or this one: Going by their story they charged you this money as a result of their carelessness or negligence in not restoring your CPS setting after the test. It is incumbent on any service provider to make reasonable efforts to resolve a problem that is of their making. Eircom's efforts in this case cannot be described as reasonable. In fact, their lack of willingness to assisting with resolving the problem after it was notified to them using the appropriate channels borders on obstruction.

Like I say, Eircom appear to have a case to answer. Its a question of whether you have the energy to continue or not. Perhaps you are tired and basking in your success!

It would be great if you could assemble a file of 5 or 6 cases where CPS disappeared in similar circumstances and set out the problems people encountered in regularising the situation. And submit it to Comreg. And maybe copies to ODCA, DCMNR and so on.

It might also be worth a chat with the ODCA - They have a very restricted remit in relation to comms stuff, but they do have a responsibility to help you in understanding your rights under the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act, 1980. And as Eircom screwed up on supplying you with a service you may have rights in relation to the expenses incurred in resolving the problems which were of their making.

Anyway congrats. Hopefully your success will encourage others to stand up for themselves.

Ronan|Raven

I have had the exact same problem well nearly the same for the last 6 months since getting "teh hi speed boss". But I shall not hijack this thread but start one tomorrow and let ye have all the glorious details on how innificient esat and eircom are and how the hell with the employee's they have they can still survive!