Adventures in Eircom-Land, Day 69

After my previous adventures were related(*), it was suggested by someone on boards.ie that I send my message direct to the email address of the CEO of Eircom, Philip Nolan.

(*) (http://groups.google.ie/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&selm=b917d6bd.0407060750.3e1ba513%4

After I did, to my great surprise his PA contacted me directly and, miracle of miracles, I managed to get my new account number. As for the "temporary number" babble, they confessed that hadn't a clue what the customer care person was on when they said that.

They then said that the broadband people would ring me back within the
week and let me know if my phone line was suitable for broadband or not. As it turns out, I had to ring them, and their offer isn't exactly attractive. In the end, I went with Digiweb, who I'm delighted with.

(Note to Eircom: When you ring a helpline and are answered immediately by a human, you're delighted. When the human then knows what the hell you're talking about, you're even more amazed).

Everything sorted. Eh, well...

So that was on July 7th. Naturally I wasn't expecting a bill straight away, and being busy moving apartments I've been ignoring bill letters, since I make sure that all (including Eircom) are paid by credit card or direct debit.

At the weekend, I got around to buying a new file storage and decided
to sort out all my bills. In among all the envelopes, I find two final demands for payment from Eircom. demanding #83. I find this strange as:

1. Why on earth bill me only 5 days after opening my account?

2. Why not actually send me a bill?

3. When they forced me to open a new account because I moved address, why didn't they mention at any time during this process that they would need new payment details?

So straight away on Monday morning, I rang Ms. O'Brien, the sender of the letter. When I say "straight away", I mean I started straight away. If anyone has rang Eircom lately, they will experience the delights of a voice-activated phone system; somewhere in the world is a salesperson pissing him/herself laughing in delight that they managed to sell this heap of **** to Eircom.

In the old days, when you were forced to choose an item (say, Billing Options) from a menu of options, you simply pressed the number. But this old fashioned technology obviously grated with Eircom. Now you have to speak the item. This takes longer even if it manages to get it right the first time. And it doesn't. And what is even more annoying than a voice-recognition system that can't get it right is one that pretends to be human while it ****s up.

Quarter of an hour of a slightly robotic male voice (think TV3 newsreader) spouting "I'm sorry, I couldn't quite make out what you are saying" gets to be pretty grating in, oh, 10 seconds. After this, there's 15-20 minutes of being on hold, but that's par for the course. Then there's another 15 minutes of being passed from department to department as I attempt to contact Ms. O'Brien, her manager, or indeed anyone who knows anything about anything. Noone appears to be at their desks, so I leave her a message.

Tuesday afternoon I eventually get a return call from Ms. O'Brien. In her polished Official Ireland accent, she asks me why I contacted her over the matter? I reply sweetly that since she was the one who sent me the letter, she was the one who should deal with it. Things go downhill from there.

Her response seems to be that it is entirely up to me to make sure my payment method has been sorted out. So, I respond, when Eircom decide that my account should be closed and reopened, and when they didn't ask at the time for a new payment method, it should have been entirely reasonable for me to tell the customer care operator their job and ask for a new payment method to be set up. And that not doing so was an act of sheer financial recklessness. Repeated attempts to tell Ms O'Brien this, and to insinuate (well, when I say "insinuate", I mean "shout repeatedly") that Eircom customer care are morons cut no ice.

When I ask what the payment is for, well, it turns out I have to pay my rental in advance, which is par for the course. There's also a €20 connection fee to connect me up a phone that worked already. I'm not at all surprised by that.

In the end, she decides that she will do me the magnanimous favour of sending me out a mandate form for payment (I, almost non-ironically, tell her that I really do want to give her the money), and proceeds to lecture me on the importance of making sure I pay soon. Of course, I can't set up the mandate 'til I pay off my debt, she says. Even by Eircom's standards, this is totally bizarre.

Let's recap this:

At this stage, my headache has gotten so bad I clutch at any straws to end the conversation.

So now, since Eircom won't accept a direct debit from me 'til I pay the bill they never told me about, and since they only accept laser cards online, I have to send a cheque to them as soon as possible and hope they don't cut off my phone in the time it takes to get to Letterkenny.

Stayed tuned for more news, Eircom fans.

P.