Making a complaint that will actually be heard!!

ToxicPaddy

ok, story here is...

I want to get broadband in the house.. Very simple task or so Ive been told..
Have got flyers and all this crap from Eircom telling me all about the wonders of
broadband etc etc etc..

I rang Eircom about 6 months ago when I first heard about it wanting to know if
it is available in my area (Harolds Cross).. and they said it was and that they would
test my line.. it didnt work and they said not to worry as they are currently upgrading
exchanges in the area and to check back every 4-6 weeks to get an update..

Now Ive been doing this for a while and I keep getting the same messege, there
is work currently being done and to ring back in 4-6 weeks to get an update..

How many f*cking updates to I need to get to be told the same f*cking thing.. :mad:

So I rang today and now Ive been told that my line is not suitable for Broadband and
that I can NEVER get it into the house...

So I ring the Eircom complaints dept and get some gimp there telling that I was
misinformed about what the last person said and that there is always work going on
and that the exchange maybe updated in future..

So I ring the eircom tech section and they tell me that work was never going on in
that exchange and there isnt any work planned for anywhere in this area for the
forseeable future and that whoever told you any of that have been telling me a
bunch of cráp and that they are sick of people in other departments in Eircom
using them as scape goats..

Now where can I go to complain about this shÃ_te.. i need broadband for work, my
landlord doesnt want any ariels/Satellite dishes on the house so unless I move this
is the only option for me to get boadband..

Anyone any ideas????

HOW F*CKED UP IS THAT!!!!

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Moonbeam

That sucks:(
Send a letter to their complaints department and follow it up with a phone call

RicardoSmith

I hear you man, I've had the same problem for over a year. Theres likely a problem on the line either in the house, in the copper in the ground between you and the exchange or in the exchange itself.

Eircom won't investigate it and fix it. They can send oddles of salesmen and phone my house lots of times trying to get me to swtich back to them, or sell me broadband. But they can't/won't look at the line problem. Couldn't find their own arse with both hands.

You'd think they'd been keener since I'm currently with UTVIP for dialup (vastly cheaper) and phone calls (still a bit cheaper). But no they won't do anything about it. Personally I'm hoping for a wireless broadband link and keep the phone with UTVIP.

Keep Eircom out that what I say!

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Moonbeam
That sucks:(
Send a letter to their complaints department and follow it up with a phone call

Been there, done that, ate the face off the gimp on the other end of the phone line..

Methinks Ill have to have a chat with a Journalist I know, see if she would be willing
to write a likkle article about it.. might give eircom the kick in the bollox they deserve

:mad:

Ryvita

Look here: ComReg

Moonbeam

For the most part it is not the fault of the person that you complain to that you have had problems with other members of the organisation that they work in

Been there, done that, ate the face off the gimp on the other end of the phone line..

So I really wouldn't go about it that way.
And from what I have found alot of the time if your nice to them it makes their lives easier so they wil be more helpfuil back towards you

mag

Ripwave may be an option ?

Ripwave

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
So I rang today and now Ive been told that my line is not suitable for Broadband and that I can NEVER get it into the house...

So I ring the Eircom complaints dept and get some gimp there telling that I was
misinformed about what the last person said and that there is always work going on
and that the exchange maybe updated in future.

Look, "work on the exchange" might as well be work on the moon for all the difference that it will make to crap copper wires in your building, or between your building and the exchange.

Eircom doesn't have to fix that for you, and if there's one way to be absolutely sure that you're put on the bottom of any list for upgrades, it's to piss off the little people by yelling at them on the phone.

Call NTL. They do cable broadband in parts of Dublin not a million miles from Harolds Cross, and it has been suggested that they might finally be getting the finger out and expanding their areas of coverage soon. (Just don't yell at them on the phone when you call them).

spongebob

Originally posted by Ripwave
Call NTL. They do cable broadband in parts of Dublin not a million miles from Harolds Cross, and it has been suggested that they might finally be getting the finger out and expanding their areas of coverage soon. (Just don't yell at them on the phone when you call them).

And ring them 3 or 4 times if the answer is no the first one or two times also ask neighbours if the system is live around there and get a customer name if ya can. NTL are shockingly inept at times and deny they have a service when they actually do. Once its in it is the business , best in teh country outside Dungarvan and Longford.

Also Leap and IBB , some aerials nowadays look like a burglar alarm by the way.

The landlord will have the same problems with his future tenants you know

M

Cabaal

This seems to be a normal thing with Eircom
I know a lad who lives in the back of beyonds outside Callan in Co Kilkenny and Eircom keep saying that he'll be able to get BB in the future (not a bloody chance)

He knows this but continues to phone them to piss them off and see how many times they give out this miss-info
This does appear to be very normal and something needs to be done about it

ToxicPaddy

The estate I live in is no more than 10 years old so the cabing cant be that bad..

Now i know that screaming at someone in eircom doent help.. but if you had heard
this person I was talkin.. they didnt give a f*ck about anything, you could even tell
by the way they answered the phone that they didnt even want to be there and
were telling me anything they could to get me off the phone..

As for being pissed off with eircom.. well if they had told me that i would never been
able to get broadband last november when I first enquired about it, I would have
accepted it... but being led on this merry little dance for over 6 months and then
told that I can never get it because of their f*cking crap infrasructure is soooooo
bloody infuriating...

I wish people on Eircom would get their story straight instead of lying through their
teeth..

As for NTL, its not available in the estate yet as they havent laid the cable into it..

So Im living in an estate of nearly 200 houses and not a single one can get
any cable broadband.. that is soo f*cking pathetic.. :mad:

Tox

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Cabaal
....I know a lad who lives in the back of beyonds outside Callan in Co Kilkenny and Eircom keep saying that he'll be able to get BB in the future (not a bloody chance)

I live in harolds cross in the centre of dublin... and they cant even get that right.
i really pity yer mate man as he doesnt have a hope...

In my parents house they wanted a seperate line for internet access, so eircom
came in and spliced the line so now the max they can get is 28.8kbps..

Complete idiots.. :mad:

RicardoSmith

My line is in a house that less than 4 yrs old in a new estate and not far from an exchange. Who's fault is any problem with the line then?

ToxicPaddy

ok, so i took Ryvitas advice, went onto the ComReg site and made a complaint..

Now to see what happens..

Anyone ever dealt with them before??

Tox

HelterSkelter

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
ok, so i took Ryvitas advice, went onto the ComReg site and made a complaint..

Now to see what happens..

Anyone ever dealt with them before??

Tox

I had dealings with them before, but for a different kind of issue. I was getting interference on my phone and computer speakers, sounded like some bloke on a CB radio!! Anyway, they called out to my house the day after I phoned them, found out it was some neighbour of mine and sorted everything out. I was very impressed at how quickly they sorted the problem.

Ryvita

I dealt with them before about NTL. I got fantastic NTL service after making a complaint to Com Reg.

Don't blame the people on the phone though, they are usually as annoyed about it as you are.

Cabaal

Originally posted by Ryvita
Don't blame the people on the phone though, they are usually as annoyed about it as you are.

Really?
So why do they continue to give out misinformation?

I have callcentre experience and know the deal, thse people should be well aware of how DSL works and the limitations of it and should NOT be offering it to people in the sticks or in areas the Eircom have not even started work on the exchange.

gombín

TP,

PM me your details and I'll try and get a mate to have a look at it.

Regards.

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Ryvita
Don't blame the people on the phone though, they are usually as annoyed about it as you are.

To be honest, when I chatted to the guy in the Line Faults Tech dept in Eircom, I
really pitied him as that dept was being used a a scapegoat by almost every other
dept where people in them couldnt be arsed doing their job and simply dumped
people onto them who then vented their anger at them..

He was the only one who actually took the time to explain anything to me..

So I though fair enuff, Ill go through official channels and make a complaint about
the service or lack of by going to Eircoms complaints dept.

I rang them and the girl who answered rattled off some line she is supposed to say
when answering the phone, I couldnt make half of it out, she then couldnt be arsed
talking to me as I had to repeat myself a number of times as she wasnt listening to
one word I said, probably doing some way too important like her nails or surfing the
web :mad:

She didnt give me a complaint ref number and hung up half way through a sentence
when I was just finishing the call..

Now if thats the way Eircom handle their complaints, their filing system is probably
a shredding machine..

So I tried and took the advice given here contacted ComReg..

Now Ive since found out that a neighbour of ours has had the same problem with
Eircom over the phone line and broadband..

So this is what im thinkin, if they wont listen to me, maybe they will listen to a whole
estate and Im seriously thinkin of sending out a few surverys to the houses in the
area and see what the response is.. if I come back to ComReg with the same
complaint from 100 different households in the area, there is no way that they can
possibly ignore this..

What do people think about this idea???

Tox

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by gombí®_
TP,

PM me your details and I'll try and get a mate to have a look at it.

Regards.

I cant pm you mate as it says its an invalid username..

Tox

gombín

TP,

There's a problem with your browser; should be gombín instead of gombíR_.

Regards.

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Cabaal
Really?
So why do they continue to give out misinformation?

To be honest this is the part that really pissed me off most..

I started originally enquiring about broadband last november and its only in the
last week that Ive actually found out for definite about not being able to get it.. Now
thats nearly 6 months of crap

If someone ther in Eircom had turned around to me from day one and said "sorry
mate the phone line is not suitable and it could take a long time before it will be
upgraded", then I would have been miffed but accepted it...

Instead one idiot after another just fed me a completed load of sh*te and led me on
a merry dance..

A straight answer is appreciated a lot more than people think, even if its not what
they want to hear, they will accept it and get on with their life..

Tox

Cryos

heres my addition to the eircom bullsh*t bin!

Like yourself i rang eircom up when bb was being so heavaly advertised back in october and november, so far my line has been tested 10 times. look at the results

1.Fail
2.Fail
3.Pass
4.Fail
5.Pass
6.Pass
7.Fail
8.Fail
9.Pass
10.Fail
11. Pending "Sending away for bb compat on isdn"

so you can imagine eircom have me phone numbers black listed, im on eircom ****tytime which is not anytime at all (disconnecting after certain amount of time, wait 30 mins cos "The remote computer did not respond" get on for another insanely short amount of time and do the same rigmarole.

I phoned esatbt and they said "The nearest exchange is greystones and its 2 k's out of your reach, but your line is fine we should have the newcastle and kilcoole exchanges on at the end of summer"

Why cant 3ircon be like that? instead of "Your line failed, therese nothing more i can say so LIVE WITH IT" says betty on the end of the phone who hasnt a clue what dsl is. esat bt tell you streight and they know what they and you are talkin about!

Lovely jubbly, write an letter to the irish times or irish indipendant addressed to the editor regarding eircom!

ToxicPaddy

I got a call from ComReg regarding the complaint I made to them about Eircom and
their ****e customer service, ****e infrastructure and everything else ****e about
the waste of space that call themselves Eircom.

The person who called me was very polite and very well informed of the situation
that I was in as they apparently have experienced that themselves with Eircom..
talk about pissing off the wrong people.. :rolleyes:

Anyway.. according to what this person said, the law states that Eircom are under
no obligation to provide this service to everyone... so half their advertising is a load
of bollox..

So I said well thats fine, but how come they can own 90% of the telecoms
infrastructure in the country and due to their incompetence, no one else can offer
me this service because their infrastructure is not suitable.. Is there anything I can
do?

The reply was "no, not really, the law has their hands tied and because they are a
governing body for the Telecoms industry, they can only enforce what the law says
and nothing more no matter how frustrating it is.. So unless this changes there is
nothing we can do.. :mad:

So whats next?

Anyone any ideas?

Tox

Ryvita

Talk to your local TD? Get a petition together? Move to the UK?

ToxicPaddy

Talk to your local TD?

They arent worth pissing on!!!

Get a petition together?

Something I was seriously thinkin about...

Move to the UK?

emm NO!!

Tox

Ryvita

Do you need a hug?

Ryvita

How about writing a letter to a newspaper or one of the radio stations?

shinzon

Toxic if i were you and this is just a suggestion just give up now before you lose your sanity, i battled eircom for over a year to get Broadband, i talked to supervisors, managers, phil nolans manager of the complaints department, phil nolans secretary, I talked to tommy broughan, got numerous letters from government ministers, the ministers themselves investigated with eircom, I complained to Comreg on no fewer than 15 different occasions, Eircom sent an engineer last october because it was specifically requested by comreg to do so


Said engineer spent 2 days at my house fixing my line, still failed

And here i am a year and a couple of months later with no broadband still, no fight left in me and couldnt really care less anymore whether it ever comes here

Shin

Cryos

An Patition Against:


Sounds good, who will be kind enough to set one up??

Nick_oliveri

Petitionthingy

Wonder if that works in ireland.
Meh.

spongebob

HTH

M

Cryos

Genius Muck!

Hugh_C

Originally posted by Blitz
An Patition Against:


Sounds good, who will be kind enough to set one up??

Jaysus blitz, you might get a bit more success if ya spelt patition right. They'll laugh at you

Cryos

i knew what i ment! lol

ToxicPaddy

feck the petition, ill probably just plant a landmine or something under the table
at the next board meeting of Eircom and blow the ****e outte the pricks.. and see
how that works...

Do ya reckon that might help????

Tox

Jorinn

Originally posted by Cabaal
Really?
So why do they continue to give out misinformation?

I have callcentre experience and know the deal, thse people should be well aware of how DSL works and the limitations of it and should NOT be offering it to people in the sticks or in areas the Eircom have not even started work on the exchange.

"quotas"

ToxicPaddy

well in order to meet quotas you have to have a feckin product to sell and they
dont even have that.. :rolleyes:

Tox

ToxicPaddy

So after the whole going off my face at Eircom, then complaining to ComReg, a call
back from ComReg and explaining the whole thing.. Now this!!!

An eircom engineer apparently called out to the house Monday afternoon. I know
this because he put the little slip through the letter box saying that the fault was
fixed.. One thing tho, we didnt report a fault, well not with the line anyway.. :dunno:

So I ring Eircom and ask what the story was and there is no report of any fault on
the line as far as their systems can tell..

So what exactly did this guy do????

One of my house mates then contacts eircom and they get a completely different
story from the same dept.. surprise surprise!! explain that one!!! :rolleyes:

Apparently there was a complain of noise on the line, but not from anyone in the
house and without even getting inside the door of the house, this guy has fixed it..
How exactly???? Seeing as 1, there was no noise on the line as far as I could tell
and I know this because I was on the phone last night a number of times and the
line was crystal clear.. :rolleyes:

So in the end, I contact Eircom and ask them has the situation changed with the
broadband.?? the reply.. NO!!

So WTF did this guy do??? scratch his arse and pick his nose in the van outside the
house before filling in this form??? :mad:


Can anyone make sense of this???

Civilian_Target

Originally posted by Cabaal
Really?
So why do they continue to give out misinformation?

Because they're told to and their calls are being recorded.

As for your line, a good one to try is say you can't send and receive faxes (test this first, if you really can't send faxes it'll help). This is something they are legally obliged to provide, so they'll come out and check your line, improve fault tolerances etc. Then try getting your line tested for BB again. This is an old ie.comp trick that a good few people used to get ISDN, so it might well work with BB.

ToxicPaddy

I have to take my hat off to ComReg, whatever they did, it worked a treat.. I now
can get broadband in the house!!!

So much for the "your line is not suitable and never will be" crap I was getting from
Eircom. Just another example of where they are too f*cking lazy to get off their fat
asses to do some actual work!!! :mad:

But is now ordered and should have it in about 2 weeks

Happy Days!!!!!!

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
I have to take my hat off to ComReg, whatever they did, it worked a treat.. I now
can get broadband in the house!!!

So much for the "your line is not suitable and never will be" crap I was getting from
Eircom. Just another example of where they are too f*cking lazy to get off their fat
asses to do some actual work!!! :mad:

But is now ordered and should have it in about 2 weeks

Happy Days!!!!!!

What happened? From reading the thread thus far I looks like they did nothing. What has changed?

eth0_

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy

Apparently there was a complain of noise on the line, but not from anyone in the
house and without even getting inside the door of the house, this guy has fixed it..
How exactly????

They don't necessarily need access into your house to work on your phone line.

As a matter of interest, how long did it take you to get a response from ComReg? I complained to them 2 days ago (online) and haven't heard a thing yet.

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
What happened? From reading the thread thus far I looks like they did nothing. What has changed?

Nothing did change from what Ive seen, there was no apparent line noise as its used
regularly as a normal phone line and the dial up speeds vary between 48k and 49.8k
so its fairly good.. :dunno:

But to be honest I dont care, its working and Ive ordered BB today before they
change their mind

Tox

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by eth0_
They don't necessarily need access into your house to work on your phone line.

As a matter of interest, how long did it take you to get a response from ComReg? I complained to them 2 days ago (online) and haven't heard a thing yet.

The girl I spoke to in ComReg told me that they have a serious backlog of complaints
to handle and it took them a week to get back to me..

I wouldnt worry too much, if you got a copy of the complaint you made e-mailed
you the address you gave its in their system.

I was well impressed with the girl who contacted me from ComReg, she was very
clued in and knew her stuff.. I actually felt relieved after speaking to her that my
complaint had been heard and by someone who I felt was going to do something
about it.. or at least try..

Tox

eth0_

Nice one.

Sleepy

An interesting thing happened me recently. I work in as an application support consultant and we had one of those huggy-feely-bull**** communications and customer support service thingies a few months ago. Strangely the woman brought in to do the training really knew her stuff. She called the Eircom support line on speakerphone and then analysed the handling of the call. Apparently, EVERYTHING, they do in terms of support breaks all the rules of best practice... unbelievable, imagine your business being used as an example of how NOT to do things!?

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Sleepy
....imagine your business being used as an example of how NOT to do things!?

To be honest, nothing to do with Eircom would surprise me..

They were bad when the were a semi state body... but ever since those money
grabbing bastards took over, its gone from bad to worse.. they seem to be cutting
every corner they can find to save money, cut costs and make it look more profitable
so that they can line their already full pockets with more money when they float is
again on the stock exchange... if that hasnt been already done.. :rolleyes:

From what Ive always been taught in school and college, when you have a business,
to make it work you:

- provide as good a service as possible to your customer base
- try to make the company as efficient as possible
- make sure your staff are trained and up to the job
- look after your customers by treating them right

Eircom seem to be totally incapable of any of this..

Anyone Ive talking to, both home and business users have nothing good to say
about Eircom:

- they are too big
- provide a terrible level of service
- staff are not properly trained (not the staffs fault I know!!!)
- basically incapable of getting anything right..

Eircom are in a position where they have about 95% of the telecoms infrastructure
in this country, if the company was run better and more efficently it could get
itself into a position where it could effectively price any competition out of this market
and make the telecoms market its own while perfectly and legally make the market
soooo unattractive to any other telecoms company and competition that it could
keep its position for a long time to come..

All they would have to do it provide a decent product based and decent level of
service... something I cant see them ever been able to do :rolleyes:

Tox

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
Nothing did change from what Ive seen, there was no apparent line noise as its used
regularly as a normal phone line and the dial up speeds vary between 48k and 49.8k
so its fairly good.. :dunno:

But to be honest I dont care, its working and Ive ordered BB today before they
change their mind

Tox

Thats a great dial up connection. I always in fixing friends and families PC's and I can say that out of 10 houses, most barely get above 40k. Theres only one I know that gets close to 48/49K on a dialup. My own vairies between 33 and 44 all the time. I've given up on getting broadband till some form of wireless comes my way.

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Thats a great dial up connection. I always in fixing friends and families PC's and I can say that out of 10 houses, most barely get above 40k. Theres only one I know that gets close to 48/49K on a dialup. My own vairies between 33 and 44 all the time. I've given up on getting broadband till some form of wireless comes my way.

Ive an external phone line here in work for testing modems, dial up connections etc
and Ive often hit speeds of 50.4k on it..

Considering this is an old enough building, converted victorian house to office
building, im amazed that I can get that speed...

Tox

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
Ive an external phone line here in work for testing modems, dial up connections etc
and Ive often hit speeds of 50.4k on it..

Considering this is an old enough building, converted victorian house to office
building, im amazed that I can get that speed...

Tox

I so jealous. I'm at 45k now but this morning I could only get 33k. This in a new house with a new line.