Adventures in Eircom-Land, Day 69

oceanclub

After my previous adventures were related(*), it was suggested by
someone here 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:

I can't give them carte blanche to take money from me (in the manner
in whcih they had already been doing for many years) until I've proved
my credentials by giving them money in another manner.

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.