Esat BT dire customer care

shoegirl

Here's a great one, I sent an email regarding billing (or non-billing as it is) of my Netmart account (which I've now had for 4 months without a single bill or charge to my CC) to Esat customer care.

Here's the respond, very nice, if automated response:

"Response

---

Thank you for your recent email to our Customer Care team.

We endeavour to respond to your email query within 24 hours of normal working times.

This is an automated response and there is no need to reply to this email.

Kind Regards,
EsatBT Customer Care"

Great, so i think I might just get this sorted in a day or so.

So I do hear from them - by email again. Another automated mail:

"

We have not heard from you concerning your request for support in the
48 hours since we sent you a response. Consequently, we have changed
the status of your question to SOLVED.


To update this question by email, please reply to this message.
Because your reply will be processed automatically, you MUST enter
your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of
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Question Reference No041104-000008

---

Summary: Billing query
Category: IOL Netsmart
Subcategory: Billing Query
Contact Information: lfarrell@esatclear.ie
Date Created: 04/11/2004 09.07 PM
Last Updated: 08/11/2004 06.10 AM
Status: Solved


Discussion Thread

---

Auto-response - 04/11/2004 09.07 PM
Thank you for your recent email to our Customer Care team.

We endeavour to respond to your email query within 24 hours of normal working times.

This is an automated response and there is no need to reply to this email....."

WHAT!!!!?

They've "solved" the problem by doing NOTHING about it!

Is this the ultimate "go away"? I've worked in customer care myself in about 5 different companies in Ireland and the UK for 4.5 years and yet have never come accross anything as ****e as this. Tell you customer you'll contact them but in fact ignore the query and close it as "solved"? I've written a stinker of an email to them asking them to send me bills within 5 days or close the account!

Has anybody else experienced this?

viking

Email Bill.Murphy@esat.com (CEO), and briefly outline your issue.

Viking

Blaster99

I read an article somewhere this morning (Irish Times possibly) that put Irish telecom's companies in the bottom of all surveyed companies in the world. The exception was Eircom, which is presumably why there haven't been lots of threads about it already. I think Chorus was the worst performing company of all, but NTL and EsatBT were also really poor. No great surprised there.

fatherdougalmag

Similar experience. Trying to switch from Advantage to Advantage Plus. Rang up. They said try online. Tried online. Wasn't able to 'upgrade' from A to A+. Talked to support rep online with their chat facility. They said do it over the phone. They said send an email. That was 2 weeks ago. Not a dicky bird. Also trying to get a bill out of them since September.

So I'm switching to Euphony for telephony and NTL for BB.

pete

viking wrote:

Email Bill.Murphy@esat.com (CEO), and briefly outline your issue.

Viking

After i got a few letters threatening legal action over an ESAT BT bill i had never actually been billed for i emailed a 4 page, 1,800 word letter of complaint to that fine gentleman, setting out in detail my history with his company.

My problem was solved within 3 working days.

Dyr

pete wrote:

After i got a few letters threatening legal action over an ESAT BT bill i had never actually been billed for i emailed a 4 page, 1,800 word letter of complaint to that fine gentleman, setting out in detail my history with his company.

My problem was solved within 3 working days.

Pete, I had numerous letters from esats debt collectors (ignorant shower of **** too) over an account that THEY had failed to close for three months (they're accounts dept was snowed under they said). Even when i settled it with esat they continued to harass me.

I think its a tactic by esat to frighten people into paying them money that they dont even owe

DonegalMan

Bambi wrote:

I think its a tactic by esat to frighten people into paying them money that they dont even owe

No - it's just a case that their accounts department is - and always has been - a shambles.

Mr_Man

From the sounds of things I'm lucky never having had to deal with Esat BT's accounts department. It also sounds as if this department has been the source of many problems for a long time.

Since Esat is a subsidiary of BT it might be worth dropping the CEO a mail and pointing out to him the pain being caused by the poor service from the accounts department. He is very customer focused and will no doubt push things along, and get the problem sorted rather than just a one off fix of mailing Mr murphy.

ben.verwaayen@bt.com

M.

Ruu_Old

ah yes the debt collectors, ive been thru that one. The "glitch" that occured so no money was debited from my bank account and i didnt get a single bill :rolleyes:

DonegalMan

Mr_Man wrote:

Since Esat is a subsidiary of BT it might be worth dropping the CEO a mail and pointing out to him the pain being caused by the poor service from the accounts department. He is very customer focused and will no doubt push things along, and get the problem sorted rather than just a one off fix of mailing Mr murphy.

They've been told this repeatedly by IrelandOffline - even at our very first meeting with them over 3 years ago.

shoegirl

Well yesterday I decided to try telephoning Esat and finding out what the story was. I have carefully screened my credit card bills for the last 3 months to no avail. Nothing of Esat BT. The account I used to sign up is the same email account I have been using for over 5 years (ironically set up when I was with EsatBT No Limits around 2000, but cancelled - which took 10 months before they stopped billing me).

The person on the telephone told me that I was emailed two bills in August and October and they were paid in full. I explained that was impossible since I had never received a bill and nothing was taken off my credit cards. The nice lady promised to send me out a paper bill in future plus reprints of the two ghost bills.

Oh as for the email complaint, still nothing, no response at all.

Somehow I find it very mysterious that I have magically paid 2 bills by credit card that I never received and don't appear on my credit card bills. I wait with bated breath to see if anything appears in the post over the next couple of weeks.

shoegirl

Yet again I received another email trying to "close" my case as "solved." Again no calls from Esat or explanations. I am still waiting for my bills to be sent to me, though I have managed to be charged 3.44 (?) by BT.

Follow the latest below, I'm going to send all this to Comreg just to see how they react:

========

We have not heard from you concerning your request for support in the
48 hours since we sent you a response. Consequently, we have changed
the status of your question to SOLVED.


To update this question by email, please reply to this message.
Because your reply will be processed automatically, you MUST enter
your reply in the space below. Text entered into any other part of
this message will be discarded.
[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]

[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]

Question Reference No041104-000008

---

Summary: Billing query
Category: IOL Netsmart
Subcategory: Billing Query
Contact Information: (email here)
Date Created: 04/11/2004 09.07 PM
Last Updated: 11/11/2004 06.13 AM
Status: Solved


Discussion Thread

---

Customer (Laura Farrell) - 08/11/2004 11.27 AM
PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THIS QUERY
It is NOT SOLVED.
You never responed at all to my initial complaint so how can you possibly say
it is solved?

You customer support is absolutely disgraceful!
Please contact me ASAP about this account as I am extremely concerned.

I will be recopmmending all my friends avoid esat BT in future. Your billing
service and customer service is PATHETIC in the extreme.

If you do not respond within 5 days I want this account cancelled and to be
billed in full for previous use - in writing or by email.

>

Auto-response - 04/11/2004 09.07 PM
Thank you for your recent email to our Customer Care team.

We endeavour to respond to your email query within 24 hours of normal working times.

This is an automated response and there is no need to reply to this email.

Kind Regards,
EsatBT Customer Care


Title: What happens if I am moving house but want to keep my phone number?
Link: http://bt-esat.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt_esat.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=296&p_created=1084896818

Title: What happens if I am moving house but keeping my phone number?
Link: http://bt-esat.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt_esat.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=264&p_created=1084894727



Customer (Laura Farrell) - 04/11/2004 09.07 PM
Hi:

i've been with Netsmart for nearly 3 months, but have never been charged for the service and have yet to receive a bill. I used the above email address but have heard nothing back since the initial "welcome" letter.

Can you please advise me why I have not been billed as I am quite concerned that some day I will receive some mammoth bill rather than the 2 monthly bill I expect.

kind regards

Laura Farrell

viking

Have you emailed Bill yet?

Bill.Murphy@esat.com

Viking

bookiebasher

I got the same letter threatening court action in 7 days if I did not pay a bill for €297 .
Problem is I never had an account with ESAT BT.
What should I do as I have never received an invoice before from Esat BT to the best of my knowledge. I did receive a letter from a debt collector some time ago but forgot about it as I was mad busy at the time.
So what should I do.

spongebob

Was the bill in your name at your address ?

Did it quote your telephone number correctly ?

Did you have any door to door bods around at any stage ?

M

bookiebasher

Bill was in my name and address but I didnt sign anything from a door sales man

spongebob

bookiebasher wrote:

but I didnt sign anything

Thats not what I asked :) . Did you have them around ......irrespective of whether you signed anything. !

Can you ask ESAT where and when the signup 'came from' ? Then write a nice email to Bill Murphy, he is a decent guy and will have it investigated properly and promptly .

If you never signed up for anything then tell the debt collectors to go **** themselves ....no point being polite with them.

Did you ever receive any bill from ESAT while you were allegedly a customer ? My mother is a customer and never gets a bill for some reason (not even by email) but she is correctly debited every month by DD for her offpeak net usage so we never hassled them about it .

M

smidgy

Hi
I had a similar experience with a netsmart account. They appeard not to be billing at all for the account, then they stopped sending out bills altogether!! To my surprise the money started coming out of my account without sending any bill or breakdown of the bill to me. I had even requested an itemised bill.

When I eventually shut down the account they told me it would take 2 months. 2 MONTHS!!!! I'd say it involves a guy clicking a checkbox on the screen.

ESAT BT are cheaper but they dont know their head from their arse! :rolleyes:

oisin

I had the same problem with them. I signed up with them for Netsmart and sent the form and the attached Direct Debit to them. When Anytime came along I did the same. I was checking my bank statement for something else when I noticed there was no DD being paid to Esat.

I contacted them and ended up with a bill for almost €700 going back two and a half years. I told them I wouldn't pay until I'd checked with my bank if any payments had been made. (Try and get statements going back 3 years from a bank these days!)

Eventually they threatened to hand it over to a debt collection agency, so I paid up to get rid of them.

One of their accounts people admitted they had looked at both my application forms and the DD mandates were still attached - they never presented them to the bank.

Funny thing is - I wonder would they ever have known I owed them money if I hadn't contacted them.

Ruu_Old

exact same problem with me oisin, did they ever actually send you out a bill going back the 2 1/2 years? they didnt send me nothing but yet demanded 600 euro which changed into 700 euro. I kicked and screamed basically and they handed over to the debt collection and i said all id pay was 500 and it was settled at that figure or maybe 520 something. morons!

pete

bookiebasher wrote:

I got the same letter threatening court action in 7 days if I did not pay a bill for €297 .
Problem is I never had an account with ESAT BT.
What should I do as I have never received an invoice before from Esat BT to the best of my knowledge. I did receive a letter from a debt collector some time ago but forgot about it as I was mad busy at the time.
So what should I do.

Did you have an IOL account?

Ruu_Old

get them to mail u out a bill or breakdown of charges for this 297 euro. I dont think they have a leg to stand on in court.

shoegirl

This is really quite disturbing. It seems that non receipt of bills is a common thing for Esat BT subscribers.

Many years ago I had a Esat NoLimits account and received regular bills, so I cannot understand why there seems to be a total breakdown in the accounting system. Its particularly unfair that subscribers are being dumped on debt collectors through no fault of their own because of a spectacularly incompetent billing system. This is a very clear breach of standard consumer regulations and should be brought to the attention of the authorities.

I myself am going to contact both Comreg and the Consumers Association of Ireland regarding this as my situation seems to be very typical, though fortunately I am only 4 months on the cheapest service, so I cannot owe much more than 50 euros. Perhaps if everybody did the same thing then something might be done regarding this? It seems ridiculous that EsatBT can get away with such clear abuse of customers.

Wertz

Just thought I'd add fuel to the fire on this EsatBT billing discussion.

After applying for their BB service 18 months back it took them over 3 months to get me set up, after they initially lost TWO application forms.
Anyway finally got the account up and running and was intent on using the direct debit from my credit card. So 2 months in I get my first bill (including mysterious extras which turned out to be kosher) and it HASN'T been debited to my CC. I call their billing dept and ask why it hasn't been paid by CC. They tell me there is a problem with the card. I contact my bank: no problem.
They then tell me I provided the wrong expiry date, so they send me out a new authorisation form which I duly fill in and send back...

Two months later a bill for FOUR months (+ those extras), meaning the previous bill was STILL outstanding. I got on the phone again (usual 30min on hold), talk to some guy and he takes my details and debits the card there and then and clears the bill. He tells me that there will be no problem from here on in and that it will automatically be debited from my CC now for sure.
But no, they can't seem to get a simple thing like that to work.
So I'm faced with having to hold for 20-30 min to pay my bill by reciting my CC no. to someone on the other end. For this reason I just let it build and pay every 4-6 months now.

The incompetence from the get go is astounding, and the IOL BB forums abound with similar horror stories. In what is supposed to be such a hi-tech company, they seemingly have little or no clue about EFTs or simple customer service. Had I known then what I know now I'd have paid the extra and signbed up with eircon: as bad asd they are at least you can rely on them to provide a bill that you can actually pay.

I've often thought of closing the account and going for UTV or something, but with what I'm reading here, that sounds like a dangerous undertaking...

damien

Forget emailing an auto-reply. There's obviously nobody at the other end.

Try emailing: complaints@esat.com , I know there are people at the other end. Email them your issue and include your account number (if you have one) and contact details so they can ring you and sort it out.

Damien.

Tom Dunne

Time to jump on the ESAT bashing bandwagon.

I signed up for the line rental from ESAT around the end of August. Got a letter from them on Monday saying that there was such a demand for this service that they didn't get around to billing me for the first two months and that if I wanted to avoid an overly large bill in November, to pay off the previous two months line rental.

How can their billing department be so incompetent?

pete

tom dunne wrote:

How can their billing department be so incompetent?

Practice.

jor el

Something doesn't quite sit well with me when I think of EsatBT. They are a Telecommunications company, and they don't even have a working Fax machine. :rolleyes:

I've been having problems with my IOLBB billing since I signed up in January. They just don't seem to be able to bill my card, so I get a letter every two months saying my account is overdue, I ring them up, give them my car no. so they can charge me. That works fine till next month and we start the whole debacle again. Strangely, they can charge me there and then over the phone, but can't change the details over the phone. They need that in writing but for some reason no fax or letter ever arrives at EsatBT.

I've sent in a change of details form twice now and tried to fax it about 10 times. Each time the fax times out as being unable to send. It doesn't instill much confidence.

shoegirl

A nice lady from complaints rang the other day and sorted out most of the problem.

I've seen my bills, cryptic as they are but still a bit odd as the dates of the bills contradict what my inital welcome letter said. Nonetheless, it looks like I am at least now being billing properly.

Only problem now is that they seem to have me on the wrong rate (netsmart 50 instead of netsmart 30), but its only a 5 euro a month deal which will probably work out as I've been using the service more heavily.

The billing system seems nightmarish though - the way in which calls are initially charged for and then charged back is difficult to understand for a lay person. Particularly if you are not talking about a full month of charges.

No wonder there is such a problem with the billing section.

shoegirl

Still no bills since "Complaints" started looking after my query, but they did at least directly send me the missing bill from October.

However I decided to sign up for the broadband trial in November and now things are decidedly worse. I changed my payment method from credit card to DD. The first thing I noticed was that my account was overdrawn inexplicably. (I budget heavily and so couldn't account for the missing money).

Then I realised that the missing amount added up to the signup fee (€90), one months subscription (39.99) plus the referal fee for the unauthorised overdraft (4.44). However this will have nasty implications for me since I bank with NIB's Freebank, which means I lose free banking for the whole quarter - which means I can now be surchanged up to another 20 euro.

Again - no prior notice. No invoice or bill. In fact I even had a letter from Esat last week welcoming me to my "free" trial. For which I have just paid 130 euros, and which is going to end up costing me another 25 euros in bank charges. Plus my gas bill bouncing on Monday as the money that was there to meet it has been swiped by Esat. Oh and of course another 4.44 referral fee on top of that. Not nice.

I re-read my introductory letter which told me the trial was free. I could understand the connection fee (though you would assume that "free" means "pay nothing") but obviously for me it didn't. I don't understand why I am being charged the full amount flat out.

As the ad on their website goes:

"Enjoy the speed and convenience of broadband in the comfort of your home for 3 months ABSOLUTELY FREE and with ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION!

If during your 3 month free trial you decide not to continue with broadband - simply let us know in writing. There are no hidden costs or catches - your 3 months trial really is completely free!"

Now I am really beginning to lose patience with Esat and will probably cancel the service at the end of the trial quite simply because I can no longer endure the billing mess (which is a shame as the service is very good). I'll probably take up the service again with Digiweb as I don't want my money going to eircom. I am so frustrated with Esat at this stage - they don't seem to be able to get anything right. I have complained again to the complaints dept.

Now has anybody actually made a complaint to Comreg about Esat and how did you get on?

dub45

shoegirl wrote:

Still no bills since "Complaints" started looking after my query, but they did at least directly send me the missing bill from October

---

Now has anybody actually made a complaint to Comreg about Esat and how did you get on?

Whether anyone has or not you should certainly do so yourself and make the same complaint to the director of consumer affairs. Not to mention sending Bill a detailed email.

Everyone on here says Bill is a nice man and an email to the man will get things sorted out but he is after all the person who is ultimately responsible for this accounts mess and as long as I have been interested in the net I have been hearing from people and reading on boards about this accounts department being so dire.

How can any company exist with an accounts department that is so manifestly incompetent? The only image that the stories on here can generate is a bunch of headless chickens running around all day making mess after mess.

And surely this ongoing mess generates considerable extra work for all concerned not to mention Bill himself, loses the Company money and cashflow and ultimately loses the Company customers - not to mention the time costs to customers who have to almost plead to have their bills collected and having to spend 20 minutes on a phone to do so - its an incredible situation.

spongebob

They are introducing Online Billing for their Flat Rate customers (at least) at the moment. My ma will now be able to print out her invoices , she got a letter from them yesterday.

A small step in the right direction Bill.

M

damien

shoegirl wrote:

Now has anybody actually made a complaint to Comreg about Esat and how did you get on?

After I made an FOI request to ComReg I got the following back from them.

In relation to consumer complaints which fall within our powers, ComReg
acts as an arbitrator between the consumer and operator and requests the
operator to re-examine the consumer's complaint in light of any relevant
regulatory obligations.

Consumer complaints of this nature do not result in formal findings being made against operators.

So, there you have it folks. No formal complaints process really for consumers. But there's one of Esat complain about UTV etc.

Shoegirl, I suggest that you make a complaint via ComReg and document it all and then publish it all.

jor el

shoegirl wrote:

Then I realised that the missing amount added up to the signup fee (€90), one months subscription (39.99) plus the referal fee for the unauthorised overdraft (4.44). However this will have nasty implications for me since I bank with NIB's Freebank, which means I lose free banking for the whole quarter - which means I can now be surchanged up to another 20 euro.

"Enjoy the speed and convenience of broadband in the comfort of your home for 3 months ABSOLUTELY FREE and with ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION!

If during your 3 month free trial you decide not to continue with broadband - simply let us know in writing. There are no hidden costs or catches - your 3 months trial really is completely free!"

I thought that the free trial was completely free, as in no connection fee either.

If this is the case then they took money from your account without your authorisation, and that's fraud. Report them to the bank, say the direct debit was not authorised and see if they will do something about it.

Ciarraioch

Greetings all.

I've had untold trouble with EsatBT arising from a NetSmart disk that immediately slowed down the operation of my computer once installed and caused frequent freezing of my machine both on internet and off, requiring hard re-boot each time. I uninstalled but it took me several weeks more to get the computer to stop freezing. I downloaded everything I could from Microsoft and ultimately that seemed to bring it right. I had McAfee anti-virus updating at all times and I checked the disk for virus but negative. Esat did not want to know - no way baby - and maybe with good reason if there were dozens of similar disks issued by them. Anyone with similar experiences ?
Thanks.
Brian

Sully

I think you guys are forgetting about UTV's "dire customer care"

- Sully

fatherdougalmag

What's the longest anyone's been on hold to Esat/BT customer care? I'm just clocking 1.75 hours. Considering I asked them to cancel my broadband last November and it's still active and I'm being charged for it, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less.

fatherdougalmag

I give up after 3 hours. That's ridiculous. Also tried their online support thing which is pretty cool. Had an immediate response which amounted to the fact that they don't handle queries regarding account/bill details. Useless.

I've employed the use of their queue-buster callback thing. I have no/little faith in it even though I've never used it before. Can anybody comment on whether or not it works?

Also, what's the email of that very important Esat/BT person who has helped people out in the past with account problems?

jor el

I've used queue buster on Esat BTs helpline a couple of times and it always worked. In fact, the last time I had barely put down the phone when a guy called me back.

murfie

I also had an experiance with ESAT, not as bad as other posters but a little bit confusing all the same. I got a letter not to long ago telling me my line and phone bill was being changed to esat in the next coming weeks and it welcomed me to esat. You might say so what?! Well the thing was i never contacted esat to get them to change my line and billing to them!

I got in touch with esat and they told me i must have ordered the change, but as i explained i had not!! Now maybe esat could be better value than eircom but i never asked to change.

Is it a marketing ploy of esat to target all customers like this in the hope they will confirm they would like to change??

fatherdougalmag

Has anyone been talking to Esat/BT customer care today (Friday 4th)? I originally rang at 10:20 this morning, gave up a 1:20 request a callback and nothing yet which infers a wait time of at least 7 hours.

fatherdougalmag

Well I mailed customer care and cc'ed the Bill Murphy man. BM replied even faster than the automated response! So fair play to him on that.

Rang back up at 4.05pm and gave up at 5pm. Requested ringback to my mobile which eventually arrived at 7pm ... but I missed it

Trying again tomorrow

shoegirl

Weirdness of Esat's billing system continues to baffle me.

During the week I got a bill - for €0.00!
It says I subscribe to "home phone". Actually, I don't. I'm with Euphony (and get billed correctly by them). I'm currently on the BB trial (sadly soon to come to an end) and like the service so fingers crossed they surely cannot mess up a regular bimonthly payment (surely???)

fatherdougalmag

To bring my saga to a close, good old Bill Murphy came up trumps and I'm now broadband-less three months after I asked for the account to be cancelled. I'm being refunded charges made since 30th Dec when the account should have been de-activated.

Sponge Bob

Poor Bill.

He is a great guy but he should not HAVE to be .

fatherdougalmag

Well if it's any consolation I was told that they are in the middle of training more reps so that might make things a bit better on the waiting side of things. I think most of their problems are around the procedures they have in place. It sounds like a lot of people are falling down into cracks which the system/procedures aren't aware of.

d-j-k

Since I've moved to Esat BT's Advantage Plus phone service I've NEVER received regular bills at all! and I didn't opt for online billing either.

They debit the right amount out of my current account every 2 months but i've yet to see a single invoice!

I've contacted them about it on several occasions and they always promise to post out a bill but so far I've only received one which arrived in a handwritten brown paper envelope with a with compliaments slip from the customer care person I was talk to!

Scruff

oh dear oh dear oh dear.
after reading this thread i'm already regretting requesting changing my phone over to esat to avail or their phone and bb package.
actually i must ring them, they probably have "lost" my application like they did when i tried to sign up for bb in the last house i lived in, but this time i'll be fine with that!
At least €ircom have their billing sorted..