How strong/weak is my position?

denishurley

About 18 months ago, we wanted to get broadband in our house so I went onto eircom's website and filled out the details there.

Nobody from eircom ever visited to install broadband, however, and as a result we went with UPC. Bills for line rental continued to come from eircom though (rented house, we had never been aware of a phone line prior to that) and were ignored, which in hindsight does not seem the best move.

Now eircom are demanding a payment of €500 or court action for the amount they say is outstanding. What's the best course of action?

smellslikeshoes

It's not too clear in your post but do you mean you signed up for a phoneline and broadband or was there already a line active in the house when you moved in and you just tried to order broadband?

denishurley

There was a line SLS but no phone, line had been disconnected

smellslikeshoes

So these bills are coming in your name then?
If so there isn't too many options, you did order the phoneline and broadband but you just haven't used them.

denishurley

The broadband was never activated though, surely it was up to eircom to do this?

smellslikeshoes

denishurley wrote: »

The broadband was never activated though, surely it was up to eircom to do this?

Are you sure?
Broadband and phone are activated completely at their end and they don't need to come to the house.

Usually what happens is, you order ->they send you out a modem (not always the case) -> they activate your broadband and phone line -> you connect modem.

jor el

Is the bill in your name? Did you sign up for a phone line? It sounds like you ordered a line, but not broadband, or that the broadband order got lost. You should have contacted eircom at the first bill, ignoring them was a crazy thing to do.

If you ordered the line, and the bill is in your name, then it's yours to pay.

Fuzzy Clam

It looks like you were only charged for line rental. 18 mths x 25 = 450.
You should have received a new 'phone number from Eircom when the order was placed or soon after.
If you're adamant that theres no working phone line into the house, then you may have a case, but if there is a working line, then you're going to have to pay.
I don't think you've paid for BB so thats a separate issue.

Ignoring 18 months of bills ;-)

jay93

Sounds like the line was activated for quite some time without you knowing of it .the court threat is just that they usually wont bother to take you to court but just to be sure id get onto them about it.if they activated your line you should have at least got a modem from them seems like an odd thing to happen

Fuzzy Clam

jay93 wrote: »

Sounds like the line was activated for quite some time without you knowing of it .the court threat is just that they usually wont bother to take you to court but just to be sure id get onto them about it.if they activated your line you should have at least got a modem from them seems like an odd thing to happen

Totally incorrect.:eek:

MunsterCycling

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Totally incorrect.:eek:

How so?

lmimmfn

I got one of those letters. I cancelled the phone, moved out of the house, then 6 months later when i was in sweden i got a letter with a bill for a few hundred euro and threatening court action. I rang them up, got no satisfaction initially, rang again( different person ), got it sorted and the bill was wiped.

You could try it, they could at least half the bill, say you cant afford it, and you werent aware it was active and that they can see the phone line was never used.

Fuzzy Clam

MunsterCycling wrote: »

How so?

Because they wouldn't send a modem if they had/were not going to activate BB. BB wasn't activated, (see my previous post).
The o/p must have been aware that the line had been reconnected since bills had been received.

jay93

i see what you mean i was just pointing out that if the BB was activated a modem would defo have been sent out.
it seems that over 18 months line rental at 26 euro a month would total to 468 euro,
OP shouldn't have ignored the bills since it was obvious that the charges where from the BB that he/she ordered