EIRCOM minimum contract term that I didn't read

Mod feel free to delete this but anyone that is thinking of changing to eircom read this and be warned.
It is very important that you read the T & Cs <removed> they have fixed contracts and early cessation charges so if you are not happy with them and change you pay for the remainder of the year you are not using.

I was there less then a month and a half and two bills totaling €145 came in the door. in haste i went back to vodafone immediately who i should never have left in the first place and then these bunch of bastards slapped a 200 euro cessation charge on our account. I may well have to pay this but it is smug eircom who will get caught in the end as i would go without a phone or broadband before i ever go near <removed> again and i would advise every consumer in this recession we have and even if the boom comes back to do likewise

I accept it is my own fault as i should have read the small print, big mistake but i was promised a better deal and that clearly didn't fruition. as a consumer people should have more flexibility in the market.
<removed the rest>

jor el

I have had to edit all the profanity and libel from your post. Don't post like this again.

Deleted User wrote: »

It is very important that you read the T & Cs <removed> they have fixed contracts and early cessation charges so if you are not happy with them and change you pay for the remainder of the year you are not using.

This applies to all services that you buy, not just Broadband, and not just from eircom. There are always contracts, and both parties must honour them.

Deleted User wrote: »

I accept it is my own fault as i should have read the small print

I really wonder how it is you can accept that you made the mistake, and yet try to pin all the blame on eircom. eircom held you to a contract termination penalty that you agreed to up front. How is that in any way their fault? If you had issues with the service, then there would have been options available to you, but obviously you didn't bother to even look.

Look people do get caught, and should be warned in advanced not to make same mistakes so you can come off your high horse there Mister. There is alot of companies out there with no fixed contract that would be better to go with and that's not libel, that's fact.

This company pestered me for months with calls offering me a better deal and when i went ahead with it this is what happened. hand up its my fault but the readers on boards should be advised not to follow suit. were in a recession and how this company can justify their call charges is beyond me. i would have been glad to stay with them one year if their product did exactly what it said on the tin, but it didn't.

We switched in early Sept and got an initial line rental up front bill. As well as that, on getting our first bill in Oct we canceled the service. the bill in oct was the first to include both calls charges and line rental so therefore that should constitute our initial bill as it gives the customers chance to gauge the service. if we feel the service is too expensive then we should have the chance to walk away which we did.

Sponge Bob

better deal than what, did you get an offer in writing ??

cml387

http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/Hot_Topics/ConsumerValue/Telecommunications/broadband.html

I think that fixed term contracts are the default in most telecom contracts now.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote: »

better deal than what, did you get an offer in writing ??

In general just a better bundle then my existing company as i'm with Setanta which you get free with Eircom so i took that into account.

fixed contracts are well and good but the service was way more expensive then anticipated

cml387

cml387 wrote: »

http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/Hot_Topics/ConsumerValue/Telecommunications/broadband.html

I think that fixed term contracts are the default in most telecom contracts now.

I was with Vodafone less then a year and i didn't get stung.

jor el

Deleted User wrote: »

Look people do get caught, and should be warned in advanced not to make same mistakes so you can come off your high horse there Mister. There is alot of companies out there with no fixed contract that would be better to go with and that's not libel, that's fact.

You know full well what was in your original post, and the potentially libellous comments, and it has nothing to do with there being a contract or the term of that contract, so don't play the wounded party here as it's not going to wash.

Deleted User wrote: »

if we feel the service is too expensive then we should have the chance to walk away which we did.

You can see all the charges up front by simply looking at the website. You do not have the right to pull out of the contract afterwards, simply because you didn't do your research up front, and you should not have that right either.

jor el

jor el wrote: »

You know full well what was in your original post, and the potentially libellous comments, and it has nothing to do with there being a contract or the term of that contract, so don't play the wounded party here as it's not going to wash.

im not playing any wounded party. hopefully people will read this and think twice about Eircom. Granted in hindsight i opened the thread in frustration and in the wrong frame of mind but i couldn't care less what washes with you or not to be quite frank and honest. God will be my judge not you

AlmightyCushion

You should count yourself lucky you only had to pay €200 to cancel, a lot of companies insist you buy out your whole contract.

rob808

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You should count yourself lucky you only had to pay €200 to cancel, a lot of companies insist you buy out your whole contract.

yea true stay away from imagine terrible company to deal with i was with them but there broadband didnt work well but charge me the 200 euro and my bill for leaving them and then came back and said we owed them more terrible terrible company avoid like mad.

jor el

Deleted User wrote: »

hopefully people will read this and think twice about Eircom.

Why, because eircom did something wrong here? No. Is it because eircom are the only company that use contracts? No, every company uses contracts. Is it because eircom is the only company that applies a charge for breech of contract? No, every company does that too.

Yes, hopefully people will read this, and realise that your biased and inaccurate view of eircom should be ignored, and they should instead base the decision to use or not use eircom on actual reality. There are enough reasons not to chose eircom without making up nonsense about them.

Deleted User wrote: »

God will be my judge not you

I honestly have no idea why you would say that.

Cabaal

Honestly I find it shocking that dispite openly admitting that they didn't read the contract they somehow will try to justify that they are not at fault when the company they leave charges them a buyout fee.

If a user finds the bill too high then they shouldn't have ordered the service in the first place as its clear they are incapable of doing a little bit of research using all the information that the company makes available on-line.

There is alot of companies out there with no fixed contract that would be better to go with and that's not libel, that's fact.

I'm curious to see examples of these companys, care to advise what ADSL providers in Ireland offer NO fixed contracts? If your going to say something back it up please

Bohrio

hehehe

People never learn...

Dublin_Gunner

Deleted User wrote: »

... i would advise every consumer in this recession

...to read the T&C's before blindly signing up to a contract?

Surely you knew the contract would be on a rolling 12 month basis - as per most contracts. And surely common sense would have made you realise that breaking this contract would involve penalties.

Your rant is unwarranted. You should instead look to why your bill was so high.

Cantona's Collars

Basic common sense is that you read the t+c's,did they not tell you there was a 7 day cooling off period which you could have availed of?
The charges do seem very high unless you were hammering the phone usage.I've heard of something similar regarding huge bills after Eircom had promised free reconnection and no fees with the bill being set at €42 p.m including free off peak landline calls with 30 mins to mobiles per month.The person that signed up got a bill of €195 even though they didn't use the phone.You might have an argument regarding the billing but in fairness read the terms of the contract before signing up for anything.

Cabaal

Cabaal wrote: »

I'm curious to see examples of these companys, care to advise what ADSL providers in Ireland offer NO fixed contracts? If your going to say something back it up please

i didn't incur this charge with Vodafone.

AlmightyCushion

Deleted User wrote: »

i didn't incur this charge with Vodafone.

How long were you with vodafone? If it was more than 12 months then that would explain why you didn't.

AlmightyCushion

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

How long were you with vodafone? If it was more than 12 months then that would explain why you didn't.

actually less, 8 months

AlmightyCushion

Deleted User wrote: »

actually less, 8 months

You got lucky. Vodafone have a 12 month contract and as part of their terms and conditions they require you to buy out the rest of your contract.

AlmightyCushion

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You got lucky. Vodafone have a 12 month contract and as part of their terms and conditions they require you to buy out the rest of your contract.

might be just a new thing. wont be leaving Vodafone this time and dont know why i left it in first place they a decent company. i found eircom alot more expensive for similar usage.

lets be honest there is so much in these terms and conditions that its hard to remember everything if you did read them and you don't imagine there would be such a significant difference in bill prices until its too late to do anything about it.

Shane O' Malley

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You got lucky. Vodafone have a 12 month contract and as part of their terms and conditions they require you to buy out the rest of your contract.

It used to be that the 12 months was only on Eircom's telephone services and not their DSL though this seems to have changed over the last year.

May have been the same with BT/Voda

Shane O' Malley

Shane O' Malley wrote: »

It used to be that the 12 months was only on Eircom's telephone services and not their DSL though this seems to have changed over the last year.

May have been the same with BT/Voda

to be honest i thought in such a saturated market fixed contracts would be a thing of the past. fixed contracts in itself are ok but if you get abnormally huge bills your first instinct will be to change provider and stop giving a company any more of your hard earned money without thinking of the implications.

Bohrio

Deleted User wrote: »

might be just a new thing. wont be leaving Vodafone this time and dont know why i left it in first place they a decent company. i found eircom alot more expensive for similar usage.

lets be honest there is so much in these terms and conditions that its hard to remember everything if you did read them and you don't imagine there would be such a significant difference in bill prices until its too late to do anything about it.

Actually it isnt. Probably the reason why they didnt charge you a cancellation fee is because they didnt want to.

If you are an ISP and you order an Eircom Wholesale product you have two pre-arranged ways of ordering, one way is no minimum contract but you pay a cancellation fee, or, they way vodafone probably has is set up and that is to pay a fix rate fee (if I remember correctly this was be 3-6 months line rental) and no cancellation fee at all...

On average, an ISP pays around 160 euro per new customer (for an in situ line) and 285 euro (for a non in situ line) although this number could have changed recently, havent looked at Eircom IPM and Pricing lately.

jeckle

Deleted User wrote: »

I was there less then a month and a half and two bills totaling €145 came in the door. in haste i went back to vodafone immediately who i should never have left in the first place

As far as I know Eircom charge bi-monthly in advance for broadband & line rental & in arrears for calls.

That plus any connection charge could account for bills for €145.

Shane O' Malley

I suspect that if he did not have the sense to read the terms and conditions, then he prob could not read the bill

Shane O' Malley

Shane O' Malley wrote: »

I suspect that if he did not have the sense to read the terms and conditions, then he prob could not read the bill

Do you know what fair cop, i made a huge mistake but is there any need to get personal?

We get our eircom bills monthly which usually it was bi-monthly and the breakdown is for the month.

Cabaal

Deleted User wrote: »

might be just a new thing.

Fact is its not, you got luck
Vodafone have always had contracts with their ADSL packages, your more then welcome to check this with the official Vodafone reps on the Vodafone forum here on boards.

In relation to your belief that the market is saturated so you expected no long contracts, if the UK is anything to go buy you can expect 18 and 24 month contracts for ADSL in the future.

Infact you can see this happening already with mobile providers in Ireland, Three for example have a 24 month contract for the iPhone (they also have 12), O2 and Vodafone also have 18 month contracts.

As the market gets saturated companys want to hold onto customer's longer, they will do this by keeping them in longer contracts because they know they can't really do it on price in the long term.

lets be honest there is so much in these terms and conditions that its hard to remember everything if you did read them and you don't imagine there would be such a significant difference in bill prices until its too late to do anything about it.

Ignorance however is not an excuse, if that was the case everyone would use it to get out of loan agreements etc, if your over 18 and you agree to a contract then your bound by it and so is the company (it works both ways at the end of the day)

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal or wrong for that matter, sure whats happened has happened now.....

DeepBlue

Tbh I doubt many of the high-horse brigade read the small print either but that doesn't stop them bashing the OP. :rolleyes:
How many, for instance, have read the pages of small print that come with their credit cards or car loans etc.

If I understand correctly the OP was told by eircom that they could offer him a better deal and it turns out, when he/she examined the bills, that it was actually dearer than his previous set up.

In any new build eircom can't even tell you whether your line will support broadband or not. They advise you to install the phone line first and then they'll check if it can handle broadband. Now there might well be good technical reasons for doing this but is it a customer-focused approach? Not on your nelly.

Slippin Jimmy

DeepBlue wrote: »

If I understand correctly the OP was told by eircom that they could offer him a better deal and it turns out, when he/she examined the bills, that it was actually dearer than his previous set up.

.

If eircom said they're offering you a better deal, would you take that at face value? No you wouldn't. You would find out exactly what they are offering you and find out how much it will cost you a month. With regards to the terms of the contract and how long it lasts, it clearly says here that the package is 12 months. Even if the OP ordered over the phone he would have been informed of the 12 month contract. At the end of the day it is the OP's fault, not eircoms.

DeepBlue

Duffff-Man wrote: »

If eircom said they're offering you a better deal, would you take that at face value? No you wouldn't.

I think that there are still a lot of people in the country that (perhaps naively) think that when someone says something to them that the person speaking is being honest and not lying directly into their face.

Slippin Jimmy

DeepBlue wrote: »

I think that there are still a lot of people in the country that (perhaps naively) think that when someone says something to them that the person speaking is being honest and not lying directly into their face.

I very much doubt that eircom lied to the op. Its up to the op to judge wheather or not they are getting a better deal and ultimately it is up to them to choose who they want to go with.

DeepBlue

Duffff-Man wrote: »

I very much doubt that eircom lied to the op.

It wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Creasy_bear

quick question - I rang up eircom recently to switch to the ngb and basically signed up for a 12 month contract.....my Dad now wants to change to upc, I've told him he will have to pay a fee to get out of the contract.

He says he's not paying a thing.....as he never rang/wrote to them to change in the first place.

His name is on the bill

What will happed in this case?

AlmightyCushion

Creasy_bear wrote: »

quick question - I rang up eircom recently to switch to the ngb and basically signed up for a 12 month contract.....my Dad now wants to change to upc, I've told him he will have to pay a fee to get out of the contract.

He says he's not paying a thing.....as he never rang/wrote to them to change in the first place.

His name is on the bill

What will happed in this case?

He'll have to pay a cancellation fee.

Creasy_bear

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

He'll have to pay a cancellation fee.

sure that's ridiculous, I could walk into anyones house take their bill then ring up signing them up for another 12 months and they'd have to pay to get out of it

AlmightyCushion

Creasy_bear wrote: »

sure that's ridiculous, I could walk into anyones house take their bill then ring up signing them up for another 12 months and they'd have to pay to get out of it

What's ridiculous is thinking that someone would actually do that. Seriously if you can walk into someone's house and take a bill then you could probably take their bank statement and various ids and use that for identity theft or just steal everything in the house. Why would you bother changing their broadband package? You signed up for a new package, so it's your fault not eircoms.

DeepBlue

Eircom agreed to a change in the contract between themselves and the bill owner without the consent of the bill owner.
This is eircom's fault.

jor el

Creasy_bear wrote: »

He says he's not paying a thing.....as he never rang/wrote to them to change in the first place.

His name is on the bill

What will happed in this case?

Did you have his permission to make this change? Did eircom know they weren't talking to the account holder, or did you just ring up, give an account number, and let them assume it was your dad? They should never have dealt with you in the first place, unless you pretended to be the account holder, or didn't inform them otherwise. If this is the case, then the contract would seem to be valid from their perspective.

Creasy_bear wrote:

I could walk into anyones house take their bill then ring up signing them up for another 12 months and they'd have to pay to get out of it

It is the account holder's responsibility to protect their account information, as this is how identity theft and fraud occur. If someone calls up, and presents enough information to be considered the account holder, then eircom have no reason to believe that it's not the account holder.

DeepBlue wrote:

This is eircom's fault

If eircom were under the reasonable belief that they were talking to the account holder, then it's the fault of the person that fraudulently obtained this information and changed an account that they did not hold themselves.

DeepBlue

jor el wrote: »

If eircom were under the reasonable belief that they were talking to the account holder, then it's the fault of the person that fraudulently obtained this information and changed an account that they did not hold themselves.

Afaik eircom pull up the account information when give the account and/or telephone number and ask are you <bill holder name>.
Presumably Creasy_bear was asked this and said yes.
Tbh that's a pretty flimsy way to come to a "reasonable belief" that Creasy_bear was the account holder. Surely there are better ways to do it.
Eircom (or any other company) wouldn't tolerate weak practices like that if they were the ones losing out financially.

It would be interesting to see what happens if Greasy_bear's dad sticks to his guns and maintains that he never authorised the change to NGB.

jor el

DeepBlue wrote: »

Tbh that's a pretty flimsy way to come to a "reasonable belief" that Creasy_bear was the account holder. Surely there are better ways to do it.

Perhaps, but if you look at it from the point of view of actual account holders, they'd get fairly pissed off if there was an inquisition every time you had to talk to customer care. Giving the account number and phone number, and verifying the name and address on the account is reasonable information to give.

DeepBlue wrote: »

It would be interesting to see what happens if Greasy_bear's dad sticks to his guns and maintains that he never authorised the change to NGB.

If the account holder sticks to the story that he did not authorise the payment, then the one that committed fraud on the account (Creasy_Bear) could find himself in an awful lot of trouble. If eircom wish to charge a fee for early contract termination, I think it would be best for Creasy_bear to accept this and pay it himself. That's of course if the situation is as I have assumed it to be.

If eircom were aware that they were not talking to the account holder, and that the account holder had not given permission for the requested change to be made, then they should never have accepted the order, and would be 100% at fault.

Slippin Jimmy

Eircom have always asked me if I was the bill payer, more than likely asked this poster. They can't discuss anything unless its the bill payer on the phone. I would imagine that you will have to pay out the contract.

TheBunk1

So OP, basically you are just having a general rant about eircom because they billed you for what you owed them. You give details of neither your previous or current deal or price differences between the two. What was the better deal you were promised and why didn't it come to fruition?

If there was a problem with the service the first thing any reasonable person would do is contact the provider to try and sort it out, not jump ship without notifying anyone about it.

You say it was your own fault and you went back to VF in haste, but eircom are to blame? Bizarre.

Creasy_bear

jor el wrote: »

Perhaps, but if you look at it from the point of view of actual account holders, they'd get fairly pissed off if there was an inquisition every time you had to talk to customer care. Giving the account number and phone number, and verifying the name and address on the account is reasonable information to give.



If the account holder sticks to the story that he did not authorise the payment, then the one that committed fraud on the account (Creasy_Bear) could find himself in an awful lot of trouble. If eircom wish to charge a fee for early contract termination, I think it would be best for Creasy_bear to accept this and pay it himself. That's of course if the situation is as I have assumed it to be.

If eircom were aware that they were not talking to the account holder, and that the account holder had not given permission for the requested change to be made, then they should never have accepted the order, and would be 100% at fault.

tbh I can't remember if I said I was him or not. What I may have said is that I was his son but I actually pay for the broadband part of the bill.

TheBunk1

TheBunk1 wrote: »

So OP, basically you are just having a general rant about eircom because they billed you for what you owed them. You give details of neither your previous or current deal or price differences between the two. What was the better deal you were promised and why didn't it come to fruition?

If there was a problem with the service the first thing any reasonable person would do is contact the provider to try and sort it out, not jump ship without notifying anyone about it.

You say it was your own fault and you went back to VF in haste, but eircom are to blame? Bizarre.

i just eircom are promising things on the big print that they clearly cant deliver on. to be honest id have been better i just stayed put and not believed the eircom bulls*it in the first place. At least VF charge what they say they are going to charge. you can call me bias but im only talking from my experience with them.

Cabaal

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

What's ridiculous is thinking that someone would actually do that. Seriously if you can walk into someone's house and take a bill then you could probably take their bank statement and various ids and use that for identity theft or just steal everything in the house. Why would you bother changing their broadband package? You signed up for a new package, so it's your fault not eircoms.

Whilst I can see your point unless Eircom properly verified the person calling then if they made a change to the account without doing so it would be breach of DPA.

Of course if the person calling claimed to be the bill payer and knew all the account details then thats another matter altogether.

Cabaal

Creasy_bear wrote: »

tbh I can't remember if I said I was him or not. What I may have said is that I was his son but I actually pay for the broadband part of the bill.

Eircom don't care if monkeys pay for the mobile calls on the bill, as far as they are concerned there is a persons name on the account and that is who the account holder is.

If you believe you said you were the account holders son and they still made the change then you could stick to your guns and when push comes to shove go about requesting the call recording so that you can confirm that they didn't follow DPA.

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

Eircom don't care if monkeys pay for the mobile calls on the bill, as far as they are concerned there is a persons name on the account and that is who the account holder is.

If you believe you said you were the account holders son and they still made the change then you could stick to your guns and when push comes to shove go about requesting the call recording so that you can confirm that they didn't follow DPA.

You could always ask if they had a recording of the call.

It seems strange that the op hasn't got a better memory of the call to Eircom? It also seems strange not to discuss such a move with parents before making such a call.

We often see isps on here criticised for being "intransigent" now we see them being criticised for apparently not being intransigent enough.