Meteor Customer Care lied??!!

squidgee

I haven't been on here in donkeys but I'm at my wits end a little and I know there's a bunch of very helpful people here so here's my issue for those of you who take the time to read it;

I entered a 18 month contract with Meteor back in Dec 2010. It was a smart 50 plan-€50 a month and a HTC for 30 quid or something like that. I didn't get insurance at the time (learned my lesson there) and shortly into my contract my phone got water damaged so I wasn't entitled to a replacement. Fair enough.

I was aware that sometimes phone companies offer upgrades before your contract expires so I give them a buzz sometime in January.
I explained my situation- that I've been a customer with them for years etc, how i'm paying a bill for something I cant even use (data allowance etc) as I don't have a phone capable of browsing the net. I'm also paying a minimum of €70 a bill every month. This month's one was €100 for some reason!

The guy on the phone said the earliest we could give you an upgrade is the 12 Feb and I said great-how would I go about getting it? He said just call into a store and they'll sort you out. I was happy enough with that and popped in today.

The girl in the shop said I wasn't due one till April the 10th and said she didn't know why Customer Care said otherwise. She then rang them and according to their system I wasn't due one until June at the earliest. The girl in the shop said there's nothing she can do.

I'm paying a fortune on a contract with plans that I can't avail of and I've been a customer for years. Do I have any options at all? Would the initial phone call to customer care of been recorded?


(I'm also unsure if this should be in "Consumer Issues" or here, so sorry if I'm in the wrong place!)

Sam Vimes

You could try the direct sales upgrade line, they can give early upgrades. The number is 1800777085

kirving

Well to be fair, you signed up in the knowledge that you wouldn't be entitled to an upgrade until the contract expired. It sucks losing your phone however. If your bill is really so high, it doesn't seem suited to your needs. Unlimited seems like a better option.

uppishhauk

what meteor do when it comes to early upgrades is look at your last 3 bills and get an average
depending on the amount spent they decide if an early upgrade is possible

generally the are 3 brakets as in
one months early
two months early
and
three months early

a person could be half way through their contract and want an upgrade, they won't qualify but going by their last 3 bills they might when there is 3 months left
but if the person uses the phone less between now and then the average of the last 3 months will drop and they might not qualify for the upgrade anymore

usually the agent will word it something like "I'm sorry but we can't process an upgrade for you at this time in your contract, but going by your usage we could possibly give you an upgrade in [insert month here] but I can't guarantee it, your best option is to call back in [insert month here] and check again"

but sadly some agents just say out right that you will get one when they don't know if you will or not:mad:

squidgee

Cheers guys, will try the Direct Sales line.
@Kevin-I'm completely aware what I signed up for and the consequences of such.
As I said I was aware that sometimes companies offer early upgades & hence I contacted them.
My issue is with their miss-information, I shouldnt have been given 3 different dates for an upgrade!
Thanks for the replies
x

squidgee

uppishhauk wrote: »

what meteor do when it comes to early upgrades is look at your last 3 bills and get an average
depending on the amount spent they decide if an early upgrade is possible

generally the are 3 brakets as in
one months early
two months early
and
three months early

a person could be half way through their contract and want an upgrade, they won't qualify but going by their last 3 bills they might when there is 3 months left
but if the person uses the phone less between now and then the average of the last 3 months will drop and they might not qualify for the upgrade anymore

usually the agent will word it something like "I'm sorry but we can't process an upgrade for you at this time in your contract, but going by your usage we could possibly give you an upgrade in [insert month here] but I can't guarantee it, your best option is to call back in [insert month here] and check again"

but sadly some agents just say out right that you will get one when they don't know if you will or not:mad:

Cheers!!
Have a better understanding now, You seem to be speaking from experience!?

Freemasonry

Meteor is useless, get ready for lies after lies when speaking to their customer care team.

ben101

Had a similar situation with meteor on pay as you go.Have a decent little smartphone and wanted to get it unlocked so was keeping tabs on amount i topped up by,has to be 130 euro or something like that.Despite topping up regularly,each time i rang the total amount credited to the phone kept on going DOWN!?!?I eventually lost it and had a shouting match,when i asked the "customer service" agent to check specific dates she said that they weren't on record.I pointed out to her that if she didn't know what i topped up by on certain months ,how the hell could she know if i had reached the limit or not?
After about twenty minutes of saying it would be impossible to give me the codes, i swore to her that whatever the outcome i would not be using meteor ever again,even if i had to pay someone to unlock it.Low and behold ,probably just to get rid of me,she magically produced supposedly impossible to get unlock code.

Sam Vimes

Sorry the number is actually 1800567085, the other one is for new sales not upgrades

I called them the other day because a mistake was made with my plan when I upgraded and I have to say they were very helpful. They immediately acknowledged the mistake, corrected the plan and applied credit for the incorrect months. It remains to be seen if it'll actually happen but the whole process was painless and easy. Fingers crossed

GraySo

I feel your pain Squidgee!
Would like to post this in order to ward people off going with Meteor.
My Meteor Bill Pay contract was due to be finished on February 1st. I initially emailed the customer care team in November through the website to say that I would not be renewing my contract and that I did want to cancel my contract. They then told me I would have to ring the Customer Care team which I did. On the day that I rang, the phone lines were down to the cancellation team so they asked to ring back a month before the contract was due to finish i.e. January 1st. At this time I was in Orlando for 2 weeks during which time I had no Meteor coverage whatsoever and had to wait until I returned to Ireland to ring Meteor which I did on January 8th. They told me that my month's notice was in and my contract would be cancelled. I continued to be charged for February at over €35 even though I had cancelled my contract. I rang and was speaking to Derek (a lovely and helpful member of the team, qualities which seems to be rare) on March the 5th who told me I had to email the cancellations department directly for my contract to be cancelled properly. This was the first time I was told to do this. I did this on this day and yet today a further €35 was taken out of my account!!!! This is after ringing 4 times and emailing twice! None of this is refundable! To add insult to injury, I was told today that I will have to ring back AGAIN in order to receive a refund to the amount I had paid in advance as insurance. I have not used this phone number since December and I am still being charged in March despite all of the above.
I have been with Meteor for over 6 years-never again.
It is a disgrace that in the times we are in that mistakes like this are allowed to be made, that I am still being forced to pay, and all due to the lack of efficiency and competency of staff.