Two months trying to get landline and broadband

tom_hubert

For more than two months, I've been trying to get a broadband-enabled landline working in a house that was disconnected for a few years. No luck so far. Not only has Eircom been unable to provide the service, they have also constantly broken the deadlines they set themselves and fed me misleading information on pricing and what they actually had or had not done.

I'm self-employed and working from home, and this is costing me exorbitant amounts of time and money. Anyone in need of a new install should check whether alternatives to an Eircom landline are available in their area (sadly, it doesn't seem to be the case where I live) and, if not, brace themselves for the following.

If you end up caught in the web of incompetence detailed below, it may be useful to know that the only meaningful feedback I managed to receive from Eircom was after:

- I formally complained to ComReg Consumer Line about the lack of service and to the ASAI about attempts to charge more than the advertised price, and;

- I contacted the press office in my capacity as a journalist.



On January 12, I placed an order online through Eircom's website, while following advice from a sales rep named <SNIP> through the site's live chat feature.

I ordered a new landline for a house without an existing connection and a 12-month DSL broadband contract (I live in a rural area without fibre). The monthly price on offer was €33 for six months, then €53.

I then received a confirmation email with erroneous information. The confirmed order was for an 18-month fibre broadband contract. I only noticed the problem when I received an SMS confirmation for the installation by a technician, which mentioned fibre.

On January 16, I called Eircom's sales department to flag the discrepancies and ask the order to be corrected to a 12-month DSL contract. After lengthy transfers to multiple correspondents, who each had to ask for detailed information and take several minutes to find my order, I was told that corrections could not be made to my order and it had to be cancelled. I could not place a new order until January 19, when the cancellation was complete.

On January 19, I called Eircom's sales department to place a new order. I was again transferred to multiple people, each of whom had to restart the process from scratch, until a serviceable sales rep named <SNIP> finally put me on hold to clarify the matter with his superiors. He told me he was only authorised to offer me a 12-month DSL contract for €43 per month for six months, then €53. He added that the €33 price for the first six months was only available to customers who committed to an 18-month contract.

When I insisted that the advertised price was €33 for the first six months, he said the only way to proceed was to place the order at €43 and try to obtain the advertised price from the Loyalty department after the order went through. Given no other option, I accepted and was attributed a phone number and an installation date of February 3.

On January 29, I called Eircom's loyalty team. I waited for several minutes for a rep named <SNIP> to search for my order. She finally told me that the order had not yet gone through and therefore could not be amended. She added that she would amend the order to reflect the advertised price of €33 for the first six months instead of €43, but only if I called her back after the line was installed.

She also said that this could only be done over the phone and that the Loyalty team could not be contacted in writing about this issue.

As Eircom's terms and conditions state that "The Customer may cancel the Order for the Facility at any time prior to the Ready For Service date", this means that I have to commit to the contract and forego my right to cancel the order without having any formal confirmation that I will pay the advertised price. This is clearly abusive to consumers.

As a professional working from home, I also requested a call back from Eircom's business website on January 16, to see if I could get a better service that way. I was promised that someone would contact me within two working days, and received a confirmation email. Nobody has contacted me so far. I was also given a phone number for urgent enquiries. I called that number on January 20 and gave up after nobody picked up for 8 minutes.

Eircom gave me a phone call on January 16 to say that the current price for my package for the first six months was now €38 (yet another price!) but they accepted that the advertised price when I first ordered was €33, so they will bulk-credit to my first bill €60 to reflect the €5 difference over the 12-month duration of the contract. This means I would still get fleeced if I stayed with them longer that 12 months, but at this stage there is little chance of that happening.

On February 3, engineers from KN networks came to install the line, but they said they could not do it because the line that was previously attached to my house was diverted to serve other customers while nobody lived here for a few years.

KN said a team with more than 2 people would need to come to install an entire new line from the nearest road and gave us another appointment on February 6. My wife and I arranged to be at the house all day but they did not show up.

On February 10, another KN team came back (with two men only) and finally installed the line. It was immediately followed by a visit by an Eircom technician who needed to access the pole on our property because the KN visit had resulted in our neighbour's disconnection.

I understood from previous conversations with the Eircom sales team that I would receive my broadband modem by post within 3 to 5 days.

Ihad to go way for a few days and when I came back on February 27, the modem had not arrived. My in-laws receive our post when we are away and we know we did not miss it.

I called 1901 on that day and an Eircom customer service agent told me there was no record that I had ordered broadband. They put me through to sales.

The sales agent confirmed there was no record of my broadband order. He said I currently was on a €33/month plan with weekend and evening landline calls included but without broadband. I had never ordered such a plan.

He said he was placing an order for a 12-month broadband contract for me, at €38 per month for 6 months, then €53. I confirmed, on the basis that the promise of a rebate on my first bill to reflect the increase in price since I first ordered still stands.

At that point, ComReg consumer line raised the case with Eircom and an Eircom complaints agent called <SNIP> called me on March 10 in the evening. I later received an email from Eircom on March 13 indicating that my complaint was being handled by their dedicated Complaints Team under the reference <SNIP>.

<SNIP> said a modem was dispatched to me by post on March 4, but as I still hadn't received it, he would check again the next day and send another one if needed.

<SNIP> called me again on March 11. There was still no modem so he said another one would be delivered by courier on March 12.

On March 12, the GLS courier driver called asking for directions to my house. When he could not find it readily, he decided to reschedule the delivery for the next day.

On March 13, GLS delivered the modem early in the afternoon. I plugged it in as instructed and the DSL light failed to light up. I connected to the wi-fi with my computer and a page came up indicating that there was no DSL connection. I have no landline phone (I have little interest in landline calls, what I need is broadband), but I borrowed a functioning one from a neighbour and plugged it into the phone outlet of the DSL filter: there was no tone.

I also plugged the phone directly into the recently installed Eircom wall socket: no tone either.

I called Eircom on 1901 at 3pm and the system ran an automated test, then indicated that a fault had been logged on my line and I would be contacted about it. There was no indication of what was needed to fix it and nobody contacted for the rest of the day.

I called Eircom customer service immediately after the test to try to talk to <SNIP> about this. I was told that I could not be put through to <SNIP> because other agents "do not have a phone number for him". They said they were alerting him by email, asking him to call me back. I didn't hear from him for the rest of the day.

I then contacted Eircom customer service on Twitter. An agent called <SNIP> twitted back : "I'll send him on an email for you now, I can see a fault has been logged & sent to a crew as a priority so we will do our best to have this resolved as quickly as possible."

I tried to obtain further details on whether a visit was needed and when - to no avail.

I'm now concerned that successive KN and Eircom technicians may have simply switched my line back and forth between me and my neigbours. This concern is based on the following facts:

- When KN first came, they said a team with more than 2 people would need to come to install an entire new line from the nearest road because our former line had been diverted to serve the neighbours' new house;

- The next visit by KN consisted in two men only. It was immediately followed by a visit by an Eircom technician who needed to access the pole on our property because the KN visit had resulted in the neighbour's disconnection.

- I never had a chance to test the line after the Eircom technician came as I had no phone or modem available – it may well have been disconnected ever since.

On March 16, I called 1901 and an automated message said that the fault was expected to be fixed within 4 working days. With St Patrick’s days, this means another full week.

dudara

Closing this thread as you have a duplicate thread in the Talk to Eircom forum.

dudara