Dodgy Eir salesman

Gwynston

Having waited 18 months for our nearest cabinet to be upgraded to eFibre only to then realise it would be no use to us as we're more than 2km away, I'd given up any hope we might get more than our regular paltry 1MB broadband.

Then last month an Eircom salesman in his shiny newly-liveried van called at our door asking if we'd like better broadband speeds. I'd like to think I'm technically savvy, so was immediately skeptical, but he spun a line that other vendors would only ever offer "up to 3MB" (which is the max on our line) whereas Eir could guarantee 3MB by "allocating us a dedicated port on the exchange".

Interested, I continued the conversation as he was offering a discounted bundle which would be better than the hybrid Vodafone bundle we've been on for a while (since they took over Perlico) which wasn't great value.

So it was a good deal to switch anyway, and I asked him more than once, "can you really guarantee 3MB?". He assured me he could, and in fact Mr. Paddy Murphy across the road (he gave me his real name) was getting that on the same line.

So I decided to switch, and of course we're getting exactly the same broadband speed of 1MB we got before... :mad:

I called Eir (multiple times) and a technical support guy did tests on the line and said it didn't look like we'd be able to get 3MB, but he arranged to send an engineer out to check along our road and in our house.

So the engineer visited and concluded that the max we could ever get was 1.6Mb, but that they always limit it a bit under for stability reasons. When I told him what the sales guy had promised me, he admitted "Yeah, those guys are always getting us into trouble with their wild promises!"

When I asked him about the "dedicated port", he said that was nonsense and that the salesman should not have been promising me faster speed than I'd been getting. I've since spoken to my neighbour across the road and he said their broadband speed is the same as ours and he's actually not even with Eir!

So I've since been in contact with Eir again to complain about the mis-selling I'd been subject to and all they did was ask if I wanted to cancel. I don't really, as I'm on a better package than before, which is discounted initially, but I was hoping for some kind of recompense for the pack of lies I'd been told to get me to switch. But no joy. They did apologise and admitted that the salesman's pitch is wrong as they only ever should say "speeds up to xMB" and not promise anything specific.

I do have the salesman's first name and phone number, and I expect it's on their records who sold me the package (I'm sure he's claimed his commission...) so I'd like some way to make sure this guy's behaviour is investigated. Any ideas?

Niemoj

eirCON at it again it seems!

bk

Never buy anything for a door to door salesman or believe a word out of their mouths.

It is likely this salesman doesn't even work for Eir, they normally work for a third party sales company that Eir contracts out to. The sales people earn their wage based on how many sales they make, so they will usually lie throw their teeth to make a sale.

These people usually only work a very short time for the sales company, before moving on to another company or job. They usually have little or no real knowledge of the actual technical details of the product.

There is probably little point in complaining, they simply don't care.

BTW the same advice goes for all other companies, electricity companies, gas companies, etc. they all do the same thing.

Gwynston

bk wrote: »

It is likely this salesman doesn't even work for Eir, they normally work for a third party sales company that Eir contracts out to.

I don't think so. As I said, he was driving a newly-lliveried van. We even had a chat about how many hundreds of vans they've had to re-paint since the re-branding. He also had access on his tablet to Eir account info and stuff.

This is why I want Eir to know about, and act upon the dodgy deals these employees are peddling...

bk

Gwynston wrote: »

I don't think so. As I said, he was driving a newly-lliveried van. We even had a chat about how many hundreds of vans they've had to re-paint since the re-branding. He also had access on his tablet to Eir account info and stuff.

This is why I want Eir to know about, and act upon the dodgy deals these employees are peddling...

Doesn't mean anything, the majority of Eir vans you see are driven by subcontractors, not Eir staff. They just use the Eir branding and of course have access to the Eir systems to make it look like their are official staff.

ED E

BKs right, the salesman works for Syncro or CPS or one of the others, not eir.

Everyone has a dedicated port in the exchange, you cant share a DSLAM port :pac:

Gwynston

ED E wrote: »

BKs right, the salesman works for Syncro or CPS or one of the others, not eir.

If you say so. I'm surprised he had a repainted van just a couple of weeks after the re-brand.

ED E wrote: »

Everyone has a dedicated port in the exchange, you cant share a DSLAM port :pac:

Yeah, that's what the engineer told me. I guess I fell for the salesman's bullsh!t... :rolleyes:

ThinkingMonkey

The salesman probably works of a company called CPM Ireland. They are subcontractors for Eir and the people that they use only stay a short while judging by the turnover and job ads that they have. I would suggest suggest ringing CPM directly and complaining about the salesman as you were completely mis sold the product and it may even have been fraudulent. He told you that you were guaranteed a certain speed, a dedicated port and more importantly told you that your neighbour across the road was getting the same speed therefore implying that your neighbour was with Eir. If they start giving you the blowoff tell them that you have talked to your neighbour, that they are not with Eir and that they are none too impressed with their name being used in a fraudulent manner to supposedly endorse their product.

If that doesn't get you anywhere tell them that you will have no problem in detailing the actions of their salesman along with the response by the company and sending that to every single company that CPM work with. Nothing scares the **** out of a company more than threatening a sales subcontractor with notifying the customers that they rely on about their shoddy sales practices.

Gwynston

How do I find out which subcontractor (if any) he was from?

ThinkingMonkey

I would say you should start with CPM Ireland as they are the one's advertising on Jobs.ie at the moment. If it isn't CPM then they might be able to tell you if there are other sales teams with a different company. Ask for the Eir sales department and give them as much info as you can such as the name of the salesman, their telephone number, your address etc. They will know who covers your area and on what day. Ask for the area manager and if they tell you that you should contact eir then tell them that they(cpm) are the one's who are doing the selling and you want to confirm if it is their salesman. They should have all of the info on their system for commission purposes.

Don't get stuck into them straight away and just go along the lines that you are unhappy with the way things went with the call and the subsequent service that you are getting now. If they try to give you a line of BS then you can up the ante a bit more.

editorsean

I must have had that same or similar Eir salesman visit me a few weeks ago, claiming that if I switch to Eir, they will move my line to an uncongested port in the exchange that would guarantee an uncongested 4Mb, no more buffering and so on.

Indeed it was their new Eir van. It nearly got a bump as it started rolling down our steep lane, which the salesman had to dash off for! I'm still in contract with Vodafone, so I finally convinced him I'm not interested when I mentioned I'm also stuck in a contact with Vodafone.

I'm fairly sure if I did switch, it would be a downgrade as I'm currently synced at 5Mb with Vodafone. My downlink noise margin went down from about 15dB to 10dB when the exchange recently got VDSL, which probably explains why the salesman only offered 4Mb and yet he insisted it would be much better than what I'm currently getting!

Pity my fixed wireless connection is acting up as I would have loved to show him the ~20Mb speed I was getting off that during the day earlier in the year.

Gwynston

editorsean wrote: »

I must have had that same or similar Eir salesman visit me a few weeks ago, claiming that if I switch to Eir, they will move my line to an uncongested port in the exchange that would guarantee an uncongested 4Mb, no more buffering and so on.

Sounds familiar!
Where are you? I'm in the Claregalway area north of Galway city.
Because if you're not in the same area, it sounds suspiciously like a line being peddled by multiple salesman, which would be even worse... :eek:

editorsean wrote: »

I'm fairly sure if I did switch, it would be a downgrade as I'm currently synced at 5Mb with Vodafone.

What does that mean? (sorry for my ignorance...)

editorsean

Gwynston wrote: »

Sounds familiar!
Where are you? I'm in the Claregalway area north of Galway city.
Because if you're not in the same area, it sounds suspiciously like a line being peddled by multiple salesman, which would be even worse... :eek:

I'm in the south west of Co. Donegal. Like you, he also mentioned about my neighbour already moving to the same package, but I don't think he mentioned their name.

Gwynston wrote: »

What does that mean? (sorry for my ignorance...)

My router is currently connected at 5Mb down with my Vodafone DSL connection. As the salesman claimed to offer me 4Mb, I'm fairly sure if I made the switch, my connection would have been dropped to 4Mb.

Gwynston

editorsean wrote: »

I'm in the south west of Co. Donegal. Like you, he also mentioned about my neighbour already moving to the same package, but I don't think he mentioned their name.

So potentially that's 2 blatant lies being consistently peddled by salesmen in different parts of the country... :mad:

editorsean wrote: »

My router is currently connected at 5Mb down with my Vodafone DSL connection. As the salesman claimed to offer me 4Mb, I'm fairly sure if I made the switch, my connection would have been dropped to 4Mb.

Oh, OK. I was only ever getting the same 1MB with Vodafone anyway.

I think the package Eir are selling is "up to 8MB" so I'm surprised he was only offering you 4MB when your line can clearly handle more.
5MB is actually pretty good - are you in a rural location like me? I'm only 2.7km from a recently eFibre-enabled cabinet and can still only get 1MB...

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Get onto comreg. Eircon are a shower of twats. Nothing but trouble with them.

editorsean

Gwynston wrote: »

5MB is actually pretty good - are you in a rural location like me? I'm only 2.7km from a recently eFibre-enabled cabinet and can still only get 1MB...

That's a real bummer considering you are nearer to the exchange than me. I'm 3.8km going by the driving distance on Google maps from my house to the exchange and am in a rural location also, occasionally with sheep or cows looking in the kitchen window.

L1011

Sales staff are taught the lies to use, with the company always blaming a rogue salesman that's no longer with them if called out on it. How all utilities work

ScumLord

We're a corporate customer of Eir, we can't get them on the phone, we can't get support, they literally just ignore their customers at every level. So don't just blame the sales guy, it's the entire company from top to bottom.

Isn't it typical of eircom to change their their to something even more vague? Eir? What's that supposed to even mean? I called them one time and they actually told me they don't stock phones ( I was looking for a spare phone because the one they handed to me broke had broken down for the 2nd time). I think they don't actually want business from anyone, so made their name more vague so people would stop annoying their automated customer rejection system.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

The sooner the better this company goes under. Sorry for all the good staff that work there, but I don't think there's that many. I have yet to deal with a competent staff member from Eircom,Eir, whatever.

dub45

ThinkingMonkey wrote: »

I would say you should start with CPM Ireland as they are the one's advertising on Jobs.ie at the moment. If it isn't CPM then they might be able to tell you if there are other sales teams with a different company. Ask for the Eir sales department and give them as much info as you can such as the name of the salesman, their telephone number, your address etc. They will know who covers your area and on what day. Ask for the area manager and if they tell you that you should contact eir then tell them that they(cpm) are the one's who are doing the selling and you want to confirm if it is their salesman. They should have all of the info on their system for commission purposes.

Don't get stuck into them straight away and just go along the lines that you are unhappy with the way things went with the call and the subsequent service that you are getting now. If they try to give you a line of BS then you can up the ante a bit more.

The point is thought that they are acting on behalf of Eir and the onus is on Eir to ensure that people representing them do not mis-sell the products or services. So complaints should be made to Eir.

colm_mcm

Gwynston wrote: »

How do I find out which subcontractor (if any) he was from?

That would be CPM.
These techniques you've mentioned are trained and commonplace. I have experience of this, and the things those guys do to get a sale would shock you.

CPM stands for Counter Product Marketing - which is apt, given how counter-productive a lot of their marketing is.

ED E

Selling on the doorstep doesnt make sense. The only way it works is lies and deceit. You complain to eir or Vodafone or Sky(they all do it), they complain to the contractor. The contractor does nothing because both sides know if they were honest they'd make 1% of their current sales and thats against both their interests.

Only way this **** stops is if we consumers slam the door in their faces.

Gwynston

FWIW, I posted my experience on the Eir community forum and got the following response from an Eir representitive:

You are correct, this type of behavior is unacceptable and this feedback should indeed be escalated to the salesmans' manager. Please PM me your eir account number and all the details you have for him and I will ensure this is investigated and treated internally. I will also raise this for consideration of a good will gesture.

It's also important to note that Sincere apologies are clearly in order for the inconvenience and false help this experience created.
Thank you

So I've passed on the salesman's info, and we'll see what comes from it...

colm_mcm

You won't really get anywhere this way I'm afraid. I'd try comreg.

TireeTerror

ED E wrote: »

Selling on the doorstep doesnt make sense. The only way it works is lies and deceit. You complain to eir or Vodafone or Sky(they all do it), they complain to the contractor. The contractor does nothing because both sides know if they were honest they'd make 1% of their current sales and thats against both their interests.

Only way this **** stops is if we consumers slam the door in their faces.

I disagree with this. Not every sales person will be telling you lies.

There are many people, especially the more elderly who are on old packages that are very expensive and they could get an upgrade in speed for a cheaper price. I know of people who have been paying Eir for telephone handset rental, despite not having used an Eir handset for 15 years!

You just have to be careful at the door, read all the small print and do not feel pressured into making a decision straight away. Typically listen to the sale guy and see if there is something good on offer, then if you are unsure you could just thank them for the info and tell them you will think about it. If they have a bad attitude with you for not doing it straight away, then thank them for the info and tell them you will go online to the companies website and sign up there.

ED E

I'd be pretty confident that you're in the extreme minority if you believe that the practices as a whole arent extremely shady.

If a law was passed that they had to record the conversation like telesales people do I suspect many of the firms would close up shop overnight.

ItHurtsWhenIP

ED E wrote: »

I'd be pretty confident that you're in the extreme minority if you believe that the practices as a whole arent extremely shady.

If a law was passed that they had to record the conversation like telesales people do I suspect many of the firms would close up shop overnight.

I totally agree with this.

editorsean

I didn't realise until I checked that there's a 14 cooling off period even with doorstep salespeople, but only if you don't ask for the service to begin immediately, as quoted here from the Consumer Help website article:

You have the right to cancel the contract within fourteen days. This is known as the “cooling-off” period. There are some exceptions when the cooling off period does not apply. For example, if you have asked for the service to begin immediately you waive the right to the cooling off period. - See more at: http://www.consumerhelp.ie/services-contracts#at%20your%20doorstep

So far no further visit here from any Eir salesperson. If they do drop by and trying selling me their "superior 5Mb congested product" (like last time), I'll be showing that person a speed test from my 4G connection (using Ookla Speedtest where its often unachievable figures can be very useful) and tell them to beat that.

TireeTerror

ED E wrote: »

I'd be pretty confident that you're in the extreme minority if you believe that the practices as a whole arent extremely shady.

If a law was passed that they had to record the conversation like telesales people do I suspect many of the firms would close up shop overnight.

Ive been personally involved in direct selling since 2000, while there are many many dodgy companies, typically smaller agencies that were created by field sales agents who went out on their own to see if they could become a decent agency themselves, there are still a decent number that follow the rules.

I know of agencies, in particular those selling telecoms, who blatantly tell lies and during staff training they flout everything they should in order to obtain more sales. Often the field agents do not even know they are telling lies, because they may have known little about the product before working there.

There are also agencies who are absolutely rigid in enforcing the letter of the law, they have contracts that require compliance complaints to be below a certain level and they would have their contract terminated if complaints continued. Some of the larger energy suppliers do not mess about. I am not permitted to state particular company names due to NDA in my own contracts, but the entire industry is certainly not as bad as you may think.

A big problem comes from the mere fact agents are paid based upon sales performance, so clearly they will have a personal incentive to gain as many new customers as possible, and it is an impossible task for any agency/company to stop lies being told if an agent does it of their own back.

I know that the Eir training for CPM is corrupt. I actually sent someone there to go through the training to see what it was like. They are told that the speeds are, for example 24/70/100Mb. I gave the "new recruit" specific instructions to come across like they didn't know about telecoms and to ask if it was "up to" or if it was guaranteed speeds. The trainer told them that they do not ever say "up to" and instead quote the speed shown on the software for that address.

ED E

I wasnt going to mention names but you've brought up public enemy number one there.

The problem is profit margins in retail BB are pretty crap. ISPs won't/can't pay for a top dollar service for well trained reps with lower yields (due to the lack of lying). There is no unique selling point, if you're selling eir its vodafone + €5. Selling vodafone its either yes cheaper or 30yr TE vet who doesnt want to move. Sky and Vodafone are very on par.

TBH I'd love some examples of an industry/product that sells better with door to door than it does with Telesales/other with 100% honesty. Pre internet it made a lot of sense, now I'm very skeptical.

TireeTerror

ED E wrote: »

I wasnt going to mention names but you've brought up public enemy number one there.

The problem is profit margins in retail BB are pretty crap. ISPs won't/can't pay for a top dollar service for well trained reps with lower yields (due to the lack of lying). There is no unique selling point, if you're selling eir its vodafone + €5. Selling vodafone its either yes cheaper or 30yr TE vet who doesnt want to move. Sky and Vodafone are very on par.

TBH I'd love some examples of an industry/product that sells better with door to door than it does with Telesales/other with 100% honesty. Pre internet it made a lot of sense, now I'm very skeptical.

As I said I cannot name specifics, but lets say there is an energy supplier whose awards conference I attended when they obtained their 500,000th customer. I still have the cup somewhere around here! In that particular event which was in 2011 if I remember correctly, it was clearly stated that over 80% of all of their sales had come as a result of direct selling door to door, the rest was obtained by telesales, internet signups and stands in shopping centres.

I remember back around 2005 when you started to get the odd customer now and again who would refuse to sign up at the door as a matter of policy and they would do everything online. At that stage online info was pretty scarce and suppliers wouldn't dare to offer better discounts for online sales for fear of losing their agencies. Of course nowadays the suppliers feel they are in a strong enough position to dictate a bit more and they typically offer better rates if you sign yourself up online. Sure plenty of people do sign up online, but still thew vast majority of all energy sales come from direct selling door to door. Telesales has its place, but the amount they close is small in comparison to door to door.

Loads of times when I've spoken to customers to find out they have switched before, but not for a long time. When I inform them their discount likely only lasted for 12/18/24 months and they would now probably be on standard rates, they nearly all said they did realise that. When I then ask why they have not changed themselves before now, typically they forgot, couldn't be bothered, always meant to get around to it, etc etc etc. The door to door guy basically takes control and helps them finally get around to it. You don't even have to be very good at selling in those circumstances, just a pleasant non-offensive individual!