Ongoing issue w/ broadband installation

El Diablo Blanco

Issue began Nov 23rd- it took two weeks to get Eir engineer out to put in “ Efibre Broadband”. 

When he arrived, he stated that the telephone line in the apartment was damaged and we would need to get an electrician to rectify. He didn’t elaborate on the issue, and left without doing anything further.

Phoned Eir to ask what we needed to get the electrician to do when he called. Was told we’d have to wait 24 hrs to get the engineer’s report, which never materialised.

Got electrician out, who demonstrated that the line was fine in the building, and that the Eir engineer was incorrect in identifying the fault as being within the building. Eir engineer should have rectified the fault from road to building.

During all this time, we spent hour after hour on hold to Eir customer support. We were repeatedly cut off, having to phone again each time at considerable cost, and having to explain the situation anew each time. Also had to pay electrician to come out for a fault that did not exist.

We were put back in the queue to get Eir engineer back out,and were told we had an appointment for 22nd of Dec. Subsequently,when we phoned to confirm that the electrician had not found the fault within the building, we were told that the appointment for the 22nd had not been confirmed and we had been put back to 4th Jan. Eventually given date of 31st Dec. Was told that customer care division had not confirmed original date of 22nd so nothing could be done and we would have to wait.

This has been a cause of massive inconvenience, and we have been unable to register a complaint or escalate the matter further. We’ve been unable to pay bills online, and our daughter-in-law has been unable to contact her ill mother in Japan for weeks. 

It appears to be impossible to get anyone at Eir to take ownership of the problem, and we have found the whole experience incredibly disappointing and frustrating. 

Could someone at Eir please take responsibility and seek to resolve this ongoing issue. Thanks. 

El Diablo Blanco

Hi, all.

Can you please assist?

Thanks.

eir: Alan

I am genuinely very sorry to hear this El Diablo Blanco

I can understand your disappointment so do please feel free to PM me your eir account number and I will look in to this further and get back to you within 24hrs.

Thank you

Al

El Diablo Blanco

eir: Alan wrote: »

I am genuinely very sorry to hear this El Diablo Blanco

I can understand your disappointment so do please feel free to PM me your eir account number and I will look in to this further and get back to you within 24hrs.

Thank you

Al

Thanks, Al - PM sent

eir: Alan

Hello El Diablo Blanco


Thank you for your PM


I am very sorry to confirm that the earliest appointment date that can be arranged is the 31st of December. I understand that there have been a number of delays and issues which have contributed to this beyond your control or responsibility however due to the number of orders, Christmas holidays and faults created by the recent storms the scheduling of technicians is full.



I understand this is extremely disappointing for you in consideration that Christmas just around the corner and I sincerely sorry that I can't offer you better news.


Al

El Diablo Blanco

Hi, Alan. I relayed the above to the primary account holder, and his response is copied below.

Cheers.

Hi Alan,
 
Just to clarify - we will be without internet for over a month as a direct result of Eir's repeated system errors and Eir's engineer who was either incompetent or a liar, depending on whether he misdiagnosed a very simple issue or just wasn't bothered to complete a line repair at the time. We are also out of pocket the cost of unnecessarily hiring an electrician as a result of your engineer.

 
Two observations: firstly, despite the above, Eir is not prepared to offer any compensation, either for our out-of-pocket expenses or the massive inconvenience caused by Eir's appalling service. You state an expected turn-around of 10 days, and when your mistakes result in it being at least 31, you offer not even a token effort to make up for it.

 
And secondly, a below poster "tantranksa" reported a line fault and was seen to by an engineer within the same day apparently - this was 2 days ago, at the height of the "storms". So you have the means to send an engineer to a customer's house within the day for a fault, but are not prepared to make a slight effort to help new customers, even when they are being screwed over this much by your ineptitude.
 
Please be advised that this complaint will be escalted to ComReg as your failure to adequately address the issues around our lost time and money is unacceptable.

eir: Alan

I understand your disappointment but I'm afraid I cannot offer you an alternative response or resolutions.

Before raising this with comreg please take note of the following information provided on comregs website:

http://www.askcomreg.ie/tell_us/universal_service_obligation___what_it_means_for_your_phone_service.264.LE.asp

Under "how quickly should eircom connect customers to the network" & please take note where of the following exert " all customers shall be completed within 26 weeks request "

In relation to the fault raised by Tatranska : I will be unable to compare cases here but on the same comreg link it also mentions under "how quickly should eircom be able to repair faults for uso customers" it states the following "all fault repairs should be complete within 10 working days" - Again jist to be clear these are the industry regulations. I do sincerely apologies for the disappointment created.

Al

fedupwitheir

Hello,

I am the primary account holder in this case. I wish to get some clarity on a few points for ComReg's information.

1. A complaint letter was posted to your HSQ office last week regarding this case, to which I have yet to receive any reply. Please provide a complaint reference number for this case so that I can advise ComReg of same.

2. Please acknowledge that Eir's engineer informed us we need to independently hire an electrician to fix a problem before the installation could happen, that we did so at our own expense, and that the electrician informed us that the problem was with the line connecting the property to the outside, and was thus Eir's issue. Please also confirm if Eir's official stance is to ignore this, as I currently have to conclude given your previous lack of any comment on this issue. Is it also within ComReg guidelines to mislead customers into spending their money unnecessarily?

(Also please note separately we were informed by your customer service team last week that we would receive a call within 48 hours regarding (2) and have yet to receive any communication whatsoever).

3. Please confirm the engineer's failure (either technical or professional), along with the cancelled appointment dates on the 17th and 22nd December. A lot of time was spent on the phone to secure these appointments - time which was thus wasted as a result of your system failure. I intend to raise the considerable wasted time on our part due to Eir's poor service quality with ComReg also.

Thanks.

eir: Alan

fedupwitheir wrote: »

Hello,

I am the primary account holder in this case. I wish to get some clarity on a few points for ComReg's information.

1. A complaint letter was posted to your HSQ office last week regarding this case, to which I have yet to receive any reply. Please provide a complaint reference number for this case so that I can advise ComReg of same.

2. Please acknowledge that Eir's engineer informed us we need to independently hire an electrician to fix a problem before the installation could happen, that we did so at our own expense, and that the electrician informed us that the problem was with the line connecting the property to the outside, and was thus Eir's issue. Please also confirm if Eir's official stance is to ignore this, as I currently have to conclude given your previous lack of any comment on this issue. Is it also within ComReg guidelines to mislead customers into spending their money unnecessarily?

(Also please note separately we were informed by your customer service team last week that we would receive a call within 48 hours regarding (2) and have yet to receive any communication whatsoever).

3. Please confirm the engineer's failure (either technical or professional), along with the cancelled appointment dates on the 17th and 22nd December. A lot of time was spent on the phone to secure these appointments - time which was thus wasted as a result of your system failure. I intend to raise the considerable wasted time on our part due to Eir's poor service quality with ComReg also.

Thanks.

Hi fedupwitheir

I will be unable to provide a complaint number for your letter to the HSQ office - this is not the address for complaints and as such will not be responded to. You have already lodged a complaint on this as El Diablo Blanco  confirmed to me by PM which is case reference 2045535 - if comreg ask you for a complaint ref that is it.

As this is the subject of an official complaint I will be unable to further comment on this case which ultimately means I will be unable to address the issues you have raised.

Eir operate a 20 working day official response time-frame to complaints - your complaint was lodged on the 14th of December.

As I mentioned I will be unable to further comment on this case,

Al

fedupwitheir

Hi Al,

In relation to the complaint letter, please note that this was posted to an address in Heuston South Quarter which was provided by a team leader in your customer service department. You are more than welcome to listen back to the recording to confirm this. As such the complaint was lodged last week. It was this same team leader who informed us that we would be contacted within 48 hours regarding the matter of our monetary loss due to Eir's incompetence.

I think it is as plain as day to any and all who are reading this that Eir are completely unwilling to take any responsibility for their failures, or the impact these failings have on real people.

I ask you this personally, Al. Do you think it is an appropriate way to treat customers to waster their time, waste their money, tell them lies, and then fob off the issue into the ether?

Do you think I want to be spending my time pursuing this kind of activity?

fedupwitheir

Also, you're previous post cites this message thread as the official complaint, then proceeds to say you are not going to comment further on this thread.

You also said no-one is going to respond to the letter which I sent to the address provided by yourselves.

So, who exactly is going to be looking after this complaint?

eir: Alan

fedupwitheir wrote: »

Also, you're previous post cites this message thread as the official complaint, then proceeds to say you are not going to comment further on this thread.

You also said no-one is going to respond to the letter which I sent to the address provided by yourselves.

So, who exactly is going to be looking after this complaint?

Hi fedupwitheir

I do genuinely understand your frustration and I see why you would make a complaint however I cannot offer my personal views here.

As I mentioned above, when there is an official complaint lodged on a matter I will be unable to assist with the subject further - I completely understand your views on this but I can assure this is not me simply washing my hands of responsibility - this is a procedure in place that I must follow and such procedures cannot be waived on a case by case basis.

Your complaint (ref 2045535) is now in the hands of the eir official complaints team and will be responded to by a member of this team within 20 days of Monday the 14th of December.



Thanks
Al

fedupwitheir

Hi Al,

Separate from the official complaint, there is one further query I hope you could provide some clarity on.

New customers are subject to a 14 day cooling off period during which they can cancel their contract. Given the situation (I can assure you I am far from cooled off), will Eir intend to levy a cancellation charge should I wish to cancel my account at this stage?

Regards,
fedupwitheir

eir: Alan

fedupwitheir wrote: »

Hi Al,

Separate from the official complaint, there is one further query I hope you could provide some clarity on.

New customers are subject to a 14 day cooling off period during which they can cancel their contract. Given the situation (I can assure you I am far from cooled off), will Eir intend to levy a cancellation charge should I wish to cancel my account at this stage?

Regards,
fedupwitheir

Hi fedupwitheir

I can confirm that as nothing has been installed you are free to cancel this order without charge.

To request cancellation of the order you would need to contact eir cancellations on free phone 1800303600

Thanks
Al