Eircom/UTV Cockup

Delphi91

Hi all,

My girlfriend changed over to UTVTalk back in September 2004.

Yesterday she got her bill from Eircom (Yes, both of us are still paying Eircom separately for our line rental 4-5 months after we were supposed to have Single billing with UTV!!!). Anyway, she was a bit perturbed to find that Eircom were charging her for calls which should have been covered under UTVTalk scheme. So she rang Eircom today.

Seems that as a result of contacting Eircom back in Novemeber to get a spelling mistake on her bill corrected (they called her Mr instead of Ms!) they disconnected her from UTVTalk and started charging her for calls again. It transpires that when she made the change it came up as an automatic transfer request. Eircom were supposed to send a "Churn File" on to UTV to initiate the transfer back, but never did. On contacting UTV, they said that they would re-assign her account back to UTV, but it would take 2-3 weeks. Both Eircom and UTV seem to be treating her account as a NEW account due to the fact that the spelling mistake on the account has been changed.

The more annoying thing is that she contacted a lot of her friends in London over the Christmas period, convinced she was availing of the UTVTalk facility of free calls to UK landlines lasting less than an hour. So she's gonna get a whopper of a bill when the next Eircom bill arrives.

Does anyone have any idea of what legal options are available here? Can she refuse to pay for the calls due to Eircom's incompetence? They seem to have slipped up by not sending the relevant paperwork to UTV.

Ironically I had a similar experience whn trying to get ISDN installed here at home - they disconnected me from UTV to test the line and forgot to turn back on the CPS thingy. Fortunately I detected it within a day, but both sides (UTV and Eircom) denied it was a problem on their side. A kindly biddy with Eircom (yes they do exist!) rectified the problem and I was re-connected within minutes.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

viking

Yep, exact same thing happened to my parents.

Small change on the account details on the bill resulted in them being moved from Esat to eircom without their knowledge. At no point was my Dad informed that the account change would terminate his CPS request.

I contacted eircom and told them that, in my view, they had committed fraud by ignoring my father's explicit instructions to have Esat carry his voice calls. I told them I was prepared to take them to the small claims court and inform the Garda Fraud Squad of their actions. This seemed to escalate things in my favour and I received a call back from a senior manager. This resulted in a roaring match between us which ended in him basically admitting they shouldn't have taken the calls back without informing my father when he made the change to the account. He then credited the account with the amount they shouldn't have charged.

Like you said "Eircom were supposed to send a "Churn File" on to UTV to initiate the transfer back, but never did." - this is their major cock-up in all this, ComReg confirmed it for me. Tell them that you are a member of IrelandOffline and that you are aware of numerous instances of this type of fraud occuring (tell them about your ISDN experience) and that you will accept nothing less than a full refund of all calls that should have been carried by UTV.

They will show you utter contempt during all this, make sure you don't accept anything less than what you deserve.

Viking

damien

This would make fascinating reading in a National Newspaper wouldn't it ?

I'm not a statistics person, but the fact that we read here about so many broadband and telecom horror stories in the small population that is boards.ie (compared to size of Irish population) and given the fact that a large majority of boards.ie users probably don't know of this forum or the Broadband forum makes me think that there are probably dozens of issues on a daily basis. This really is a disaster.

I think you need to follow Viking's advice but you should also fire an email off to ComReg so they at least have a record of this. Their email is: consumerline@comreg.ie . You can phone them on LoCall 1890 22 9668 but an email is some form of paper trail.

Paddy20

Take Viking's advice on this issue, which is a damned disgrace. The Small Claims Court is magic for this type of consumer issue and only costs around 10 Euro's.

P.

viking

Delphi91, post back here and let us know how you get on.

V

cormie

Slightly off topic (It does fit the title though) but did anyone else not read that UTV TALK provided call tracking, so each member of the family can have their own code the put in before the number and the bill is split for each caller?

I also thought they were going to snail mail the bill? I'm sure I clicked that option when signing up, have never received a bill.

Also, Eircom rang my mother asking did she want a phone, she said yes, apparantly they were only going to charge her for delivery, I'm not sure if they charged her for the phone aswell though, will have to check.

When should we expect to be fully charged by utv?

Delphi91

Girlfriend contacted Eircom this morning.

No joy. They're sticking to their guns. She talked to the same guy she was onto last week - he's a supervisor. He asked her for a reference number which is usually handed out when a complaint is lodged. She hadn't been given one last week. So she asked him to lodge it as a complaint and give her one - he wouldn't as he didn't think it was a complaint!!! He said that was the way Eircom did things and that was that. He said that if she wanted to put in a claim she should contact their Risk Assessment dept!! She threatened with going national (media, Gerry Ryan, Joe Duffy), all to no avail.

She has contacted ComReg twice, but lines are busy each time.

Mike

viking

Take a look at this thread and in particular follow the advice in this post. Follow its advice and you should get the money back from the calls that were fraudulently carried by eircom.

Do not give in to eircom, the more people that complain about this and threaten the small claims court and a report to the Garda Fraud Squad, the sooner eircom will start informing people that their calls will revert to them when an account change is made (or ISDN is ordered).

Viking

PS. can I ask what the disputed figure is? (call charges from eircom)?

damien

Delphi91 wrote:

She has contacted ComReg twice, but lines are busy each time.

They're probably busy dealing with the same thing. If you get on to ComReg they might tell you the complaint has to come from your bumped provider. Don't accept this.

Did your girlfriend email them as was suggested ? You need to send in your complaint in written format. Email will do. That way there's a paper trail.

Delphi91

viking wrote:

... can I ask what the disputed figure is? (call charges from eircom)?

The current bill is for around €18 + VAT. She has made lots of calls over the Christmas period, to London, etc, so the next bill will be MUCH bigger than that.

I passed on the info from the link and the post to her. She asked me to thank all the posters in here for their advice and help.

I'll keep you all appraised of developments.

Mike

imogen

I suggest you just refuse to use their appallingly bad call centre (I wish everyone would go on strike until they get rid of that dreadful IVR system). Instead send a registered letter outlining your complaint instead to: Customer Relations, Head Office, Eircom, Cumberland House, Fenian Street, Dublin 2.

They will call you back and give you a load of tosh about using the "appropriate channel" and try to throw it back at you but the people in this department actually do know something about how the company works unlike the call centre agents and can get your problem dealt with by the appropriate person. Sometimes.

Good luck!

Imogen

Our man in Havana

imogen wrote:

I suggest you just refuse to use their appallingly bad call centre (I wish everyone would go on strike until they get rid of that dreadful IVR system). Instead send a registered letter outlining your complaint instead to: Customer Relations, Head Office, Eircom, Cumberland House, Fenian Street, Dublin 2.

They will call you back and give you a load of tosh about using the "appropriate channel" and try to throw it back at you but the people in this department actually do know something about how the company works unlike the call centre agents and can get your problem dealt with by the appropriate person. Sometimes.

Good luck!

Imogen

Send it to The Company Secretary, Eircom Ltd, St Stephens Green, Dublin 2. This will get far better results, trust me i have used it to good effect in the past.

Delphi91

The situation has been resolved.

Eircom have admitted that the initial problem was a clerical error on their part. The have agreed to refund the cost of all calls re-routed back through their system when my girlfriend requested that Mr be changed to Ms (the clerical error).

However they have stated that they DID send the relevant notification to UTV in early december. UTV have denied receiving this. This still has to be chased up.

Word of warning to any of you who contact ComReg (well this was my grilfriend's experience). She called them 3-4 times but message said that the lines were busy and to call back another time (no option to hold). So she e-mailed them instead. Not receiving a response to the mail, she called them again. She was given the option of dealing with the person on the phone who she got through to, or waiting for someone else to reply to her mail. She chose to talk as she was sick and tired of waiting. The upshot of this was that her e-mail was pulled from the queue. She would not get an e-mail confirming what ComReg were going to do to attempt to resolve the situation despite asking the person she was dealing with to send her one. So it seems that getting a paper trail from ComReg is not the easiest thing in the world to do. One would think that they were afraid to have anything on paper in case it might be used against them!!

Mike

VeeEmmy

Delphi91 wrote:

The situation has been resolved.

Eircom have admitted that the initial problem was a clerical error on their part. The have agreed to refund the cost of all calls re-routed back through their system when my girlfriend requested that Mr be changed to Ms (the clerical error).
[...snip...]
So it seems that getting a paper trail from ComReg is not the easiest thing in the world to do. One would think that they were afraid to have anything on paper in case it might be used against them!!
Mike

I'm glad the situation is resolved.

The situation will actually be resolved after you get the bill reflecting the refund AND the service is actually set up as requested. Be prepared to have to "remind" eircom of the agreement. I hope you have the name of the person who admitted the clerical error and promised a refund. Call the billing dept for confirmation of the refund. It should be noted already. It took me 8 months to get mine back... but then it was nearly €200, so they weren't keen to give it up, I imagine!

The way to create a paper trail is to send registered letters (to eircom billing, cc to the Company Secretary, and to ComReg... all registered) . Telephone calls and e-mail do not create a paper trail. Registered letters take a small bit of effort, but they inform your recipients of your serious determination.

Latch on to it like a pit bull and don't let go til you get the result you're after. IF you stay on them, you will get it resolved to your satisfaction.

Good luck,
Ban

damien

Delphi91 wrote:

She chose to talk as she was sick and tired of waiting. The upshot of this was that her e-mail was pulled from the queue. She would not get an e-mail confirming what ComReg were going to do to attempt to resolve the situation despite asking the person she was dealing with to send her one. So it seems that getting a paper trail from ComReg is not the easiest thing in the world to do. One would think that they were afraid to have anything on paper in case it might be used against them!!

As far as I know they are obliged to confirm things in writing. Since they are bound by the government information regulations.