Smart Telecom

Nekka

A friend of mine told me that there was a rep from Smart Telecom on Boards.ie. I could not believe it. I decided to take this opportunity to FINALLY talk to one of these people...

My question about Smart BB is ... will you after sales service be as poor as the "system" you have set up for your land line business?
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
I have been a Smart customer for a few months now. It took them about 4 months and 3 attempts to get my direct debit in place and every time they failed they cut me off without warning! The details on my direct debit mandates (all 3 of them) were correct (as you will see later on).

Each time I was cut off, I had to ring them. Their automated "there are x people before you" system gives you an option to "leave a message and a customer rep will get back to you" - THEY DON'T!

After being cut off for the 3rd time just before Christmas, I asked to speak to the customer complaint dept. I was informed that I can't talk to them directly, but give us your number and they ...."will get back to you". THEY DON'T EITHER - foolish me - I fell for it twice.

I was eventually told that I would need to pay some of my bill if I wanted to be reconnected - something that I had been trying to do for about 6 months at this stage... so I paid with my credit card over the phone and the rep said that she would send out a new direct debit mandate - oh joy!

I received it, but before I sent it back, the direct debits began to work - strange. The details I sent them in months ago must have been OK after all.

I tried to get set up with ESAT BB. They tried for weeks but were unable. I was about to give up all hope of telecoms in Ireland when I found out that ... you cannot have ESAT BB if your phone line is with Smart. I wonder how legal this is? Certainly not a competitive practise.

This month was interesting as well. Over €180 was taken from my account from Smart - before I received an invoice. I rang up and was told that "Usually we send out the invoice first" - a little bit like EVERY company in the world ... Not only that, the invoice amount was wrong by over €100....

I give up. I am leaving Smart's land line scheme and I would advise everyone to keep clear of it as well. As for the BB side of things.... it will be administered using the same procedures as the land line side. It can only lead to disaster. It will be interesting to see this board in a few months when Smart roll out their BB - I for one will be with ESAT.

Sorry about the rant - I usually don't, but these boys.... don't get me going again! I feel so much better now.

NEKKA

Xterminator

Nekka,

I understand youre frustrated, but do you have to hijack this thread to make your point? Why did you not just make a new thread?

Garfield,

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. I have been impressed with your willingness to answer the questions.

Can you tell me if anyone actually has been connected yet, and has the free lne rental? EG on the currently enabled exchanges, are you up and running?

X

Moriarty

I've split this off to a seperate thread, as I'm trying to keep the original one on-topic so that it continues to be useful. Hopefully, somone will be able to deal with your problem here separately.

Nekka

Sorry about that. My intention was not to hijack the thread. I just feel that the Smart aftersales service is very poor and felt that I should let you all know before jumping at their BB offer.

Again, sorry - no hijacking intended.

Nekka

padlad

:eek: thats changed my mind about the Smart telecom offers

OfflerCrocGod

padlad wrote:

:eek: thats changed my mind about the Smart telecom offers

Yes, I'm wondering if Smart is capable of dealing with large numbers of people.

Darwin

I would also like to share my experiences with Smart Telecom. Last November I switched my calls from Eircon to Smart. They recently took over the billing for line rental and Internet call charges. I have an ISDN setup and was subscribed to Eircoms flat rate 150 product, i.e 150 Internet hours/month for 30 euros. I was assured that this arrangement would be kept when my calls were switched over to Smart. In an nutshell the following has happened:
1) I have been charged by Smart for every single call to Eircoms flat rate number. Smart keep blaming Eircom and keep fobbing me off.
2) I have been charged twice for the same line rental period - once by Eircom and again by Smart.
3) I paid some money off my last phone bill by credit card.
My latest bill from Smart arrived today and no sign of the payment I made. I checked with the bank and the payment has gone through on my card ?
4) They have a habit of posting the phone bill 2 weeks after the invoice date and then demanding payment within 2 weeks of the invoice date. Go figure that one.

Eircom are a shower, but Smart really take the biscuit. I cannot begin to imagine how they are going to manage the rollout of broadband.