Waiting since late August for BT Broadband

joker77

Hey - just want a little bit of a rant, to see if anyone else has had a similar issue and if so how did they solve it!

I ordered BT Broadband in late August, didn't hear anything for a while, rang up on 15th September to find out that the order had been cancelled - I took the BT trial last year and seeing as they set up an account for me on their system for the trial, when the new order tried to set up an account it bombed out..... So the order was set up again on the 15th, I guess I'll have to work from this date.

At the moment it's with Eircom waiting for them to give the go-ahead. After taking the BT trial last year, I then took the Eircom one (trying to get free broadband for as long as I could!). I won't even go in to the problems I had with Eircom, suffice to say that they tried to charge me over 200 euro for a 2 month "free" trial.

Seeing that BT are waiting for Eircom to get back to them, and I know how much a shower for complete and utter w@nkers them lot are - is there any way to speed it up??? Anyone else find themselves in a similar scenario when ordering broadband from BT???

Cheers

Dial-up boy

zoro

Well - to be honest, you did try and screw them...

Anyway, have a look at some other providers if you're unhappy with Esat and Eircom.
Eircom are known for their underhanded tactics when it comes to customers moving to a competitor. They'll do literally anything that they can to slow or even prevent it from taking place for as long as possible.

If you're intent on sticking with Esat, then hassle them EVERY SINGLE DAY until it's sorted out. It's disgraceful that it even takes as long as it does for them (where "them" == any DSL provider) to setup a new DSL account for someone, let alone one for someone that used to be their customer in the first place.



But, again, you did try and screw them ....

kaizersoze

No sympathy man.
You abused the system and now it's bitten you in the ass.
They'll probably make you wait and wait and wait. Especially if Eircom think you may owe them money.

Tony H

you only get one trial with one provider , if you dont pay eircom they wont release your line , the 200 euros they say you owe them could be the cost of the remainder of the "contract " that you entered into when you got your second free trial , i feel your pain as it took me 14 months to end my eircom contract
and then it took another 7 or eight weeks to get bt to transfer me and im still waiting on my 2 meg connection
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=303618
a link to some more happy bt customers

Thorbar

I'm waiting for Bt broadband as well. I'm really starting to think I made a mistake to go with them. Customer services takes on average half an hour to get through to and then they're a bitchy pack who have no answers. Its 3 weeks since I signed up and I'm startin g to think it will be another month or two before I get set up properly.

jonny68

Im waiting 4 weeks now although i did get a letter from them today saying it would arrive in the next couple of days via SDS so here's hoping.

joker77

zoro wrote:

Well - to be honest, you did try and screw them...

Where exactly did I try and screw them? By taking up their offer of a no-obligation trial???

What about all the Ads on telly with yer one saying "If you're not happy with it, Eircom will whip it away, quick as a flash!"

I didn't pay them the 200 Euro for a "free" trial, because the charges were for an Engineer callout that I never ordered, and the supposed "free" trial.

So f*ck you zoro

kaizersoze wrote:

No sympathy man.
You abused the system and now it's bitten you in the ass.
They'll probably make you wait and wait and wait. Especially if Eircom think you may owe them money.

and f*ck you too kaizersoze - how exactly did I abuse the system?

zoro

joker77 wrote:

*random OMGz0rz and whatnot*

OK, well, first off, get down off your high horse eh?

The free trial that you were charged for - If you didnt order the Engineer, and there is no signature to say that he had called out to inspect a problem (they always get you to sign don't they??) then you can argue with them. Hell, you can argue anyway, just make sure you get a concise breakdown as to what it was that they're billing you for.
Literally, everything that they say you owe them for.
Refuse to pay up a cent (as you already have) until you get that breakdown.

As for your delightful comments - You applied for, and got, the free trial with Esat BT. Yay, fair enough, and well done.
You then cancelled your account with them, and moved to Eircom, and assumed that as it was a different company, then they'd not have a clue about what you did with Esat, and sure feck it, they're advertising it as free!

Well, this has come up here before, and if the search were working I could direct you a bit better, but essentially you can assume that each phone line has a 'barcode' (for want of a better word - cause I can't remember it's real name). This barcode is allowed one free DSL trial.
As Esat must go through Eircom in order for you to get broadband with them, then your line's barcode would be registered as having already taken part in a free trial.

It's in the fine print somewhere apparantly.

Anyway, if you still have all of your documentation regarding the trials, and also have your breakdown for Eircom's massive bill to you, then you can start arguing your case.
But, you really did try to take your cake and eat it too.

joker77

zoro wrote:

You then cancelled your account with them, and moved to Eircom, and assumed that as it was a different company, then they'd not have a clue about what you did with Esat, and sure feck it, they're advertising it as free!.....It's in the fine print somewhere apparantly.

I didn't assume anything, but if they offer something as a no-obligation trial, is it not natural to think that a free trial is a free trial?
If what you are saying is correct, that a phone line from Eircom can only have 1 broadband free trial, regardless of who the service provider for broadband, then Eircom should not have given me a "free trial". Surely zoro, in all your wisdom, you don't think it's correct to give someone a 2 month free trial, let them think it's free, then a month into it send them out a bill for over 200 Euro? At no point did Eircom make me aware that this was the reason they were charging me the money, and to be honest I don't think it was the reason, I think it was just plain old f*ck-ups in their totally inept Billing department (after many phone-calls to Eircom, I found out that the Billing department and the Broadband department literally don't talk to each other). The Billing department told me that I would be charged on the current bill, and then refunded on the next bill..... I said No Thanks, I'd rather not be charged at all!

zoro

joker77 wrote:

I didn't assume anything, but if they offer something as a no-obligation trial, is it not natural to think that a free trial is a free trial?

There's fine print - there's always fine print.*

If what you are saying is correct..

I'm not 100% sure on that, and as the search is down I can't give more info

..that a phone line from Eircom can only have 1 broadband free trial, regardless of who the service provider for broadband, then Eircom should not have given me a "free trial". Surely zoro, in all your wisdom, you don't think it's correct to give someone a 2 month free trial, let them think it's free, then a month into it send them out a bill...

Again, it comes down to the terms+conditions, one of which is the 'barcode' type thing I've mentioned.

At no point did Eircom make me aware that this was the reason they were charging me the money

That's really your own problem to sort out. If you want to get comreg or ireland offline involved then do so, but that seems to be a separate issue to your broadband troubles.



*Anything I've said about the one-trial-per-line is purely from memory, and as such, it's open to correction from whoever knows more about this sort of thing.

joker77

zoro wrote:

That's really your own problem to sort out

It's sorted out alright, this was back in Jan/Feb that I took the Eircom trial, so after a few weeks of going round the houses with them trying to get an answer from Broadband and Billing as to why I was being charged so much for a free trial (of which no answer was given, as I say - nobody ever said anything to me about the 1 trial per line, not that I disbelieve you), I finally just went into them and sorted it out, charges were dropped when no explanation was given as to why they were so irregular.

I'm remembering now, I was charged three times on the one bill for Broadband, once for the trial - this was cancelled out further down by a "free trial credit", the second charge was for a "broken connection" which was that it took Eircom several weeks to set up the Broadband after the order was cancelled by Eircom behind the scenes and had to be set up again, and the third charge was for an engineer callout that I never ordered.

So, zoro, I think YOU were the one ASSUMING - you assumed that Eircom were charging me for the fact the I had previously had a free trial with BT......

kaizersoze

joker77 wrote:

and f*ck you too kaizersoze - how exactly did I abuse the system?

I'll keep this short so the page might load a bit quicker as I realise you're still on dial-up.

GROW UP!

joker77

kaizersoze wrote:

I'll keep this short so the page might load a bit quicker as I realise you're still on dial-up.

GROW UP!

Haven't answered my question.

It's easy to shout GROW UP! at someone without explaining yourself, and don't worry, I can wait the extra few seconds for the page to load

joker77

Just for you kaizersoze, I'll go into a bit more detail as to what exactly happened, for you to pass some more judgement.

I took the BT free trial, but wasn't fully happy with the service - I didn't leave the ADSL connection plugged in all the time, and sometimes when I plugged it in it would take up to 15 minutes to find the connection.

So I took up Eircom's offer of the trial. I was happier with the Broadband service itself, but was not happy at all with their Customer Service, or Billing procedures, so I promised I would never give them a cent of my money again.

I looked into the possibility of getting NTL, but they don't do it in my area. Irish Broadband don't either, but to be honest I don't think I'd go with them after hearing the reviews on Boards.

So that leaves me with BT. First time round I found their Customer Service great, and I plan to leave the connection on all the time so that should eradicate the reason I didn't go with them in the first place.

Naturally if I had've known what problems I would have had with Eircom, I would have just stayed with BT.......

mikeruurds

I don't mean to be a d1ckhead mate, but if you ask for opinions you're going to get them. Regardless of whether you like what people have to say or not, there's no reason to be insulting to the responders who have taken their time to reply to you.

If you know all the answers then don't ask for a second opinion.

Now feel free to flame me as well. I can take it.