Eircom Phonewatch: what they don't tell you in their ads

Sounds strange OP, we have Eircom phonewatch & our phone line was down for a week last month. The whole time the alarm wouldn't stop making beeping warning noises & when you pressed the 'status' button to see what the problem was it said 'phone line failure'. It had the whole house driven mad for a week before someone from Eircom came out to fix the line. Weird that it didn't happen you, maybe its a newer function as we only got our alarm fitted not too long ago.

interesting stuff. Thinking of getting alarm. Can anyone recommend a good system (a dog might be cheapest..). was thinking about eircom phonewatch but will skip them based on comments.

I have previously worked for Eircom and Eircom Phone Watch. These are actually 2 separate companies, and Phone Watch are in the process of getting the "Eircom" part of the title dropped due to general dissatisfaction and association with Eircom's bad rep.

I was well trained in on both jobs separately. In regards to cutting phone lines, anyone living in an area with phone lines that are low to the ground or in "easy access" to potential robbers - when pitching EPW to them, we were to recommend to them to get the alarm and a GSM unit (once of cost of 150 euro) it works like a sim card in a mobile so a call can still be made out. Anyone with a pre-existing alarm can get this fitted.

In relation to the Gardai being contacted, when that alarm is triggered it sends a message to the nearest station/patrol car/pushbike in the area, and it is ten up to the Gardai to get to the scene as quick as possible. EPW have been in discussions with the Gardai to cop n in regards to some response times, due to negative press and lack of trust in the product.

As for Eircom... I'd rather starve than work there again. The door to door sales reps are allowed to tell anyone anything they like, while anyone working in the call centre had every word recorded and was threatened with Comreg for the stupidest of things. I even had one door to door rep try to sell me a pack of lies while I was working there, he had given me his card with his name and number and then proceeded to s**t himself when I said where I worked and that I'd query the fantastic offer he could sell while we couldnt.

In the end - EPW have their flaws, and I wait with bated breath for Eircom to sink.

Cutting the landline does not disable an alarm. Most have a radio digis which can send a radio signal to monitoring station to alert them that landline has been cut. Removing the cover from the bell box activates or at least it should activate a tamper alarm and this should also be picked up by monitoring station. That said the Eircom system must be ****e if it can be so easily overidden. I worked for Top Security many moons ago and these guys were streets ahead of the current Eircom phone watch system and that was back in the 90s. They were in fact one of the biggest monotoring companies in Europe and in most circumstances patrol drivers would attend your alarm hours before the Gardai and unlike Eircom are still an Irish owned company. So fuck Eircom and their ****ty system just get someone else to monitor your alarm.

The irony in this thread is that Eircom have been robbing you for years. I only cancelled my contract with them a few days ago. Shower of c*nts. Never want the misfortune of dealing with their God awful customer support and shoddy service. I'd rather have a mouse watch the house than eircom phonewatch.