Eir installer says copper cable going into our estate needs to be replaced

Ryan Better Rugby wrote: »

I don't think they have an obligation to fix it because you never had a line installed.

The previous owner did have a line installed though, and they swapped it with our neighbours.

Just spoke to the previous owner, they had Vodafone there and only cancelled it in August and we only put in an offer for the house in September, if the previous owner had to give Vodafone 30 days notice would Eir be breaching that contract with Vodafone by swapping it over ?.

Would Eir swap the cable back over if we got permission from our neighbour?, they only use it for general use and would probably be fine with an LTE dongle, I’d even give them the password for our WiFi and buy them a WiFi extender if I had to.

Spoke to Eir this morning, their sending another engineer out and gave me a forecast date of February 7th.

Just got a call from them, forecast date has been moved forward to January 20th to "fix underground cables". I imagine this is a good sign ?.

OK, BIG update.

Since the 17th of February we have made numerous calls to Eir and were told different things, that they are awaiting a license to start work even though another advisor had said there wasn't an issue with licensing. We had to continuously contact them and kept getting new forecast dates of when it would be fixed, but no work was being carried out. All this while always being promised call backs that never happened, and being put on hold for ages and the line mysteriously dropping.

We got a date of March 27th and again nothing was done, we were then told out of the blue that it would be fixed by August with no explanation as to why it would now take 4 more months. We were informed that our issue had been escalated to their manager. We rang again in March and spoke with the one advisor who was actually helpful. We told her what had happened and that the line was taken from our house when it was for sale and that it was put into the neighbours house, and that the 50 pair cable is damaged and now there is no working spare lines. She stated that the engineer should not have removed the working line and she sent a very detailed email to her manager which she verified with us before sending. About two weeks went by and I received a phone call from an engineer who was at the estate, he stated that he had carried out work to see what the issue was. He stated that the 50 pair cable was damaged and that the issue was backed onto the road. He stated that he would send his information to Open EIR. I asked him what the process is and he stated that a license needs to be applied from the council to dig the roads, he said that would usually take 2-3 weeks and that the work then would take about 3 weeks. We then rang Eir who didn't even know that the engineer had called me, so I informed them. We were then given another date of March 27th. That date went by again with no call back from Eir.

I contacted them again and was then told that the date is pushed back to August again with no explanation as to why. I had asked numerous times if a license had even been applied for as the engineer had been out to the estate a few weeks ago however they could not provide me with any information. Eir stated that they could not give us an update because Open Eir had not informed them. I was then told that due to Covid-19 that work would take longer. The advisor stated that the work should be completed before August, that August 20th was a worst case scenario. Although I understood that Covid-19 has had an effect on us all, again days went by with no updates. I decided to contact Wexford county council, and emailed the road licensing department. I asked to see if there were any issues with applying for licenses due to Covid, they confirmed that there are no issues with licenses as telecommunications are deemed as essential. I asked then if a license was applied for and was informed that a license had been applied for by Eir and that it looked to be by the school where the issue is.

I contacted Eir again on the 22nd of May for an update, I explained to the advisor that I had been on to the council and that there was no issues with applying for licenses and that I have seen numerous Open Eir vans working around the village. The advisor stated that the date it
should be fixed is the 20/08/20, that underground cabling needs to take place however that this is worse case scenario that it should be completed before this date. I then rang on Wednesday 27th of May and stated that under the data protection act I wanted copies of all of the case notes and calls, I was told I would have to speak to their customer relations department, was transferred through, and hung up on after being on hold for 45 minutes.

On Friday I received a phone call from the only helpful advisor we spoke to during this whole ordeal, she stated that she was working on our case however her manager was informed that Open Eir may not fix the fault, as they have said it will cost too much. The advisor said she was still looking into the issue and will call back soon with a final update and said she was "raging" as if the original engineer hadn't put our line into our neighbours house, none of this would have happened.

I cannot put into words how angry I am right now with Eir over this entire ordeal. I am paying 2 mortgages since November last year, one of which is for a house that I could count on my fingers how many nights Ive stayed in.

Sorry for your loss. Their customer service is beyond terrible.