Eir have blocked my mobile phone.

I only use my mobile phone to send texts. I seldom make a phone call. The last text I sent was last week. My last Top Up was 1st September.

Eir have now blocked my phone saying it is a Data Protection issue and I have to call to an Eir shop with photo ID? They say I have not been using my phone. Do texts not count?

Can anyone explain to me what is going on?

@Grizzly
The way pre-pay works is that if you don't top up for a period of time, you eventually go into a series of steps before you are cancelled off the network. So many people buy prepay when on holidays and then just throw the SIM in the bin etc.
Not using the phone in this regard means not topping up !

Data Protection is gone crazy these days - remember something similar with Tesco mobile a while back.

I contacted the Eir chatline. Utterly useless. They said I had to top up every 5 months. They wouldn't unblock the phone online but insisted that I call to an Eir outlet. I did. They said that I had to top up every 90 days not every 5 months. They unblocked my phone and couldn't understand why the people on the Eir chatline didn't do this for me. The staff on the Eir chatline were only interested in fobbing me off to someone else and ending the conversation.

Grizzly said:

The staff on the Eir chatline were only interested in fobbing me off to someone else and ending the conversation.

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Grizzly - I've a similar experience to the last two chat sessions with Eir... it was never a "great" service from Eir in relation to the online chat, but it has declined in the last 6 months or so...

Anyway, glad to hear you got yourself sorted ...

Grizzly said:

Utterly useless. They said I had to top up every 5 months. They wouldn't unblock the phone online but insisted that I call to an Eir outlet. I did. They said that I had to top up every 90 days not every 5 months.

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To be fair, according to the support pages the chat team are right here and the eir shop was wrong.
"After 150 days numbers that have not been topped up will be unable to make any outgoing services. The number will still be able to receive information (such as calls and texts) for 30 days."
[URL]https://www.eir.ie/support/mobile/topping-up-eir-mobile/[/URL]

Grizzly said:

They unblocked my phone and couldn't understand why the people on the Eir chatline didn't do this for me.

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Grizzly said:

Eir have now blocked my phone saying it is a Data Protection issue and I have to call to an Eir shop with photo ID?

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I imagine the eir chat team could have technically unblocked your phone, but there was a process that you had to show some photo Id to get it unlocked. I have no idea what that process is, but I am guessing it is to prove you are the owner of the phone. Were you able to answer the relevant security questions for the chat team or maybe there had been an alert put on the phone? The OP mentions a data protection issue - so maybe it relates to that. The whole world is gone mad with data protection given GDPR coming in May !

Grizzly said:

The staff on the Eir chatline were only interested in fobbing me off to someone else and ending the conversation.

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Jazz01 said:

I've a similar experience to the last two chat sessions with Eir..

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To be honest, I don't think I have every got any reasonable service for any chat agent no matter what the company or industry is. Anything that is difficult you still need to ring in, and anything that that is easy can be done yourself via self-service.

Vodafone allow for 6 monthly top-ups so why can't you move your number to them. If you then have too much credit on your phone you can use to transfer the credit to family members or whoever. Very handy service. I find Vodafone good and have heard so many complaints about Eir that I certainly wouldn't use them.

Sue Ellen said:

I find Vodafone good and have heard so many complaints about Eir that I certainly wouln't use them.

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Like most, I am assuming the coverage is the biggest factor. At my house Vodafone has the best coverage so I use them over 3 or eir. Cost is not as big a priority as coverage - and I live in South Dublin !!

I find all communications companies poor to deal with - Vodafone being no exception !