Get your own back on Eircom in two small ways

K

Kilteragh

Guest
Sick of having no choice when it comes to your line provider?

Annoyed at the recent increases?

Most people don't read their bill too closely but if they did they might save themselves a few quid and deprive Eircom of the same.

1) If you are renting a phone or phones from Eircom get rid of them. You can get very cheap handsets from Argos and other places. Just ring eircom up and say that you no longer want to rent the phones and could they please come and collect them and stop charging you for them. If all comes to all and they insist on it drop the handsets into your local Eircom office.

2) Most people I know have Call Answering from Eircom. Get rid of it. If you have gone as far as 1) above why not go further and get a phone with an answering machine and tell Eircom to stop charging you.

Even if you get a dearish snazzy phone it will have paid for itself in a couple of years and you won't be forking out any more to Eircom.

If everybody did these things it would more than wipe out the recent line rental increases and would be a victory for the consumer.
 
wasn't there something on the news about bringing competition to the line rental side of things
 
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In theory if you want to be mad cynical you could continualy ring a number in Australia or somewhere incredibly expensive WITH the knowlegde that the number you are rining is enaged or not going to be answered. Such a task involves expense on Eircoms side but none on yours as you are not charged for a call that was not answered. They incur charges due to having to maintain that system, internaitonal connections etc...

But you'd want to be fairly angry to bother!
 
Re: ..

Dave - yes Dermot Ahern is saying that he will introduce competition. But in the meantime I would like consumers to give a big thumbs down to the recent charges in any rational way they can.
 
Re: ..

Not much competition though.

Some more discussion on it here.

[broken link removed]
 
Re: ..

Another obvious strategy is to switch to another internet/call service provider. Most of them are cheaper than eircom so choose the one that matches your internet/call usage profile best and saves you most money. OK - you'll still have to pay eircom for line rental (unless you can get by cost effectively with a mobile and maybe wireless/satellite/cable broadband or whatever) but at least you are taking your business elsewhere. Of course there's no point in cutting off your nose to spite your face so if you would be better of with eircom (notwithstanding the line rental monopoly and charges hikes) then you'd be better off stayin put.
 
Why rent?

I agree with Kilteragh. Buy your own phone, I salvaged one from the office when a new system was being put in place. Get rid of call answering, I have the basic answering machine and separate caller I.D. No ongoing cost. Also moved to ESAT broadband.
 
Prime Time

Did anyone else see David McRedmond (Commercial Director fo eircon) get skinned alive on Prime Time last night?

Mark Lyttle, the superb PT interviewer, was asking him to justify the line rental increase in light oif the fact that eircon's capex has been halved since 1999, and they are paying €0.5billion in dividends to their sharelholders - I was shocked by the latter fact.

McRedmond responded by talking about eircon's "value for money" :lol call charges. Lyttle kept reeling him back in to talk about the line rental charges, but he avoid answering the question to the bitter end. I think that was answer enough for me. If a guy is asked to justify something and he doesn't answer the question, it would imply that he cannot justify the increase. QED

Yes, he was brave to do the interview, but answer the question and leave the standard eircon cliches at home! Well done Mark Lyttle!
 
Re: Prime Time

It'll be wonderful to see the likes of the ESB, Bord Gais, and Eircom face some competition sometime soon.

We have a lot to learn from the experience in Great Britain. Although they had teething problems initially around poor service levels and mis-selling, these soon bedded down to the advantage of the consumer, and in the case of BT, to the erstewhile monopoly supplier. They are now one of the biggest telcos in the world now.
 
..

I think by international standards the ESB are regarded as fairly good electricity providers in most ways....
 
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O,

Switched to Esat (BT now I think) a couple of years ago so Eircom are really making the minimum from me now :) This was so obvious I forgot to mention it.

I'm a great believer in competition and so have always switched to new entrants (where it is worth it) to encourage price lowering. Hence my mobile is also Esat and I have opted for Ryanair from the early days - but that's another argument.
 
Re: ..

Stopped paying phone handset rental to Eircom years ago.
Calls now with NTL and have an NTL cable modem.
So the only thing Eircom get from me is line rental which p..ses me off.

NTL customer service is the worst but we never have issues with phone or cable modem and the calls are cheap.

If I could get the phone calls on the digital cable the line rental would go !!!!!
 
Re: ..

Actuall thought that mark Little let him off lightly - he could have hit him harder in some respects. He should not have tolerated Mcredmonds 'but the prices are coming down...Eircom remains one of the most compedative...the ave lenght of teh phone line in Ireland is 2.7km ..blah blah"

Little should have basically stopped the interview & stated that Mc redmonds answers were totally unsatisfactory..& that there was no point in continuing unless he was ready to give the real reasons & less of the bullshit.... might have even been beneficial to have some compedator on also ie ESAT, NTL etc who I think would have been less tolerant...


ninsaga
 
Eircom

I have the flat rate internet with Eircom have emailed them severaal times to find out how I know when my 25 hours per month have run out but never got a reply does anyone know is there a simple way to keep track of it I hate to give them any extra money if possible
 
time online

I'd suggest downloading No Frills Timer. See [broken link removed]
 
Re: Eircom

There are a couple of totally free ones (freeware) on tucows.com (the one above is a 30 day trial and costs US$25 to license thereafter):

[broken link removed]
 
freeware

Bandwith Daemon (middle left box on the page I linked to) costs $25. As far as I can see No Frills Timer (download link in the bottom left box) is still freeware.
 
Re: freeware

Sorry - I was looking at the Bandwidth Daemon links and missed the No Frills Timer ones! It is indeed free.
 
Eircom rep

An eircom rep called to me the other day and swore blind that the charges he was quoting me included vat (never mentioned vat at all til i did) i asked to see the charges in print and he said he left them in the car so i told him i wouldnt sign anything til i saw them.
He came back in and showed me 1 call charge with his hand over the bottom of the card.
I had to grab it off him and there was the line that he was covering.
It said 'All charges not including vat'
He was a liar and a cheat and it was not the first time i've had a liar and cheat rep from eircom visit.
They are certainly the most expensive call provider in the irish market and the sooner all people wise up and move to utv or esat the better
 
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