The Eircom Sales Experience

I sent this letter off to Eircom last week.
It explains some of my experience with this company & their sales methods.
Has anyone had similar encounters?
You will see below, that despite this they are still pursuing me.

_________________________________________________


Dear Sir or Madam,

Eircom Invoice Error – Bundled Phone & Broadband Service.
Accont No. XXX. Stated as commenced 23/06/10.

We have recently received an invoice from you in relation to a service which you have not provided.

An Eircom salesperson called to our home and sold us an Eircom “Bundle” service which was to have included both telephone and broadband internet services. The salesperson offered these services at a combined price of €46.79 per month. The salesperson also advised that there was no requirement to give advance notice of termination to our current service provider.

Following your salesperson’s visit we discovered that a notification period of 4 weeks was in fact required by our current provider, that Eircom’s charges were higher than those stated by the salesperson, and that you were unable to provide the bundled service you had offered (refer to your letter concerning your inability to provide a broadband connection which we received on 05/07/10).

As you have not provided the services which formed part of this bundled package in accordance with the agreed terms, you have reneged on the contractual agreement entered into. As a result we have been left us with no option other than retain the services provided by our current provider. Your non-performance has also inconvenienced us by leaving us without any broadband service for a period of time.

You should only contact us again to confirm that your erronous invoice has been cancelled. You might consider speaking to your sales person (George) who gave us the information on your service prices and the notification required by current service providers which transpired to be incorrect. We would also advise that no eircom sales people (for any eircom product) should call to our home in future.

Yours etc.

Eircom have a forum where customers can post issues - eircom connect. You could post the above there and see if they sort it out for you

So, an Eircom employee phones this morning.
She is rude, talks over everything I say, refuses to accept any wrongdoing or fault, and tells me they will be pursuing a sum of €89 - For a Bundled service not provided.

She also is adamant that Eircom's inability to provide the service is UTV's fault (my previous and now current provider).
She tells me that Eircom had no obligation to tell me a notice period was required for UTV (Even though the salesman actually stated that no notification was required).
She also says Eircom were not oblidged to tell me that the bundle price of €46.79 would only apply after the first two months, leaving me with costs considerably higher than UTV.
In fact the unmentioned additional costs of the first two months (which were up to me to discover) would have wiped out all savings Eircom's bundle offered over UTV for the year. And that was my only reason for considering changing.

It will be interesting to see what kind of nonsense they issue next.
At what point should I advise them that I consider their continued unwanted correspondence to be harassment??

From personal experience with Eircom I would say this was typical. I got letters threatening legal action for non payment of bills for a service they had not managed to connect because there was some issue with the cables from the exchange! This was after I had been told to ignore the bill as it was sent out automatically. I too had a problem with a difference between what I was quoted and the amount on the bill - after much debate I was refunded part of the difference. I think Eircom's customer service is shocking

I thought Eircom were supposed to follow a certain procedure when a customer lodges a complaint: Acknowledgment / Investigation / Report / Escalate if Appropriate / And finally inform about Comreg if Required.

Following my letter above (Reg post), I have not even had the issue acknowledged.
All I have had is the call described, which was not about resolving a complaint, only concerned with collection of a 'dept',
And now,
A letter from their Collections Dept. threatening legal action against me and warning of ADDITIONAL COSTS & EXPENSE (capitals x2).

Has anyone else had an experience like this?

DBK100 said:

Has anyone had similar encounters?

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Yes. they called to my door and I signed up for a bundled package included next generation broadband which was supposed to be uncongested 8mg's. When I noticed I was only getting 3.5mg's I rang them and was informed that my line capacity is only 4 mg's so I could never receive 8 mg's under any circumstances. Have disconnected my services from them and am still waiting for them to sort it out despite three lengthy phone calls.

Oh No - I thought those kind of days were gone when customers where treated like dirt. You would think that in these times when business is hard to come by they would have the common sense to try & keep us all happy (or at lease satisfied with the service). Shame.

TLC said:

Oh No - I thought those kind of days were gone when customers where treated like dirt. You would think that in these times when business is hard to come by they would have the common sense to try & keep us all happy (or at lease satisfied with the service). Shame.

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I agree but customer service has a long way to go in this country...

Anyone calls to my door, I tell them I don't buy from people that call to my door. You're already using the only tool you need to research vendor changes, it's called a web browser. Tell them to feck off, rude as you like, otherwise they'll just keep coming back.

I phoned Eircom to cancel my eircom line last week when I realised my home phone was covered in dust from lack of use and I was paying this company €140 every two months for a package that included unlimitied local and national calls and wireless broadband. The guy did everything to persuade me from cancelling like telling me I won't be able to get sky, however my sky isnt connected to the telephone or the mobile broadband modems wont work in my area, which they do or that my house burglary alarm won't work which I dont have anyway.

As I have a bill pay mobile with a great package, the calls didnt matter to me. I have since contacted vodafone to be set up for mobile broadband and got a great deal for €24.99 per month which includes unlimited data allowance. A personal WiFi device can be got for a one off charge of €39 which will enable me to get up to 5 devices online at once, great as I have teenagers in the house with their own laptops. A bit like wireless but substantially cheaper. All in all I am saving myself the bones of €90 every two months.

Better in my pocket than Eircom's

The "Sales Team" that called to my house came of an evening. They were told by me that there were no circumstances under which I would return to Eircom. I even explained to them the nature of the problem I had from the last time I was a customer.

So what they did was return two weeks later during the day and successfully plied their sales technique on my unsuspecting wife.

They sold us a service including phone & internet; confirmed we need not inform our current provider of the change; and then were unable to provide that service when our current provider refused to release the broadband.
They then billed us for the phone line (with calls which were to be included), which somehow amounts to more than the total bundle service was supposed to cost!

Helped a friend yesterday to sign up online for an Eircom bundle. The response seems to suggest that I have signed up for an entirely different bundle(at a lower price). It seems impossible to find anyone in Eircom who can explain what in fact we have signed up for.

Signing up for anything on your doorstep is usually a bad idea, no matter how good the sales people make it sound. They always seems to say "oh no we cant call back later" or "this is a one time offer" if you say you'd like to check it out properly

I had a similar experience with Eircom - Two "Sales People" called to the door offer 8mg NGB plus phone for €21 euros a month. Cancelled UPC - €15 saving per month.

Three weeks later no sign of Eircom. Rang and was told ehhh there is a problem with our database - your house is registered with two names - u and Mr B down the road. They proceeded to give me his personal details - to which I replied I did not want to know (data protection and all that).

Anyway the upshot of the whole debacle was - I could only "reconnect" to Eircom if they "fixed" their database. Cost to me €100 call out fee plus for the €21 service quoted previously now went up to €51.

I rang back UPC - who reduced my monthly fee. But I can safely say I will never ever give the time of day to any "salesperson" from Eircom. A national joke!

Have Eircom BB, it's excellent for me, reaches full speed 90% time and I'm in Dunshaughlin. However, agree with everyone here. While trying to get it installed and when browsing packages the Eircom staff on the phone were clueless about the products.

If UPC did BB, Phone & TV in my area I would snap them up quicker than you can say 'speedy gonspeedz'