The Author – Bart Busschots
Creative Commons
Unless otherwise stated, the content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 License
Feb
9
Eircom – Incompetent and Downright Rude
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 9, 2006 at 8:10 pm
In this country we are sadly forced to user Eircom’s shoddy infrstructure for our ADSL connections regardless of who our ISP is. This is BAD. A long time ago after many many days wasted trying to get Eircom to do a very very simple thing for me I vowed never to go near them again. Hence I got my broad band from DigiWeb and I like them, they are nice to you when you talk to them on the phone, they answer your questions, they treat you like a human being! The problem is that I am still tied to Eircom because the physical hardware delivering my ADSL is theirs and there is nothing I can do about that. On Saturday it will be three weeks since my broad band broke and today, for the first time, Eircom replied to the problem report DigiWeb lodged with them about my connection, and what did they say, effectively nothing "the problem is related to a parent issue that we are working on". No detail AT ALL about what the problem is, or, in fact, if they have even managed to figure that out themselves and also not even an estimate of when the problem will be fixed.
All this started when Eircom "upgraded" their ADSL services on Saturday the 20th of January. There was a scheduled outage that day and when service resumed my 3MB ADSL line had turned into a 0.5MB ADSL line and still is. When I first lodged a call to DigiWeb about it I got the following reply:
Hi Bart,There has been speed issues on our network since the upgrade was completed.
We are aware of these issues and have been told that these issues should be resolved soon.
Unfortunately I do not have a definite timeframe on this yet.
Regards
That was on the 27th of January, a full week had passed and still Eircom had no idea of how to fix the mess they had made because they were not giving out an estimated return time or ANY details on the problem.
It is now the 9th of February and all I now know is that my problem is part of a bigger problem …. no shit … I knew that two weeks ago!
Last week I decided I had had enough of doing nothing and, on advice from DigiWeb, decided to take my issues straight to Eircom. BIG mistake. My blood-pressure suffered big time and I lost about an hour of my life that I will never get back to find out NOTHING, apart from what I already knew, that Eircom are incompetent and ignorant.
When I rang them and explained my problem the ignorant and rude people I had the misfortune of talking to had no actual idea who I was supposed to be put through to so they just put me through anywhere. To make matters worse I was transfered each time without being told that I WAS being transfered OR where I was being transfered to or WHY. After arriving in the same place a few times I got wise of this and started starting each conversation with "DON’T TRANSFER ME, LISTEN TO ME" but to no avail.
After being on to one number for at least 10 minutes and ending up in the same place a few times I was told I would have to hang up and ring a different number. I then got to start at the end of the queue all over again and then start a new game of "pass the customer". Again I ended up going round in circles but I now started each conversation with the next gormless fool I was put through by pointing out that I had just been transfered without warning or explanation and that I wanted to know where I ended up. This made it much easier to figure out I was going in circles!
At some points I was transfered into an automated system that I could not get out of that did a line test despite my asking it not to. There were about 4 line tests done like that before I got on to a human being again who then insisted on doing another one before he would speak to me!
After 45 minutes of sheer hell and utter and systematic incompetence all I could find out was that an engineer had been dispatched but that he hadn’t reported back. At this stage it had been TWO WEEKS since they told DigiWeb they were working on the problem yet they hadn’t a CLUE as to what was going on or why I was complaining!
At one stage on my travels through the hell of Eircom a woman who felt sorry for me transfered me to the actual people with the power to do something but they refused to talk to me because they did no deal with the public. They then sent me TO THE VERY VERY OUTSIDE and I had to start all over again.
Anyhow, after 45 minutes of this I had realized I was not going to get any more info so I then decided I wanted to complain strongly to a manager. I was told that to do this I would have to ring yet another number and join the queue again. I decided to go for it since I was well fired up at this stage. Did I get to speak to a manager, not a fucking chance, I was told there were no managers there because they had all gone home. I did get to complain to some pleb somewhere who had almost no English and seems to have been paid by Eircom to take abuse and say "I understand why you are upset and I care that you are upset", after 5 minutes of this pityful attempt at appearing to give a toss I gave up and hung up!
Conclusions:
What conclusions have I drawn from all this, well so far these:
- Eircom don’t have the technical ability to run the telecomuncations infrastructure for this country
- Eircom don’t give a DAMD about their customers because they KNOW you have no choice but to put up with their crap
- Eircom do NOT train their "support" staff near enough
- Eircom’s staff don’t even PRETEND to care about you or the problems you are experiencing with their "service"
- Comreg is useless because they have not put an end to this abuse ordinary people have no choice but to suffer
- There are countries in the Third World with better telecomunications infrastructure than Ireland.
Will I ever get my broad band back properly, who knows, stay tuned for updates!
Just happened upon your blog while searching for eircom related info. You have my sympathies. I have current domestic problems with eircom, which I won’t go into detail here about as I have compaints with comreg and the competition authority about their behaviour. I also have dealings on a professional level with eircom (i am in IT Support) and I totally agree with your points that eircom just do not care….They are arrogantly disinterested and almost aggresively treat people calling for “customer service”. I really think this country’s IT infrastructure is being held back as long as eircom are responsible for the lines. It is also totally apparent that there is no monitoring of calls made to their “customer service” as any competent customer service manager would baulk at the way customers are treated and spoken to. My only advice would be to write to them and don’t waste your time ringing them.
When I tried to resolve an technical issue with Eircom I too was passed around various telephone extensions, nine of which answered. Eventually, I changed to Perlico. So far, no problems. A few months later, Eircom phone me to ask if I would transfer back to them. Red rag to a bull! When I started to tell the ‘customer service’ (LOL) representative of the litany of problems, she hung up.
I agree; Eircom are incompetent, rude, useless morons incapable of running this or any other country’s telecoms infrastructure. Why are they still allowed to do so? Because we have a govenment that is corrupt from the top down and rotten to the core.
Hey Bart,
I’m in the same boat at the moment. Have had no connection at all for the past 3 weeks and they have been absolutely no help when I have called. Called customer complaints yesterday too and they were no better. An ‘engineer’ was meant to have been sent out 2 weeks ago and I still hadn’t heard anything 10 days later. I’m losing out on serious business and can do nothing about it. Rage doesn’t even describe it! And just to top it all off the bill arrived in the post a few days ago >:(
re
Eircom are a bunch of useless pricks. My internet cuts out on average once every 15 mins, and if you’re doing work that requires consistent connections and the internet cuts out you have to start over! And to top it off, if the modem fails all the wireless network is down. I have to switch the modem off and then back on and then restart my pc because it has problems applying the ip to the modem? Ringing eircom is a frustrating task and all they eventually tell me to do is to change the default channel on my modem. Which changes nothing!
Sometimes it’s the DSL that cuts out, sometimes it’s their shitty netopia overheating modem, sometimes my “7.6”mb/s internet just decides to run at 200kb/s
And because it’s their lines, changing the isp around a few times hasn’t helped at all. Just needed somewhere to dump this rant :/
Never in my life, have I dealt with such a waste of time company. Rude to the tilt! Liars, ( techs saying the work has already been done) mean, over priced , useless . In 2 years I have waited for my temporary phone line to be installed correctly.
and for the temporary ugly brown pole that sits in front of my house to be removed. They tell me they have no record of my request? Whats wrong with the brown pole with very low wires across my driveway ( which is a hazard ) The lady at one time actually said to me ‘you actually have trucks running though your driveway?’ I was shocked as I was explaining to her the danger of my kids outside playing with the wire? This is orrific , there is no way to describe EIRCOM.. I can not believe that there is no way to go to get a complaint handled..10 day turnaround its been two years , huge bills , slow internet, and a bunch of mean people.
What to do? How does Ireland allow this?
Thanks for listening.. and good luck if someone can find a solution . I am more than happy to hear it.
All the best from Donegal( 1 engineer I think in all of Donegal)
Loren
I can only agree with all of the above. A chap named ‘Preet’ phoned my wife and did a really hard sell on her. Baby crying and kicking, dog barking and general chaos in the house, she switched over. I got home and suggested that we stay with perlico. There was no problem you see, they tell you, you can cancel anytime within ten working days. We canceled within an hour.
Now my broadband is shagged, Perlico tell us we aren’t with them. A daft and ignorant b*t*h from eircom told me that we are not with them at all. Another one says we are. Phone calls. Letter. More phone calls. Still no joy. Plenty of rudeness though.
Although not with eircom, up the drive arrives a netopia modem for me. ‘Delighted that I have returned to eircom’ note with it.
In the heel of the hunt all I want is revenge on someone.
Mike.
i moved from dublin to drogheda 3 months ago i applied to move my line with me they said i t would take up to 10 working days it over two months and my broadband is still crap worse than dial up it drops every evening at around 530 to 630 and returns after mid night ive a there top package of 7 megs.ive rang these guys once or twice a week for 3 months now they say they are gonig to sent an eingineer around but no body turns up they warn me it could cost me 100 euro if its my fault id glady pay 100 euro at this stage to get my broadband back.there technicians arent trained to a high level they just read off a check list and cant understand when i tell them that its when people come home from work and log on that my internet connection decreases substantially unreal.