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Hanging on for Smart Telecom

Last autumn my daughter decided to discontinue her telephone account with Smart Telecom. She rang them countless times, she wrote to them and e-mailed them and nothing happened for months, despite promises from the people she spoke to that the line would be disconnected immediately.

In the end she had to send an e-mail to the managing director before any action was taken.

After the disconnection, Smart Telecom continued billing for the line that did not exist. When she rang the accounts department, they insisted that the line was in use. The bills kept coming.

Sometimes it showed a credit balance, sometimes a debit balance. When she rang customer care, she was always assured that the problem would be taken care of. Still the bills kept coming.

In January, my daughter sent a letter to Smart Telecom saying that if they did not stop sending her invoices she would put the matter in the hands of a solicitor and sue for harassment. A senior customer care controller at Smart Telecom then wrote to her, apologised for the problems and said that the balance had been written off.

And the bills kept coming.

In April, the customer care official said my daughter's experience was unacceptable. She assured my daughter, again, that the balance on her account had been written off and the bill sent subsequently was due to a technical error. A €10 pre-paid call card was enclosed as a gesture of goodwill.

Guess what? Another bill arrived in mid-May!

My daughter tried ringing the Smart representative with whom she had been dealing. The customer care department asked for the account number or telephone number, neither of which she now has. My daughter offered her the invoice number but was told that it is of no use, and that she could not be put through without either an account number or a telephone number.

What are her options? How does she ensure that there is no blemish on her credit record?

Ms A.M., Dublin

As a general rule we try to edit letters for length to increase the number we answer. However, the plight of your daughter is a classic illustration of the travails of telecoms customers in modern Ireland. To be fair to Smart Telecom, I have come across the same frustrations among customers of other telecoms groups, particularly Eircom.

Smart maintains that when you moved to close the account, in November, there was an outstanding balance due and this is why the bills kept coming initially. They also claim there was some confusion between Smart and Eircom over whether Eircom had or would disconnect the line.

They acknowledge that you were in regular touch and point out that they did wipe out the debt as a gesture of goodwill. At that point their computer decided it owed you a small sum for the part of the monthly rental that was unused - hence the credit note.

The May bill, they concede, was issued in error, and you should since have received one with a closing nil balance.

According to the regulator, ComReg, Smart and all other operators must have a code of conduct on handling customer complaints, which is available to customers on request and on their websites. Smart says its code is available on request. However, it is not on the group's website - something it says it is remedying as part of a site upgrade.

For what it's worth, Smart does not defend the refusal to connect your daughter with the person dealing with this issue on her most recent call.

ComReg says written complaints must exhaust this procedure before being passed on to it. Your written complaint should clarify exactly what you are looking for in terms of action, guarantees about your credit rating and any compensation sought for your time in pursuing the issue.

The process is outlined at askcomreg.ie, which you can access through the www.comreg.ie website.

Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice.