Overcharging by Eir leads to loss of broadband for customer

We have a couple of queries in connection with our friends at Eir. First up is Mary Feeney, who contacted us after what sounds like a very frustrating six months trying to have her broadband connection restored.

“Eir significantly overcharged me for the mobile, landline and internet service from March 2018 via a number of direct debits they were taking from my bank account,” she says.

She noticed the overcharging only in January and immediately cancelled the largest of the erroneous direct debits. After she did, her internet service was cut off but not her mobile or landline service.

“After a number of frustrating communications with Eir staff both on the phone and in store” the company granted her a credit of €650 “to compensate for the incorrect direct debits charged.”

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But they applied the credit to one of her old Eir accounts and her broadband connection was never restored, forcing her to use her mobile data plan to access the internet.

She says that since she was given the credit “it has been nothing short of painstaking and frustrating communications that I’ve had with [Eir’s] customer care team to try to get my internet working again and, to ensure that the correct direct debit is being charged from my account on a monthly basis for the mobile, landline and internet service – and that this is single direct debit for all three services from Eir.”

She says she has tried her utmost to work with Eir, contacted Eir’s chief executive and made her concerns known to the telecoms regulator. All to no avail. She has spoken to numerous members of Eir’s customer care team, as has her son, and she was repeatedly promised that the problem would be resolved. By the middle of last month she still had no broadband at her home. That is when she made contact with us. And we made contact with Eir.

“Thank you for highlighting this to us, our care team have been working with the customer to ensure the issue is resolved,” the company said in response.

“Broadband service has been restored and the team are working with the customer to ensure she has the right bundle to meet her needs. We are working hard to offer our customers the high level of care they should expect and following our decision to move all customer-care services back in-house, service has improved day on day. We apologise to this customer for the inconvenience caused and we are happy that the customer is satisfied with the resolution.”

‘Unpleasant’

Next up there is a reader called Emma. Her father passed away in recent weeks. “My parents’ Eir account was in my dad’s name,” she writes. “I’ve just had my mother on the phone crying as they are being so difficult and unpleasant to her.”

Emma said her mother had emailed the necessary documents and had been told she would be without phone, internet and alarm for between three and five while the service were being changed over.

“This is absolutely unacceptable, in my opinion,” says Emma. “She lives on her own and needs her alarm for security and comfort, especially at this difficult time. I feel totally helpless as Eir won’t talk to anyone else only her so this was all I could think of doing for her.”

We made contact with the company again and were told that its customer-care team follows strict processes to protect the security and privacy of customers’ account information. “The usual process is that when a customer is reported to be deceased that account will be closed and a new account set up.”

She said this case “was treated as an exception and the name on the account was changed; due to the account being linked to a security monitoring service, there will be no downtime for this service. Our care team are following up with this customer to ensure they have all of the information they need.”