Telecom warns customers of double-billing

Telecom Eireann has written to 22,000 subscribers warning them that they may have been double-billed for calls which were routed through the Dolphin's Barn telephone exchange in Dublin. The company has also sent itemised bills to the customers affected.

According to Telecom Eireann, an unspecified number of calls which were routed from the Bray area of north Co Wicklow through Dolphin's Barn were double-charged because of "human intervention in the automated process".

All 22,000 bills are now being examined by Telecom staff and the company has promised that any relevant rebates will be credited to the next bill.

In a letter to subscribers, Telecom Eireann's services development manager, Mr Joe O'Reilly, said that while it was normal for calls to travel through more than one exchange, the cost of the call should be charged only at one exchange. "The problem on this occasion was that a charge was also levied at the second exchange, which was Dolphin's Barn."

According to the letter, the fault was caused by "manual intervention by an employee who had altered software and incorrectly modified a particular call route". Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Mr O'Reilly said the error was accidental.

Mr O'Reilly said it was important to note that not all calls from the Bray exchange travelled the route which was affected by the fault and he added that the exchange had now been amended to correct the problem.

A spokeswoman for the Telecom Eireann press office said the calls affected were all local calls. The exact number of subscribers affected was likely to be much less than 22,000.

The Office of the Ombudsman, which investigates complaints in relation to Telecom Eireann, said it had so far heard nothing of the incident, although a spokesman pointed out that "it is a legal requirement that customers try to sort things out with Telecom first."