How to make your customers hate you aka. this “letter” from eir Ireland has opened up some old wounds… But that’s ok because we are happy with Pure Telecom Ireland now… You’ll not read this post. Its way to long.

Hello beautiful peoples!

I got a letter via an-post today from my previous ISP “eir Ireland”. It was addressed to “The Householder” at my current address. Looked like an official letter… In a windowed envelope etc. Old memories rushed in… eir Ireland… I did not think about them for years. “FUCK…” slipped out from my mouth quietly…

I have opened the envelope quickly… I thought they wanted something from me… But what could it be? I gave them back their router AND paid that final bill over 3 years ago… BUT with eir Ireland you never know… Turns out – it was a leaflet… not a letter at all. eir was informing me that a “Gigabit Fibre Broadband” is available at my home. I sighed in relief…

Looking at this leaflet pretending to be an official correspondence has opened up some old wounds. Wounds from years ago when every time my wife or I picked up a letter with official eir logo on the envelope from the ground we only said one word… It was MANY years ago and yet today when I looked at that letter I said it… All the bad memories rushed in… I read their leaflet and thought about going back to their services and my soul vomited a little in my mouth… “I would rather get naked, slide bare-arsed down a banister made of razors into a tub filled with salt then let them anywhere near me…” I thought… SO! MANY! BAD! MEMORIES! both at work and at home.

When we first moved into this house over 10 years ago in a early 2014, we moved in with a friend. A flatmate. He needed a proof of address so he got the “eir Fibre Broadband” connected to the house. With his name on the bill. It was a fauxbre. Fake Fibre if you will. “Up to* 100mbps”. Copper pretending to be fast… We knew we will never reach those speeds. We got 25mbps download and 6mbps upload speed. We were ok with that. €25 per month for the first year, €53 per month after that…

Sometime after that (late 2015) my lovely fiancé and myself decided to get hitched and our flatmate decided it was time to move out. Since he was moving out – we decided it was best to move broadband account into my own name.

I did my research and found out that in the past the current account holder had to actually close down the account for the address and 24 hours later a new account could be added with this address. You then had to wait for the eir router which was sent to you via an-post – whole operation took more less 2 weeks. 2 weeks of no internet? That’s a long long time… I’ve decided to check if something changed in that department and while at work I got one of the eir bills and found a contact number. It was 1890 something or 1850 something. I called the number and super extremely polite girl told me that I have reached eir for business customers service and that I need to get eir personal account customer service but in the same time she said that this way of “transferring” the account is a thing of the past. All I have to do is call the 1901 number from landline or mobile and then press 3 when asked. I will then reach one of the personal customer service departments and they will transfer the account from my flatmate’s name / bank details to my name and bank details. Both – current account holder and the future account holder have to be present. It will take maximum 24 hours for the details to change. I will continue to pay the bills from my bank account where I would have set up a direct debit. Bills will kept coming to the house but with my name on them. Account would continue to exist. No internet interruptions would have to appear. Fantastic… right?

Wrong. Flatmate came in to deal with few final things and drop off a key. One of these final things was to transfer the eir’s account as planned. I was sure it will take 3 mins tops. I did my research. Right? Wrong…

We called the 1901 number and we got the helpline. First person that we spoke to was a weird young girl who didn’t seemed to care. I told her what the story is. She told us “She cannot transfer the account to another name because she can only change the FIRST name and not the last name on the account”. I was also told that its impossible to transfer account to someone who is not a member of the immediate family. Wait! What?! I told her that I’ve spoke to the eir representative sometime ago and they said its done in 3 – 5 minutes and the transfer of ownership takes 24 hours top. She said “she must ask someone” and left me on hold. After she came back online she was even less pleasant. Ok… I have gotten very much annoyed and asked to be transferred to the girls manager. Instead I landed in the “Cancellation” department after hanging on hold for a minute or two.

This time I got a professional customer service representative. Stewart. Very polite. Excellent phone manners. I felt like he tried to help me… but at the end I’ve heard the same story. “I am sorry but…“. Yes I know. They are always sorry. They are a customer service representatives. They are not really responsible for the issues I am having. I know that and this is why I am trying not to be rude to them. Do not shoot the messengers. I told Stewart the truth. The fact that he is sorry is in no way going to make me feel better when I am waiting for approximately two weeks for my new eir account to be activated and for my router / internet password to be delivered. Even if its not 2 weeks but just 6 days. It’s still a very long time to stay offline. He offered me to transfer my call to the “Billing” department. I said fine.

Another person listened to our story and was sorry but… I was offered to be transfered to the “Loyalty” department. I said fine – go ahead.

At this point my flatmate and my fiancée started to laugh because they were sick and tired of me trying to explain the situation to another customer service representative.

I spoke to Amy in the “Loyalty” department. Loyalty for me means – a mutual respect. I am a loyal customer. I was paying my eir bill for many years. All I need is for them to help me transfer the account to my name / banking details and to provide me with uninterrupted internet connection. I asked Amy if leaving me hanging for almost 2 weeks with no internet is their definition of loyalty and what stops me from closing the account today and opening another one with Vodafone 5 minutes later. Her reply was… precious and actually quite brilliant. “Early cancellation fee – €150”. Amy said that she was sorry… but that’s how things work.

I thanked Amy very much, wished her a good day and disconnected the call. 43 minutes. 4 people. 1 company. And we were not happy.

Do you see how they narrowed the options for us?

– Cannot change the last name
– Cannot transfer account if the person is not family
– Cannot close the account without paying €150 cancellation fees
– There is no simple way to transfer ownership so that the service / payments continue without at least few days of interruptions

After all this we have decided to keep the Eir account in my flatmate’s name. He would keep paying for it till the February 2016 and then he would cancel it to avoid the cancellation fee. I would send him the money each month via online banking. So basically I will be paying for the internet connection from his account. Yes – I know. RIDICULOUS.

6 months later our now ex-flatmate popped in for a coffee and a chat and we rang eir again. “You’re not on contract for the past year so yeah no problem. We can cancel your connection today. Your next bill will be the final one. You can use the broadband until the end of the billing period. Please send your router to this address… x y z and call us when this account will be terminated to sign up for a new one in your own name.” Wait what? We were not under contract for a year and yet they lied to us and told us we were just to keep us for another 6 months? No… That couldn’t be it. Amy surely must have made a mistake… Anyway. We don’t care… We waited 6 months. We are closing the account. We are fine…

Less than a month from now final bill will be paid. Router will be returned to eir. We will have no internet for a few days but when we do again it will be OUR OWN account. Our own Fauxbre… Our own Fake Fibre if you will. “Up to* 100mbps”. Same address. Same line…

I came back home from work on Monday the 15th of the February 2016 and I was told by my beloved wife that the Internet is down. I rang eir and found out that they have “cut the line” because (as we have previously agreed) our flatmate applied for his account to be closed month ago. Great – I thought – now we will be able to sign up for our own account and we will be able to get on like nothing ever happened. I was told by the Eir representative that 24 hours must first pass from the moment that one account was closed to the moment that we are able to apply for a new account for the same address. No problem.

I rang eir Ireland and was connected (very quickly) to a sales department. I was promised a golden mountain and then I asked for a static IP (I am running a lot of internet services on my servers at home – static IP would make it slightly easier for me) AND that caused a whole bunch of issues… “We could provide you with a static IP address but you would need a business account not a residential customer account…” they told me before putting me on hold and transferring the call to the Business Sales department.

This is how I got connected to a guy named Patrick. Patrick was very polite and well mannered. He answered all my questions and gave me very detailed information about everything I needed to know. I was told that “I will be better off signing up for a business account rather than the residential one because since I was a business account they will basically throw speed at me…“. I expressed my doubts about it because I do not own a business in Ireland (or anywhere else for that matter). I was told that “I do not need to be a business owner to be eligible for the eir Business account”. I asked him specifically about the bills and the amount on the bills and he said that I will only pay approximately €5 more than if I applied for the residential like and that the whole bill will be around €50 including vat. I was surprised but after a while he talked me into signing up for a business account. He said that our phone line will be active within 24 hours, he asked me for a e-mail address – he told me that I will get the information sent to this account as soon as my phone line is active. That e-mail NEVER arrived. Just to show you the mess eir is… He told me that the modem / router will be “overnighted” to me with a courier company and that I should have it soon. This has raised my hopes because I was told that people are waiting up to 2 weeks to get their internet up and running. I was told my router will be here and I will have my router here tomorrow? Nice – I thought – “I don’t really know why people are complaining about Eir – this is a sound company“… The conversation with Patrick was long and very productive. I was quite pleased. I was such a naive idiot… Prior to this happening I was always one of those people that was defending eir Ireland when I’ve heard it being criticized… I had my 25 mbps download and 6 mbps upload speed and I was happy. A lot has changed since then…

2 days later (on Thursday the 18th of February 2016) very early in the morning I’ve received a text message from a company called “Nightline”. The text message basically stated “we have your router and it will be delivered to you today”. Since they did not indicated when exactly “today” will they deliver the router my wife has changed her plans for the day and stayed home just to make sure that she is here to sign for the package when it arrives. She was waiting all day for nothing. Package has never arrived. The very next morning (Friday, 19th February 2016) I have received another text message from “Nightline”. It was exactly the same as the one I received previously so I’ve contacted “Nightline” thru their website form and was told “Sorry – not our fault – the delivery truck broke down. It will be delivered today – definitely”. Ok… Great… I wasn’t happy but what could I do?… The conversation which took place over the e-mail was not great either. My wife has yet again decided to alter her plans and stay home to sign for the package. “Shit happens” I thought and went to work that day.

Later that afternoon, I have received a text message from my wife stating that she has picked up the router.

The router that arrived was a different model. Our old model was F1000, this one was newer. F2000. It had few “features” I was not to happy about.:

• admin password was limited to 20 chars… 20 chars is plenty but usually when password length limit is introduced its because its being stored incorrectly…
• NAT (or should I say NAT hairpin) wasn’t working correctly – which meant that my external services were accessible for everyone from outside my LAN but I could not access them from inside my network…
• Port forwarding was a major pain in the butt to set up (and was not working correctly when was set up).

I called eir and asked them for advice. They told me to keep using the F1000 router – which I really gladly did. I’ve configured F1000 to my liking and kept waiting for the 24th of February. Finally it happened. Internet was back. I was delighted – right up to the moment when I’ve checked my speed… I was only getting 15mbps download / 5 mbps upload.

I called eir and asked them to check what is the story. They changed my profile from 15/6 to 25/6 and told me I should be getting my usual speed 24 hours from now. Fine. No problem. Not sure why but I had a gut feeling that the guy that was setting it up for us didn’t really know how to do it. He told me he needs to “consult a colleague” and put me on hold. I had a hunch… I was right again. 24 hours later I was still only getting 14.3 mbps download and 5.9 mbps upload speeds. I wasn’t happy.

Called them again the very next day or the day after that cannot remember. They were trying to help. Kept putting me on hold. Kept “consulting mentor” and “trying something else” but no matter what they did they were unable to get the speed back. I was after work. My wife cooked dinner while I was on the phone with eir technicians but it took over 2 hours, maybe 3… The speed didn’t changed and the only thing that I achieved was to talk them into sending the field technician to check the line as one of the technicians said that the only thing that could be a problem was “a bit of voltage on the line”. The eir technician took down my mobile number and told me that “IF the field technician will need to access my premises they will give me a call half an hour before”. At the end of the call I was deadly tired, hungry and frustrated. I ate my dinner and it was nearly a bed time for me as tomorrow was another working day. Wasted my entire evening trying to sort it out. Since then there were many other evenings wasted on call with eir support technicians… If I knew what I knew now I would have change my ISP right there and then…

After a few days – while I was at work I got a miss call from my wife. This is a sign for me “call me – something is happening”. She rarely calls me when I am at work because I don’t like to waste my bosses’ time with personal calls. Usually I call home during a tea and / or lunch break if I get the time. If she calls me – it means something is up. I excused myself from the office and called her back. “The eir technician is in the house and checking the line… You were suppose to call me and let me know if they were coming…”. I was, yes… but then HE never called me so I was just as surprised as she was… She gave the phone to the technician who told me that the line and the router that I am using are 100% fine.

In the meanwhile I’ve received first letter from eir… with my first name misspelled. I rang them and asked for the name to be corrected. Later one of the eir staff on Twitter confirmed that it is now spelled correctly.

I was so desperate I even tried the online chat…. With extremely poor results…

I tried again at later date… Same thing… Chat seems dead and buried – just like the eir “community” forum where more adventures like this one here could be found… People were complaining because they were charged more then they should be, people complaining about the speeds… etc. in the meanwhile bots spreading spam and malware…

I called them few days later in the evening. The same story. Wasted 3 – 4 hours on the phone. At some stage I was standing next to the router for over 30 minutes with my (quite heavy) laptop in my hand. I couldn’t put it away because of the LAN cable length. Nightmare. In the meanwhile technician was “trying something” and “consulting his mentor” yet again. I think it was 21:30 hours when we have finished. I remember that the technician said that he has ran out of ideas plus he shouldn’t really spend that much time with one customer (some sort of internal policies) and that his shift finished 20 minutes ago so he is unable to help me anymore because he should be home already. His big solution to the problem was for me to reset the F2000 modem, plug it in instead of my F1000 modem. Plug my laptop using the LAN cable and then give them a call.

I had a few very difficult days at work. It was one of the busiest times of the year for us right then so I kind of gave up with the eir helpline calls. I gave them a week, maybe 8 – 9 days. In the meanwhile I’ve purchased 10 meters long cat6 LAN cable on e-bay so that I don’t have to stand like the freakin ejeet next to the router. Checked the speed again. No change. Finally last week I’ve decided I needed to call them again. It was a long weekend for me as I was off from work for 3 days (Saturday, Sunday and Monday 12th – 15th of March) so I called them on Friday (11th March) after work to have it done so I don’t have to think about it over the weekend. Plus I remember that they were announcing that their call center is getting some sort of maintenance / updates.

So I called them. I was on the phone with the technician (I think) till nearly 22:00 hours. At the end of the call he said he has no idea what’s wrong. I am connected to the correct port, I am set up with the right profile. Everything seems fine – but I am not getting the speed. He confirmed my mobile number and said that he is sending some sort of “advanced field technician to check the fibre cabinet”. And that the technician will call me if he needs access to premises.

Weekend came and went… well almost… On Monday I’ve received another bit of correspondence from eir… My first bill… €129.74… WOW! I was shocked… Wait what?! HOW?! WHY?! So I looked closer… There were 4 figures on the bill

• Broadband from March to April 2016 – €29.79
• Line rental fee from March to April 2016 – €20.96
• Connection charges – “one time” fee – €20.65
• Part period charges (charges for broadband and line rental from the period February to March 2016 – €34.08

Those figures summed up nicely gave a total of €105.48 on top of which 23% VAT was thrown in and the total figure was €129.74 was born. This told me one thing. My next bill WILL NOT be around €50 as promised but more in the region of €61… How? Well First two figures mentioned above are the monthly charges that are constant on my bill. The next two are just one time connection charge and payment for the period from before my first bill. So… If you sum up figures 1 and 2 you get €50.75 and you have to throw 23% VAT on top of that… So nearly 1/4 of the €50.75 (€11.67) will be added on top of that. That told me that my next bill will be €62.42… That’s not what I was told.

So like a idiot I called eir’s 1901 number and spoke to a very polite but not very bright young woman (I think Stephanie was her name) who tried to tell me that I was definitely wrong and that the sales rep told me it would be €50 excluding VAT and that she does not understand what do I want from her… At some stage I got upset and I raised my voice for which I apologized later. I know Stephanie was not responsible for my troubles. She was not the cause of them either. It’s internal chaos, lack of the information flow and general mess that are responsible for my trouble… She promised me that she has escalated my case and that the manager will listen to the tape from the archives (my original call with Patrick) and he will call me within 24 hours. Monday – my last day of the long weekend was ruined. Who of you would like to receive a €130 bill when you’re expecting €80 at the most…

I went to work on Tuesday, I was sure that at some stage I will get the call from the eir’s manager and I will be told it was a mistake and everything will get sorted. At some stage I got a horrible migraine… Took couple of ibuprofen pills but that didn’t help. I took couple more but after an hour I asked my boss if I could finish bit earlier today as I am not feeling very well. One of my co-workers gave me a lift home around 16:00 hours.

After I got home I’ve noticed 2 eir vans parked in front of my house. My wife told me that these 2 gentleman arrived several minutes earlier and were testing the line. Very polite guys. Very reasonable guys. I found out few things from them and when we were chatting one of them realized it was something he did in the past that’s causing all the trouble. He was sent to diagnose a technical issue and when he was doing that he disabled “vectoring” on the cabinet because it was “bringing the whole box down”. They both said that they will write a report and that eir will have to send someone to deal with this issue.

Vectoring – as I was told – is a kind of a signal booster that is reducing the amount of noise on the line and is boosting speed. Without the vectoring present my line would not get the full speed that it should be getting. It should be added every (if I remember correctly) 700 meters from the cabinet and since I live about 950 meters from the cabinet the vectoring SHOULD be present but isn’t.

Just to add – I did not received a call from the eir manager. I contacted eir on Twitter. That of course was met with a prompt reply from one of their Twitter staff. Which told me how very sorry they were… It’s so nice of them (and somewhat condescending) when they feel sorry for me… It really helps me a lot that somewhere out there is a person that feels sorry… No not really… Anyway. What happened after nearly blew my mind. I was basically told that “eir cannot guarantee speeds”, that I should check “Terms and conditions” and that they cannot help me but they advise me to spend more time calling 1901 and allowing technicians more time to troubleshoot this… At this point I was pissed off. I allowed them at least 20 hours of my time during which I was on hold or performing some troubleshooting instructions. My wife has changed her plans twice because of unreliable courier company they use. I have been pushed over from one technician to another. I allowed access to field team twice now. I had 25 mbps download on the same line and I was told by the sales rep that “I will get even more as they will pump speed at me”. I was lied to about the amount on my bill AND I AM THE ONE TO BLAME because THEY cannot guarantee speeds and because I should read “T&C” more carefully?

I’ve been waiting till nearly 16:20 for the eir’s manager to call me. Around that time I said to myself enough waiting and I’ve called 1901 and asked the customer representative what’s the story. I was put on hold and lo and behold – the next time I’ve heard a human’s voice it was a manager… Lee. Lee seemed to be in a rush – maybe he was already thinking about green Guiness… maybe he was just annoyed that such a insignificant person like myself was wrecking his head with such a minor thing as a overcharged bill – anyway… He was not very polite. At some stage he barked at me and said “I will listen to the tape now” and put me on hold. The conversation that I had with Patrick took over 20 minutes. Manager came back on the line maybe 90 – 120 seconds later and told me he will put me onto “a new billing system” which meant I will be paying €49.50 per month and not €62… He then asked me for my direct debit information. I was reluctant to give it to him but he said that to avail on this special offer I need to set up direct debit… Before I gave him this info I was also asked if I was “a sole trader or limited”. At this stage I told him that I am not a business owner. I told him that I was told that I do not have to be a business owner to be eligible for the eir business broadband account. He asked me who told me that. I started listing eir Twitter staff, eir business representative, Patrick… He said they were all wrong. Next thing I knew he gave me a 8 digit order number ending with a letter and told me to call 1901 in the next 24 hours because he closed my business account and I will be switched to a residential one… You can add another thing they blame me for now… I was treated like a garbage by some impatient and rude youngster who got the managers position because he can blow people off and (I bet) staff is afraid of him…

On 16th of March while at work I’ve decided to call the 1901, give them the order number I received from Lee and set up the residential account. I ran around 10:45 during my tea break. I spoke to a guy from business helpline who told me that I am no longer a business account holder and I need to be transferred to the residential support. I was on hold for 3 – 5 minutes and I got connected to Patrice. Patrice told me that I am not a residential account holder and that I need to speak to business support… I was on hold for another 2 – 3 minutes and I spoke to a person from business service who basically laughed at the residential support team then told me to wait and transferred me to a guy from the residential support team – Rakesh. Rakesh told me that before he can do anything more time must pass because the changes that Lee applied “did not went through yet” and I need to call them back on Monday. Also I was told that my residential account does not have the e-fibre on it so first they need to check if my line is capable of running e-fibre and then they will have to send technician to my house to get the e-fibre connected. The price of e-fibre will be €45 including vat per month. Not more not less. I tried long and hard to explain that I have the e-fibre / e-fibre F2000 modem at home right now but Rakesh kept insisting that if I already have e-fibre then what do I want from him. Later I’ve figured out what happened. Lee has ceased my business account. This caused my account number to change. The old account had e-fibre on it. New account that Lee created had ordinary broadband on it. Basically Rakesh was unable to help me. I thanked him and disconnected as my tea break was over. I had to go back to work.

I’ve decided to wait till after work to give the Eir guys another call. My conversation with Lee took place around 16:20 – 16:35 – I thought that maybe after full 48 hours will pass I will be able to get something done today. I rang the 1901 around 16:30 and got thru to Kevin. Kevin listened to my story, I gave him the order number, the telephone number and both old and new account numbers, I was told it’s a residential support thing and he will transfer me. Then I got thru to Rakesh. Rakesh told me that it’s a business support thing – “You need to speak to business team and tell them to transfer your account to residential before I can do anything”. I was put on hold and got through to Alice. Alice listened to me for the first 30 seconds and then either she disconnected me or line dropped…

I called the 1901 again. This time I spoke to a guy called Ian or Kean… Not sure. I explained the whole situation yet again. I gave him all the info he needed. I then explained that I called few minutes ago and that I was being transferred from one person to another and what those people told me… He said that he will take care of it. He will call the residential support in my name and explain to them what’s been happening and then they will be forced to help me. I was on hold for few minutes and then I spoke to Ray. Ray had no idea of what has been going on. No one talked to him. I am just another customer. Ray was polite, listened to me and then told me that my account is a business account and that I have an ordinary broadband and not e-fibre. I was being a bit harsh while chatting to Ray – he insisted he was right and I insisted that he was wrong. You will understand my surprise when HE FINALLY UNDERSTOOD what was happening… He said that in order to undo this mess I need to speak with someone from Loyalty department. I was on hold again. This time I got thru to Daniel. And now shocker… No. Really. Daniel listened to me patiently, then checked something and said “You’re on a normal broadband. I will need to test your line and send technician to install e-fibre”. At this moment I said “No no no no no no NO!”… and I have explained some more details to Daniel. Daniel got slightly irritated – I cannot blame him I was a bit unpleasant… but his phone manners were still perfect. He LISTENED to what I said. Asked to put me on hold and after few minutes he came back and said “yes – I can see that you are actually using e-fibre – but it’s very weird because you’re still on the old system and you have 2 account numbers – both are starting with 9”. Now I knew that Daniel did actually checked something. He was correct. He actually bothered to look deeper and uncover the truth. Daniel offered to transfer me to the new system. He told me that the whole “transferring process” will be painless and I won’t even notice it. He told me that if I stayed with the old system I will be billed bi-monthly €36.64 including VAT (€29.79 excluding VAT) for each month. If I will move to the new system I will be able to avail on some new promotions and so on but the e-fibre broadband alone will cost me €45 including VAT. I asked to be moved. New system was mentioned to me several times so far. I know that Eir is moving everyone to this “new system” anyway and that it is suppose to be easier to use for the support and (this is what I am hoping for) Eir will finally be able to solve this entire mess they call “a company”. Next few minutes I was back on hold (I was praying that the line didn’t drop at this point as Daniel asked that I stayed online as he needs some details from me…). When he came back, Daniel told me that what was done so far was:

• I was transferred from ceased business account to residential account on old system
• I was transferred from residential account on old system to the residential account on new system (I just hope I won’t end up with 3 bills – one for each of those account numbers…)
• All the bells and whistles on my account were cancelled (calls forwarding etc.)

Daniel said that this is as much as he can do for me today. 24 hours must pass for all the changes to apply before he can apply e-fibre to my new account. He gave me two options. He will leave a note on the system for the next person and I can call Eir 1901 on Monday OR he will call me between 13:00 and 14:00 on Wednesday. I chose the latter and also asked to leave the note on the system just in case he couldn’t reach me on Wednesday. I am sticking with this guy. I thanked him several times (still not enough I think). This guy should get a golden star and a freakin raise. Polite, great telephone manners AND he actually knows what he is doing and how to listen. He understood that my harshness at the beginning was a result of frustration gathered over the last two months of being a pushover for the Eir customer support people… and he never called me… Big sad…

Anyway… On the 16th of March 2016 I gave up. Decided I was going to ride it out. I felt angry and frustrated… and I JUST DIDN’T CARED ANYMORE. I had residential eir Fibre account. Fauxbre. Fake Fibre if you will. “Up to* 100mbps”. Copper pretending to be fast… We knew we will never reach those speeds. We got 16mbps download and 4mbps upload speed. We were ok with that. €40 per month for the first year, cannot remember how much per month after that…

Over the many years I stayed with eir I kept paying my bills even tho they kept growing and growing… It was a €5 every now and then… They grew from €40 per month to their final morph of €75 in May 2022 when I finally got pissed off and decided to cut them off.

At work eir sales managers would call in to my now-ex-boss, promising him discounts and all sort of golden mountains if he switched to eir – he would fall for it and sign up with them and let me deal with mess. I would wait for the contract to expire and switch to a better ISP… Guess what… eir sales manager called in and… Yes it happened more than once.

The worst thing about all this was that as soon as my ex-boss sign the contract the eir sales manager that sold it to him was unavailable for chat… And when you call their customer lines you’re bounced around and put on hold while told “you got thru to the wrong department you need to…” OR “You’re not authorized to…”.

Back at home I was receiving bills (07 Apr 2021) as high as €157.00… I called and asked. They told me it was their fault… They charged me for “Total excess broadband charges… €99.9990. There were few other occasions where they did it again. I called for those as well… Oh by the way… They stopped charging for “Excess broadband usage” in 2018… “but they never updated my account to reflect that… I was just glad I never had a direct debit set up for them. Also – I kept all my eir bills. I have proof to back this all up.

OH… And there was that time when the eir sales manager tried selling me on a “ACTUAL fibre connection to my house. It will be a business account with your work place being the business side of it, but with your name and address on a bill”… He sent a technician to my house to get me connected – just to realize THERE IS NO FIBRE IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD YET so he tried sticking me with 2 copper account bills???!!! It was such a frustrating experience… I was starting to get sick (it was March 2022 – just before my hospitalization) and I am venting many many years after… I believe the stress connected to this was actively affecting my heart condition at that time…

I kept dealing with their bullshit up until the time I stopped.

It took me landing in a hospital on 1st of April (yes fool’s day…) with a virus (not covid-19) caused heart failure and liquid in my lungs to finally realize how stressful and toxic this relationship was for us. It took me almost dying for me to ended it. I quitted eir BEFORE I quitted smoking…

We are sorry eir but… WE DON’T CARE THAT YOU ARE SORRY!

Anyway… I am a person that hates changes. I am a person that DREADS CHANGES. I am a person that ACTIVELY AVOIDS CHANGES. But changing to Pure Telecom Ireland was a breath of fresh air after MANY years of stale eir…

Check if you’re in range of https://www.puretelecom.ie. I believe IF You can get eir – you can get Pure Telecom. Call them 1800 844 023 and switch whenever Your eir contract expires.

They have been great for me. Just don’t unload your eir frustration on them. Be nice to them. I believe You will not regret it. AND make sure you ask for Fritz!Box router on sign up. Otherwise you will get the Sagem modem. I was not a fan.

Anyway… I am almost wrapping up here… I got excited. eir tells me Gigabit FIBRE is finally available at my location… So I rang my Pure Telecom Ireland and I am getting connected within next 7 days.

500mbps, €35 per month, 12 months contract.

€50 per month after that but I will give them a call 11 months from now and try convincing them to let me stay at €35 😉.

At first And YES… eir Ireland uses leaflets. In 2024…

Catch you on the flip side,

AndrzejL