We have two fresh nightmares before Christmas involving Eir. A reader called Tom wrote to us on behalf of his father, also Tom. Tom snr, we were told, “has been a very loyal Eir business account holder for many years”.

He recently retired “and as a way of saving some money for him, I suggested that he change to a residential account”, Tom jnr says. They cancelled the business account and ordered a new service from an Eir rep, “who was adamant” high-speed broadband could be provided at his Dublin 24 address.

“It was explained that the house is on its own grounds and that we were doubtful high-speed broadband could be easily supplied. The charge was to be €100 plus €50 for installation/activation.

They were stood up by the installer on the first date. When he did appear, he said a cable would have to go across the road and the order would have to be cancelled and reordered. They tried this and were told their line had been “reclassified” to a high-speed connection.

More call-backs were promised but never came. “In his desperation to get an installation, bearing in mind his age, location and that he now had no landline and only a mobile in an area of fringe coverage, dad succeeded in placing another order.”

A modem was delivered on November 16th, and he was given an installation date of a week later. On installation day, Tom snr got a message to say it was happening, and a subsequent one to say his order had been cancelled. “All we ever wanted to do was switch from business to residential,” Tom jnr writes. “The man had a working system, he does not require high-speed broadband. He was happy with the service he had, except the cost. Words like ‘fiasco’ and ‘farce’ don’t come close to describing what we have encountered in the last five weeks.”

Dying handset

Last April, Gerry Lawless noticed that his Eir handset was not holding its charge for long and the battery would die after three or four minutes. "This didn't worry me unduly as I didn't use the landline often. However, on May 24th I received a text message on my mobile from friends in Galway informing me that a mutual friend in Canada had been trying unsuccessfully to phone me from Canada for several days."

Gerry checked and found his landline had no dial tone and he could neither make nor receive calls. He logged two faults – a failing handset and no landline – with Eir online. He heard nothing back.

Then in June a bill arrived for €96.23, of which €58.52 was an advance payment for the landline.” There were more back-and-forths, and then he “perhaps foolishly” decided not to pay the bill until Eir restored his service.

In August he got another bill for €182.55. “I again tried ringing Eir several times but gave up after waiting unanswered for 30 to 40 minutes.” A month later another bill “threatening ‘suspension of all services’ unless the outstanding bill of €182.55 was paid within seven days”.

Cue more back-and-forth but no resolution. In September another letter came stating his account “was sent for termination”. More back-and-forth and more letdowns followed.

Then in the middle of October, he received another bill from Eir, now for €268.82, and again he made several efforts to call but no answer. A final bill came days later, which was reduced to €207.57 A few days later he rang Eir again “and spent a long time with an agent who again promised that he would sort out everything and that Eir would be in contact within 10 days. He got another “final bill” on November 9th. He had still not heard back from the company despite many promises.

“Please, can you help? What began as a request for a new handset and repair to my landline has now gone on for almost six months. I would really like to have a working landline over the winter months.

Eir’s responses

We got in touch with Eir’s communications department. This is the response: “We have conducted a full review of the issues and we would like to apologise to both customers for the poor care experience they have had. In Gerry’s case, we have resolved the balance issue and we have an engineer working to repair the fault on the line. In Tom’s case, we have an engineer with him today to manage the installation and we will ensure the resolution is closed off quickly.