Pricewatch: Readers’ queries

A reader called Mags has a mum who is “a bit of a technophobe and has always had crappy phones”.

Mags’s mum is a part-time childminder and doesn’t earn much, and so she is also a bit phobic about having a bill phone. “Since I moved to Edinburgh a few years ago, it was costing us both a fortune to stay in touch, and it was not great as we could only talk or text,” writes Mags. “She can’t afford to get broadband in and doesn’t have a laptop or landline so our options for communicating were limited. I decided that I would get her an iPhone two years ago. I pay the bill, so she doesn’t have to worry about it. I can only afford to pay about €30 a month, so if the bill goes over she scrapes together the rest,” she writes.

“When I got the phone, Meteor was useless to begin with. I tried to synch the phone and port over the Sim card with her old number, to have all that organised for her by the time I returned to Edinburgh after the holidays. However, Meteor screwed up and it took six weeks to successfully port the number over due to a technical error, and we were nearly tearing our hair out calling them to get it resolved. After calling incessantly they agreed to ‘push her up the queue’ to get it sorted.”

Meteor was reluctant to refund Mags for the time that her mum was without a phone or Sim, and the company “expected us to pay the first month’s bill as normal. I persisted and became a real pain for them, and eventually they caved in and credited my first payment. To say I was less than impressed with the overall service is a major understatement,” she says.

There were more problems, but eventually things settled down. Until recently. “I tried to cancel the direct debit on the account, as I intend to pay with my debit card from here on in. I followed advice I was given by customer services and sent in the request, but the original email was lost and it took a further four emails to get the matter resolved.”

After all that, Mags decided to upgrade her mother’s iPhone and opted to pay €49 to get her a brand new iPhone 4S last week. “I also upgraded her plan, as it turned out she was entitled to double the minutes and texts she was on at no extra cost. I upgraded the plan by phone on the Monday and was told if I ordered the phone before 12pm it would arrive the next day. Then, when I called to pay, I was told by a different operator that it would take up to three working days. It didn’t arrive on the Thursday, so I had to go chasing it up. They said they couldn’t tell me anything about the location of the phone other than it was showing as ‘sent’. I phoned on the Friday and was told it was at the delivery depot in Limerick city. My mum had to get someone to drive her to the depot to pick up the phone before they closed for the weekend.”

She then phoned Meteor on the Friday to activate her new Sim card, and was told it would take 24 hours to port over. The phone was synched on Saturday, but, when she put the Sim in, it was still inactive and she was told there was a major technical error in the works and hundreds of customers have been left without a signal as their Sims weren’t porting over properly, and this would take 14 days to resolve. “Instead of helping her, and much to my annoyance, she was told by an operator that if she didn’t like it, she should exercise her right to a cooling-off period and send the phone back. If that wasn’t an option she was advised to go and buy a Sim card and phone credit in the meantime, but that Meteor were not willing to supply a temporary card.”

Mags contacted us after spending an hour on the phone with them asking if they would move her up the queue and get this fast-tracked as it is not the first time she has been left without service for such a significant period of time. She asked whether, if they could not do that, they could at least supply her mum with a temporary Sim card. “They refused to do either but kindly advised me that they would be willing to possibly credit me after it gets resolved for the time we did not have service. I am so frustrated. I can’t even communicate with my mum about this because she is stewing at home in a rural area with no phone. It truly is a lifeline for her. She has to go to the neighbours’ house to phone for a taxi to get out and about now, and has no means of phoning Meteor.”

We got in touch with the company and got the following statement. “We’re very sorry about the poor customer service experience that [Mags] and her mother have had. We completely understand their frustration. A member of our customer care team has followed up with [Mags] and her mother to apologise and to confirm that we have resolved the outstanding technical issues. As a gesture of goodwill, and in recognition for the inconvenience caused, we have compensated [Mag’s] mother.”