John Ó'Ríordáns Blog

Fair point. I do remember my original order didn’t go through because Eircom rejected it for no valid reason. However Smart didn’t tell me I had to ring chasing up on the order and they said

“Oh yeah, this order hasn’t gone through. Would you like to try again?”.

Well d’uh of course I would. They have both my mobile number and e-mail address and they never told me the order was stopped. Wasted a lot of my time as i hadn’t rang them for 2 weeks.

Also they sent a letter saying welcome to Smart but when I checked my line yesterday it is still with Eircom! I rang them and asked them what the hold up was and all they say each time is two weeks, two weeks., it’ll be ready in two weeks.

Well feck it now it means I asked to get my line switched over more than two months ago and it still hasn’t been done but no one from Smart seems to know why.

Not very professional whatever the reason for the hold up.

Yeah. Bad speeling is a killer. Looks like the issue here is with Eircom holding up the switch over on the Exchange. So maybe I have been harsh on Smart but I don’t understand why it is so difficult to get Broadband in Ireland.

Saw the new PC as well. Pretty cool looking thing.

Fair point again. But like I said orginally when my order was rejected (for whatever reason Eircom or otherwise) no one told me. If i didn’t ring I could be sitting at home now with no order even raised. Also I rang few days ago out of hours and left a message askig to be called back. Was I called back. Nope. So in fairness perhaps Eircom are holding them up the order but they are not managing their customer very well.

Maybe I am getting cranky from internet withdrawl?

Actually just rang them there to check out the point about the first order being rejected. After I put in the order it was rejected 3 days later. I rang them 19 days later to see when I might expect my phone line and only then did they tell me it had been rejected. Wasted 16 days!!

That’s a bit much.

Well I guess we now know what the “technical Issue” was. It was that they didn’t pay their bills.

From the Irish Independant

“MORE than 45,000 of Smart Telecom’s customers had their phone service switched off last night.

Eircom, which operates the network used by Smart, pulled the plug on the troubled telephone company.

It claims that Smart owes it millions of euro for the use of the network and that it is not confident that the money will ever be paid.

Smart lost €36m in thefirst six months of this year as it lavished money on national advertising and sponsorship campaigns but failed to win sufficient business to support it going forward.

It is understood that Eircom had planned to switch off all of Smart’s ordinary customers at 5pm yesterday but technical difficulties meant the move was delayed until 6.30pm. It is also understood that Eircom met with Comreg, the communications regulator, yesterday to advise it of its plans.

In order to avail of Eircom’s network, Smart had to lodge a multi-million-euro bond which Eircom can call on in the event that the smaller telephone company failed to pay its bill. It is understood that Smart’s level of indebtedness to Eircom runs to millions of euro above this bond.

The move will affect 45,000 Smart customers who have an ordinary telephone service. Smart’s 16,000 broadband customers have not been affected. This is because Eircom has to physically disconnect these customers from its exchanges.

This process will take some weeks, after which these customers may also be disconnected.

Smart shares trade on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London. Yesterday they were trading at stg2.5p, having fallen from 27p earlier in the year. Market sources said yesterday that the shares may now be suspended until the company’s position going forward is clarified.

The customers who were cut off last night will still hear a dialling tone, which is known as a soft dialling tone.

This means that they will still be able to receive calls and will be able to make emergency (999) calls.

As the owner of the principal telephone network and a seller of services, Eircom is both a wholesaler and a retailer.

Under the rules by which the market operates, Eircom’s wholesale arm cannot advise its own retail arm of the mass dissconnection.

This rule, which is meant to prevent Eircom from taking advantage of its dominant position to compete unfairly with other companies, also inhibits its ability to facilitate Smart customers with an immediate alternative service.

Smart’s troubles began in earnest last month when the company announced that its chief executive, Oisin Fanning, was stepping down and that it was reviewing all of its business areas.

It has since laid off over 100 staff. “

i just rang Smart Telecom there to cancel the order. I am going to get Eircom Broadband instaed but when i was on hold the music they were playing was the Theme from Titanic!!

Brilliant! :-D

Thanks for this Mark. In fairness I never lost the rag with the Customer Care because I work in Tech Support myself and I realise that Customer Care have little or no influence over anything and usually being persistent on the phone gets you farther.
I did get a call from Conor at one stage but I didn’t respond because at that stage I was already going down the legal route and I didn’t want to ring them anymore.
Anyway hopefully those mails might be of some us to someone.

Anybody want to see the full litany of woe click here