Anthony has paid Eir almost €3,000 more than he had to. Is he due a refund?
'I have been an
Eir
customer since 2015 and have had no issues until now,' begins a mail from Anthony.
His bills are what he has an issue with now.
'I noticed my monthly bill for May is €104.25. It is always paid by direct debit so I never really paid attention to it but today I did, and noticed on the Eir website that I am paying almost 75 per cent more than the amount advertised,' he says.
To support this claim, he sent us pictures of Eir prices ranging from around €35 to €50 a month.
READ MORE
'When I queried this today, I was told that Eir sent out notifications included in the monthly bills informing me that as my contract had ended I was now staying on the highest rate possible, which is what I am on now and have been since Dec 2018.'
He says the company also sent an email 'saying I was on the best plan available'.
He pushed back on this claim and said neither the Eir staff member nor he 'could find any notice to me of an increase in charges notification. I was then told Eir attempted to contact me and advise me of the high charges via a phone call but it appears the phone call got dropped due to a line issue and they never got the chance to advise me.'
Anthony says that over the past six and a half years he has paid close to €3,000 more than he needed to.
'Eir maintain they advise customers via their bills yet they cannot provide any evidence of this, and that they tried to call me to discuss same, yet there was a problem with the Eir phone line so they could not advise me,' he states. 'They could have been calling me about anything, despite a note logged to the call by them, so I am to suck it up (my words). The agent was very polite but unable to do anything on my behalf.'
He says he is not expecting Pricewatch to be able to 'do anything for me' but he wanted to share his experience anyway. He also points out that he has now changed contract to the 1GB 24 month and will soon start to see savings 'but it's been disappointing, to say the least'.
We know Anthony wasn't expecting us to do much for him but we did contact Eir and received a statement back.
'Eir confirms that the customer's contract expired in 2019, after which the account transitioned to a standard out-of-contract rate,' the company states.
'Since then, multiple communications were sent – via email, billing notifications and outbound calls – outlining available contract options, price changes and upgrade opportunities, in accordance with regulatory requirements and Eir's proactive customer communications approach.
'We understand that navigating these changes can be challenging, and we appreciate the customer's recent decision to move to a new plan that offers better value. As the previous charges were based on Eir's standard out-of-contract rates and were communicated through the appropriate channels, no retrospective refund is applicable.
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Life admin has become more irksome as many utility firms treat customers with contempt
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'Eir remains committed to transparent and proactive communication and encourages all customers to regularly review their contract status or reach out to us directly to ensure they are on the most suitable plan for their needs.'
We do understand Anthony's frustration and he is probably right to say he has paid close to three grand more than he needed to for his service but it does serve as a reminder that people need to keep on top of their household bills.
Eir is by no means the only company that switches people on to what they might like to call 'standard rates' when an initial contract period ends and it is not uncommon for those standard rates to represent bad value for money. And that is why we all have to be on our guard.
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