A reader called Anne has been given the right runaround by her telecoms provider. She is furious at how she has now ended up owing them \u20ac1,700 and is being threatened with debt collectors unless she pays up.<\/p>\n
It is not an uncomplicated story, but at its heart it highlights a simple truth that it is not always straightforward to cancel a service. If you fail to jump through all the hoops exactly as a provider dictates, then you might end up paying for it.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Anne switched to Vodafone<\/a> having been a customer of Eir<\/a> \u2013 and before that Eircom \u2013 for almost 30 years. <\/p>\n She switched her broadband and landline service in March, as she thought she \u201cwas entitled to do in the spirit of competition and seeking a better service. This was when the trouble started.\u201d<\/p>\n She says she is now at her wits\u2019 end, adding: \u201cI had no idea that changing to a new provider would result in this sort of demand for money. I had paid two bills because of aggressive reminders that bills were due, sent by text, from Eir. We now have a bill from Eir for \u20ac1,700.\u201d <\/p>\n Anne\u2019s son is an authorised user in the accounts and he takes over the story at this point.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Eir refuses to refund 91-year-old for a service her family says was cancelled a decade agoOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cThere were multiple faults in our broadband line in 2024, as we\u2019ve had over the years,\u201d he begins.<\/p>\n It was so bad that he recalls starting working remotely in 2020 and his employer asking him for a screenshot of his broadband speed \u201cbecause they didn\u2019t believe me as to how slow it was. This was despite us paying full price (not new-customer rates) for 100mbps broadband and being in a built-up area with neighbours having high speeds.\u201d <\/p>\n There was a significant outage as a result of Storm \u00c9owyn, and Eir advised Anne and her son \u201cto get mobile broadband whilst Open Eir worked to get our line fixed\u201d, he recalled. \u201cEir informed me this would be complimentary due to the lack of service, which turned out to be false as it cost \u20ac20 and this was on top of the monthly bill. We received no remediation for the loss of service.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the faults and the mobile broadband issue I decided it was time to leave to whatever provider was available. I called Eir to cancel and I was told that very day that fibre had been made available in our area and we could sign up, so we did, under the condition that there was a cooling off period and we could leave after 14 days. <\/p>\n \u201cMy mother was paying nearly \u20ac70 a month for this service, as she had been paying on the higher end throughout the time with Eir. After unsuccessfully trying to get the price lowered, on March 13th I called Vodafone to switch providers. There was an issue with the UAN number on the bill so I had to call Eir, inform them I was switching providers and request the correct UAN. They complied and I returned a call to Vodafone and they processed my order on the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day, on March 14th, Anne\u2019s son got an email from Vodafone saying \u201cyour plan is live\u201d.<\/p>\n