Customer care in Ireland

We've found consumer protection kind of lacking here, especially as it applies to any transaction implemented by phone. When you go to disconnect a phone or other service the company suddenly produces a contract you supposedly signed up for when you started with them. A friend of ours learned that the question at the end of the phone conversation "Were you satisfied with today's call?" somehow indicated acceptance of one of these bogus contracts. She was able to fight with the company and get the termination fee dropped.

We ended up paying Eir (formerly Eircom) 100 Euro to just go away. Eir staff are masters in sleight of hand. The last person we talked to was ALWAYS either not there today or no longer worked there. We were not allowed to talk to a supervisor. Some guy named Dave was ALWAYS supposed to ring us back in 24 hours but, of course, never did. Mysteriously, he was never available when we called back. We requested a transcript of our original call many times, but it never materialized.

It became clear that Eir was willing to do anything, tell any lie to extort this money from us. Life is short and we had other challenges in our lives so we eventually paid the 100 Euro and vowed to never do business with Eir again. Ever. No we know why people rolled their eyes when we said we had our landline with them.