Complaining to Comreg

I made a complaint to comreg about my home line with Smart Telecom some months ago. I followed it up with a recent reminder. I'm just wondering if anyone else has made complaints recently to Comreg, and if so, whether they have received any acknowledgement from Comreg or any action?

Had you completed the complaints procedure with SMART before speaking to COMREG - i.e. exhausted all possible avenues with SMART? I tried to complain to COMREG in the past, and they wouldn't speak to me until I'd gone through all the channels with Eircom.

Also, do you have a complaints/customer query reference number from SMART? They're not taking you seriously until you have one of these. As far as I know, these reference numbers are reported to COMREG regularly and they follow up on any outstanding complaints older than a certain period of time.

older than about 3 years , then they will creak into action with their feather duster .

Yes naturally I made the complaint initially to Smart, however I have never received a customer complaint reference, as I never received a reply from them- despite approx 5 letters over a 6 month period! Not to mention phone calls. After that I referred the matter to ComReg, but what I found strange was that I never received even an acknowledgement from ComReg, is that par for the course?

Vanilla said:

Yes naturally I made the complaint initially to Smart, however I have never received a customer complaint reference, as I never received a reply from them- despite approx 5 letters over a 6 month period! Not to mention phone calls. After that I referred the matter to ComReg, but what I found strange was that I never received even an acknowledgement from ComReg, is that par for the course?

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Looking at the information on the Comreg website, they don't really entertain complaints at all - [broken link removed]

From that page also, it seems like Smart aren't following the "Code of Conduct". This is required to be in place by Comreg, though there is no comment as to what happens if it isn't, or isn't followed.

With regards to Smart Telecom now, Vanilla, I'd recommend the following -

1. Stop any direct debit payments. This should at least get their attention.
and
2. Send a copy of all your documentation and previous letters in a registered letter to Oisin Fanning, chief executive of Smart Telecom.

Explain fully what your problem is, tell him what you want done in order to fix things, and what you're going to do if this isn't done - politely of course.

With regards to what you're going to do if they don't sort out your problem, I'm sure other here can help with suggestions. They'll hardly care about threats to move to another provider - maybe a further name and shame here and elsewhere.

However, if you go directly to the boss man, and they continue to ignore your issues, it says a whole lot for the company as a whole.

By the way, I have a vested interest here. I have a huge problem with Smart Telecom and don't trust the company at all. I don't believe they'll last the course, and anything I've ever seen with regards to quality of product and customer service has only reinforced that belief.

Thanks for the replies and good advice. I have found Smart appalling in terms of dealing with complaints ever since switching to them, although I have to say, their customer service reps are always very nice to talk to on the phone, although the promises they make are never followed through. Really I was just wondering about ComReg and why I never recieved an acknowledgement of any kind from them. In any case having had this experience with Smart, I am just going to switch to UTV. Smart will learn that they can't just concentrate on getting new customers, they also have to retain them.