Phonewatch contract over - charging for removal

K

koconnor

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Hi all,

My mum got a letter todaty from eircom phonewatch about the dismantling of her phonewatch equipment. She was with them for a year's contract but decided not to go with them anymore.

Now I haven't read the letter but mum tells me that eircom are wanting to organise a time for removal of equipment, and that there would be a charge for the removal of the equipment.

Does this sound right that they can charge for this?


Thanks in advance for your help,

Kevin
 
Sounds like you need to read the small print in the agreement - if it's clearly stated within the small print there, then they can charge. It more than likely specifies that the equipmnent is also their's, although these days a lot of companies don't bother taking back equipment.
 
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Thanks Quinno,

When my mum moved into the house, the equipment was already installed there. I would have thought the previous owner would have paid for the equipment. Either way she never paid for the equipment so I can't understand why she would be paying for the dismantling.

I will have to read her terms and conds. to be sure on this.

Thanks.

Kevin
 
why does she want them to remove the equipment? She should keep it as an alarm without the servicing/monitoring contract. I am guessing that they are charging your mother for the cost of the engineer coming for removing the alarm but the alarm belongs to her in the first place.
 
Hi Samantha,

That was my initial thoughts - the device was already installed in the house and she moved into it. Yes - the charges I believe, are for the engineer coming out.

The strange thing about this is they sent this letter out to her as a registered letter - she had to sign for the thing. is this common practice for phonewatch?
 
You'll probably find the alarm is Eircom's property - you are just paying for a service. This is the case with outher services, for example broadband modems usually remain the property of the ISP.

INtertesting that it was there in the first place - presumeably she signed up to a new agreement that the porevious owners had?
 
quinno said:
INtertesting that it was there in the first place - presumeably she signed up to a new agreement that the porevious owners had?
Click to expand...


Yeah, I'd say that's how it happened - although even if she decided initially at the start that she didn't want to keep the phonewatch, would they have still wanted the dismantling charge? My cynical side tells me they would.
 
More than likely the previous person purchased the system off Phonewatch and therefore they don't own it and have no right to take it out. I don't think they offered an equipment rental deal, I had to purchase 2 systems whether I wanted the monitoring or not.
 
Havealaugh said:
More than likely the previous person purchased the system off Phonewatch and therefore they don't own it and have no right to take it out.
Click to expand...


Could it be possible that they may be doing this in a way to see if my mother will sign up for another year's contract? Just a thought.
 
Perhaps, but I wouldn't budge. As far as I know they never own the system as it's not rented. At least I was never given the option to rent a system off them only to buy and that'ss going back to the year 2000
 
I will take a look over the registered letter later and see what exactly they are wanting off her.

In the mean time I sent an email to phonewatch asking what happens with a pre existing installation and I move into a new house.

Thanks for all the advice,

Kevin
 
In the mean time I sent an email to phonewatch
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Don't hold your breath in waiting for a reply (particularly if it's to info@phonewatch) because they have never replied to me from that address, they told me that all e-mails receive attention at that address but I never got a response, ended up having to call them.

Good luck !
 
Update for you all...

I rang Eircom about this letter, and it turns out what they were wanting to charge my mother for was the disconnection from the equipment to the alarm - just in case my mother switched on the alarm and it went off, it would be very difficult to switch off the alarm once triggered and not connected to the eircom equipment.

We didnt go ahead with their offer of service.
 
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