SayNoTo1890.com

Many thanks to the reader who e-mailed in the following geographical alternative numbers earlier in the week.

• NERA - National Employment Rights Authority 1890 80 80 90 - Call 059 917 8990

• Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment - Employment Permits 1890 201 616  - Call 01 417 5333

According to the response to my Freedom of Information request last month, ComReg have told me that they in fact don’t make any money from their 1890 customer help lines.

This is contrary to the comments from a ComReg member of staff in an e-mail that I had sight of back in August.

When I get the scanner working, I’ll upload the ComReg FOI response details.

Thanks to the readers of SayNoTo1890.com who have e-mailed us about searching issues with the site. We appreciate the comments and please be assured that we’re working on the best way to address the issues raised.

In the meantime, if you’re searching for a company, or their number, please try searching for both - if you don’t find the company name, search for the number. As a final option, if you know the type of business your company is involved in, use the links across the top of the page.

This is the Metro article I was referring to yesterday.

Click on the image for the full size scan.

Over on my Value Ireland Blog, I take great interest in the activities of many journalists - and particularly those who may be prone to borrowing other peoples research and articles without providing credit.

I noticed yesterday that the newspaper article and customer service waiting line times I referred to below from The Sunday Times was “sort of” referenced in an article in Mondays Metro.

I say “sort of” because the Sunday Times wasn’t referenced, though the results of the research of Jan Battles was.

See here for research carried out by Paul Kelly, formerly of The Irish Examiner, who found that while Sky and Chorus/NTL (UPC) were slow, the slowest to respond were actually government departments and organisations such as ComReg and The Passport Office.

Jan Battles spoke with me on Friday evening last in her preparations for this interesting article in yesterdays Sunday Times. Obviously, as you’ll see, I unfortunately didn’t make it into the final draft.

My response to the long wait times suffered in their survey was somewhat similar to my post below where I provided some alternatives to actually calling customer service help lines.

One of my other suggestions was to set a time limit on how long to wait on line. Given that all the companies surveyed were non-essential service providers, there’s no need to wait on the phone for longer than 5 minutes, or 10 minutes if you really need your TV or internet connection sorted out. There’s definitely no need to be waiting for 1hr 13mins.

I also suggested that you should check the hours that the customer service line is open, in case it starts earlier or finishes later than you might expect. I use an Ulster Bank customer service number sometimes, and it’s open until 7pm and I find I always get straight through when I call between 6 and 7.

I was told that eFlow have recently reacted to their problems with long waiting times on their helpline by having someone answer your call immediately, taking your details and then promising to ring you back (within 48hrs). Keeps the wait time down, but doesn’t necessarily fix your problem as quickly as you’d like – especially when the call back comes more than 48hrs later.

Finally, I was told recently of a large Irish service provider who has a special procedure that kicks in whenever a journalist or “person of interest” calls in with a complaint about their service. This special procedure ensures that these peoples customer service problems are resolved within 24hrs. So, we know it’s possible to do it – if only all service providers could look after all of their customers in the same way.

There are a number of companies where we’ve been unsuccessful in getting geographical alternative phone numbers for their 1890, 1850 and mainly 0818 numbers.  A couple of these are Aer Lingus (0818 365000) and Sky TV Ireland (0818 719 852).

From what our readers have told us, they haven’t even been able to get alternative numbers by asking the actual customer service people concerned having called the 0818 number.

So, what can you do? Firstly, keep asking whenever you’re in contact with them. You may on some occasion get to talk to someone who may be able to help more than others. Then contact us with the numbers, and we’ll share with everyone else.

Alternatively, there are a couple of things that you could do which might save you the cost of the phone call - though they might not be as immediate in their impact. However, if you’re not in much of a hurry, these might be of help.

1. You could check the companies website to see if they provide detailed help sections, or Frequently Asked Question. These kinds of pages may be able to answer your questions for you.
2. Call from work. Depending on your own employers telephone usage policy, you could call from your work phone and let your employer take the hit, rather than yourself.
3. There are certain times when you shouldn’t call a customer service line - don’t call first thing, don’t call at lunchtime or in the early evening. These are the times you’ll most likely be stuck in a queue.
4. Does the company have a sales line on a different number - is it a normal number instead of an 1890, 1850 or 0818 number? Call that number, and then ask to be put through to customer service.

Do you have any other suggestions that might help here? Leave a comment or contact us at the contact details linked above.

We received this e-mail from one of our website users asking if we could find a geographical alternative for Sky. We don’t have one, but wonder does anyone else out there have one. Here’s the e-mail we received.

My query is I’m wondering if there is any other phone no. for us to ring Sky T.V besides the 0818 one that they advertise with. They do not give any other alternative. It would be great if you could get hold of another phone no. for the public and post it on your website. Thank you.

You can e-mail us at the contact details above, or post a comment here if you have an alternative for them.

Do you work for Sky? E-mail us in confidence - we won’t say where we got the number from.

We don’t use Sky TV here, but if anyone is speaking to them in the next few days, maybe ask them if they can provide you with the alternative, and then come let us know.

Many thanks to the SayNoTo1890.com reader who passed us on this geographical alternative number for the Irish Ferries 0818 number. Remember, an 0818 number is National Call number and can cost you significantly more than you think.

• Irish Ferries 0818 300 400 - Call 01 8552222

If you’ve searched unsuccessfully on this site an 1890, 1850 or 0818 number and end up having to call that number, make sure you ask whoever you’re speaking to for their geographical alternative number instead of the one you just called.

Most businesses should have such an alternative number, and they shouldn’t really have any reason not to give it to you.

When you get the number, come back to SayNoTo1890.com and send us an e-mail via the Contact Page with the company name, the 1890/1850/0818 number, and the new alternative number and we’ll publish it here for the benefit of the next person searching for that number.

Thank you!