Summary

  • Eircom kept charges imposed after contract cancellation as credits on inactive accounts. ComReg found refund attempts irregular, often with substantial gaps between them.
  • A separate 2023 settlement required a retrospective search for overcharged customers, billing improvements and an independent auditor. Preventing the next wrong bill and paying the old balance are separate jobs.

A departing customer gives a retention team something to fight for: another month of revenue. A departed customer awaiting a refund offers a less exciting prize. The company gets to fulfil an obligation.

That awkward commercial distinction sits behind a remarkably plain document from Ireland's telecom regulator. In its 20 October 2025 notice, ComReg described charges Eircom had imposed after customers cancelled their contracts. The company kept the amounts as credits on inactive accounts and periodically attempted refunds by electronic transfer or cheque. The regulator found those attempts irregular, often separated by significant gaps.

The credit had been recognised. Returning it remained a job.

A credit with nowhere to spend itself

On an active account, a credit can reduce the next bill. Close the account and that convenient destination disappears. The company must make an outward payment, reach the former customer and deal with failure. An improved account balance can therefore coexist with unfinished work.

ComReg reported approximately €5.3 million in refunds on inactive accounts between September 2016 and September 2022. About €1.97 million related to post-cancellation charges. Other kinds of credit also remained on inactive accounts. The larger number describes the broader refund exercise; the smaller identifies the post-cancellation component.

For October 2022 to November 2024, the notice records approximately €1.27 million in credits issued on inactive accounts, including about €472,000 related to post-cancellation charges. Eircom said it had improved its refund process. The later passage uses different wording from the earlier refund total; the notice supplies no individual recipients' bank receipts.

Large totals make good presentation slides. They show work moving, but leave the remaining queue in shadow. An operation can process large, straightforward balances while small, awkward ones grow older. The missing measure here is the age distribution of unresolved balances; it would show whether the clean-up reached the oldest cases.

The gaps between attempts matter for the same reason. Once a transfer fails or a cheque comes back, someone must decide what happens next. A recorded attempt can become a fresh task with an owner and a deadline. Or it can become a comfortable explanation for why nothing else happened. Only the first choice moves the customer's money closer to the exit.

A successful complaint is a poor census

A different ComReg notice, dated 17 May 2023, describes a broader confrontation over Eircom's overcharging. Two investigations had found customers who successfully challenged charges and obtained refunds. ComReg was concerned about others who had neither identified the overcharge nor successfully disputed it.

Complaint handling sees the people who reach the counter. The customer who assumes the bill is right opens no case. Fixing only the disputes that customers win makes vigilance, spare time and persistence part of the company's quality-control system. Those are expensive qualifications to demand before returning somebody's own money.

Following earlier convictions and further investigations, ComReg applied to the High Court in November 2022 to stop the contraventions and prevent their repetition. Proceedings listed for April 2023 ended in settlement. Eircom committed to a €2.45 million financial penalty payable to ComReg, historical redress and billing changes. The regulator's 19 May consumer announcement confirmed those commitments.

The retrospective measures covered an estimated 76,000 customers with approximately €6.7 million of associated revenue in scope. That was the review population and value, rather than a final tally of refunds delivered. The work focused on incorrect bundle charges, service-cessation requests Eircom had not processed, and early-termination charges where customers were entitled to cancel without penalty.

The important change was who had to search. Eircom would look backwards for other affected customers instead of waiting for each to discover and contest the same mistake. A complaint would become evidence of a potentially wider defect, rather than a private endurance contest ending with one corrected bill.

New billing, old money

The settlement joined retrospective measures to forward-looking work. It called for system upgrades, including completion of a new billing system, and proactive examination of credits and disputes for further problems. An independent auditor would review the implementation and effectiveness of both sets of measures.

That double assignment deserves to stay double. Preventing the next wrong charge improves the incoming flow. Paying an old balance requires a recipient, a payment and an exception process. A software launch has an attractive completion date; troublesome refunds need their own timetable.

The 2023 agreement aimed for full implementation of the forward-looking measures by the end of that year. Separately, the 2025 notice records Eircom's statement that it made changes in December 2024 designed to prevent this type of post-cancellation charging. Their specific scopes must be matched before judging compliance with a particular deadline. Nor do amounts from the two documents add up to a fresh penalty.

The business lesson is less elaborate than the paperwork. Acquisition and retention have visible future revenue attached. Paying a former customer has an obligation attached. Giving the latter a proper owner and operating budget keeps it from depending on the enthusiasm usually reserved for the former. This is an incentive problem; the records do not disclose Eircom's internal bonus arrangements.

A company that can pursue what customers owe should be able to finish paying what it owes them. Cancellation removes the next sale, not the remaining task. The account may be inactive. The responsibility should be quite awake.