NTL Customer Service

William Gates

I would advise anyone not to sign up to NTL's broadband service. I was left without a service for nearly 3 weeks, after having made contact with them over 20 times during this period they called me back once. When I asked about compensation the only thing that they would offer me was a refund for the 3 weeks. Brutal, avoid at all costs

pizzahead77

and you felt the need to post this 3 times.:rolleyes:

Cabaal

William Gates wrote:

I would advise anyone not to sign up to NTL's broadband service. I was left without a service for nearly 3 weeks, after having made contact with them over 20 times during this period they called me back once. When I asked about compensation the only thing that they would offer me was a refund for the 3 weeks. Brutal, avoid at all costs

Hang on their, you were without service for 3 weeks and you want more the 3 weeks compensation...why do you deserve more?

Perhaps it would be helpful if you post alittle more info in relation to your problem, what fixed the problem etc etc

TempestSabre

Tell them your TV signals not working. That usually gets them out.

BendiBus

William Gates wrote:

I would advise anyone not to sign up to NTL's broadband service. I was left without a service for nearly 3 weeks, after having made contact with them over 20 times during this period they called me back once. When I asked about compensation the only thing that they would offer me was a refund for the 3 weeks. Brutal, avoid at all costs

I've heard reports of brutal CS from all broadband providers. Best if you avoid broadband completely in that case

okcomputer

TempestSabre wrote:

Tell them your TV signals not working. That usually gets them out.

does this work?

TempestSabre

okcomputer wrote:

does this work?

Worked for me. After months of trying to get the BB sorted, the TV signal started acting up. They sent out a guy to fix that within a week. He found the problem and fixed that. However it required the BB guys to come and adjust the signal for BB. Difference was the TV cable guy put the request himself. Rather than me going through the support number.

Drapper

NTL Customer Service towers above IBB and Eircom as far as I'm concerned.......... they can be a bit shirty........... but they tend to fix any problems within a reasonable amount of time............

keyran

TempestSabre wrote:

Tell them your TV signals not working. That usually gets them out.

Then you will get a Tec not qualified to fix your BB. If it takes him 2 days to get to you and you have wait in for him all day and then a have to wait in a different day to get a different tec out to actually fix the problem. That doesn’t sound very clever to me.

TempestSabre

keyran wrote:

Then you will get a Tec not qualified to fix your BB. If it takes him 2 days to get to you and you have wait in for him all day and then a have to wait in a different day to get a different tec out to actually fix the problem. That doesn’t sound very clever to me.

How is it smarter to wait weeks for them to fix the BB? You get the same BB tech don't see what difference that makes. A lot of them seem to be contractors from what I've seen.

The TV cable guys gave me a half day where they'd call, and they did. The BB didn't require me to stay in as its something they fix in the road/exchange (or the NTL equivalent). It seems to be (in simple terms - I haven't a clue how it actually works) simply a matter of getting the right signal strength- upstream/downstream to your house, setting the right resistance on the junction to your house, and then balancing the signal strength it across that network loop/node. TV seems ais a bit more tolerant than BB. But one does effect the other. Its the same cable after all. If your signal is dire its likely everyone after you on that cable will have problems too.

keyran

That’s fair enough in your situation where the 2nd call was performed from the outside however if another house call was needed I am sure you would have been waiting just as long and losing another half day from work or whatever

TempestSabre

How is 2 half days worse than 3 weeks?

dub45

NTL BB isnt available in my area yet (Dublin 8) but customer service is the one thing that would make me think very carefully about going with them. I have had the tv service since the beginning but since the 'NTL' brand appeared the customer service hasa been diabolical - there is nothing so small that they cannot and have not turned into a disaster - they invent new ways to be incompetent.

I had to get on to Comreg recently in an effort to get a contact beyond the iron curtain of the csrs! And it was only a very small but important thing in relation to their FM service. their internal communications in particular seem to be diabolical.

TempestSabre

Cablekink weren't brilliant. In truth I found NTL no worse than the rest. They are all woeful. NTL seem to have improved slightly in the past year. I expect due to competition. A lot of people in my area (D15) switched to Sky because the NTL signal was so poor.

dub45

TempestSabre wrote:

Cablekink weren't brilliant. In truth I found NTL no worse than the rest. They are all woeful. NTL seem to have improved slightly in the past year. I expect due to competition. A lot of people in my area (D15) switched to Sky because the NTL signal was so poor.

At least with Cablelink you could generally talk to someone who had responsibility for something - with Cablelink I was able to 'reach' whoever dealt with the FM signal - try that with NTL!!

jimmycrackcorm

So the op thinks that ntl BB should be avoided despite it being the best available?

dub45

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

So the op thinks that ntl BB should be avoided despite it being the best available?

Surely best available is a relative thing? For instance by general agreement here EsatBB is very good technically but most sane people would recommend avoiding it until they sort out their billing problems - NTL offers the fastest speed but if the customer service is lousy whats the point? And remember ultra fast speeds are not an issue for a lot of people.

bk

dub45 wrote:

Surely best available is a relative thing? For instance by general agreement here EsatBB is very good technically but most sane people would recommend avoiding it until they sort out their billing problems - NTL offers the fastest speed but if the customer service is lousy whats the point? And remember ultra fast speeds are not an issue for a lot of people.

All true, but it must be said that in general there are very few complaints here on boards about NTL. Just look at the BB pole thread and you will see they have the best ratio of happy customers to unhappy customers. You certainly can't compare NTL CS to BT CS.

I personally have no problem recommending NTL to family and friends, while BT I just can't recommend, which is a pity since their price/spec is so nice.

dub45

bk wrote:

All true, but it must be said that in general there are very few complaints here on boards about NTL. Just look at the BB pole thread and you will see they have the best ratio of happy customers to unhappy customers. You certainly can't compare NTL CS to BT CS.

I personally have no problem recommending NTL to family and friends, while BT I just can't recommend, which is a pity since their price/spec is so nice.

Up to relatively recently though if I understand NTL's bb history correctly they had a relatively small bb customer base and for the most part these customers were dealt with by staff familiar with bb and who generally dealt very will with any problems that arose.

Now as NTL expand it seems that the 'intmacy' of that arrangement is changing. It will be interesting to see how the customer service side of thing develops as their customer base increases. I am potentially interested in NTL because my line is not great but I can honestly say that in recent years I have never had even one satisfactory customer service experience with them and I dread anything going wrong.

The ongoing upgrades seem extraordinarily protracted and cumbersome and it will be nearly time for the next one before the current one is completed.

(Off topic I know but a guy in work has been having terrible bbc 2 reception for the past few months - his neighbour likewise so last week she rings NTL and two lads duly arrive up and tell her that she will have to cut down some branches of a tree before they can access the connection under her gutter. the lady not by any means in the prime of youth cuts down some branches and eventually the lads ascend and find there is actually nothing wrong up there and they will have to investigate elsewhere....... My work colleague arrives home to find he has no signal at all....... the neighbour has a mobile no for the lads and he contacts them - only to find they are now down the country somewhere and he overhears one guy telling the other 'you left the f.....ing neighbour disconnected...' they promise to get back as soon as possible but of course they didnt!!!)

okcomputer

here is my own experience

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=51436931&posted=1#post51436931

i thought a 6 day delay was bad, 2 weeks OMG