How long to wait for NTL engineer?

daywalker

Bit of a long story here,

Parents have NTL digital (MMDS) , at end of October the Pace box was turned on and it started to go through an update, but it kept failing, so turned off the box and then turned it on, this time no output to the TV, just the power light on the box blinking green/orange, contacted NTL at start of November on a monday (parents still have standard aerial so were not completely without TV) was told engineer would be out within 24/48 hours.

Waited three days, contacted NTL again (average hold time for any call,45 mins), told original estimate wrong no engineer available until next Wednesday, not particularly happy about this but decided to wait again, Wednesday came and went no sign of engineer or phone call, rang NTL again, told engineer should have called, re-booked apparently, should be there Friday morning, left 2 phone numbers, mobile and land line, told agent get engineer to call to confirm him coming. Friday came and went no call or engineer. Rang again, nothing could be done until Monday morning apparently.

Rang Monday( now 3 weeks without NTL), "according to system call closed by engineer, successful visit", engineer must have been invisible cause no sign of him at house, nor did he replace the box, still broken. "We'll re-book" there Wednesday" starting to sound very familiar :mad: .

to cut a long story short, now 7 December, still no NTL, apparently are emergency case in the system, last emergency case closed successfully , have been credited for non-existent service by supervisor, still waiting. And my father is not working so he is at the house most days, could just imagine what this would be like if had to give up 10-12 working days waiting for about 10-12 non-existent engineer call-outs.

Question: Can anything be done about this, any complaints bodies? Parents are going to switch to sky ASAP, but not sure about getting in before christmas period, also do not want to be paying for two services as it takes 30 days to cancel NTL (in writing) according to fine print.

Sponge Bob

odca@entemp.ie . The ODCA deals with them regularly. also note that time is money and their time taken off for the no shows can be claimed for , in full, through here if they live in Bray or Dublin

http://www.smallclaims.ie/

if in Galway or Waterford they must wait another month or go down to the court to file .That will teach NTL to break appointments which they seem to do all the time recently since they closed down their Waterford call centre and moved their booking system to Chorus in Limerick .

see NTL Complaints thread(s) below here for more on their recent antics

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

KeRbDoG

Cheers for the info, completely forgot that the smalls claim court is online now
Just lodged a claim:
ME -V- NTL COMMUNICATIONS (IRELAND) LIMITED

Looking for money wrongly taken from me via a Direct Debit to be refunded. Wasted enough time with them on the phone!
http://www.smallclaims.ie/

Sponge Bob

Kerbdog can you tell us how it goes for you , diary style . You would be one of the first posters (or even the very first) in this forum who has used this new online procedure so we would like to hear how user friendly it is and how long it takes.

MY bet is that NTL will not enter a defence and that you will be awarded your claim and costs in full but do tell us please

KeRbDoG

Will do,
A basic background on what the issue I have with them.
I had NTL in a house over 2 years ago. I moved out and canceled the account and Mr.NTL took the set-top boxes. The only prob is that I was never told to cancel the direct debit My case is to get the full amount of money back from them.
I have over the last 4 months been calling them to get the money back. Turns out when I left the other house, they 'canceled' the account, but after a new tenant moved into the house and rang up for NTL, the sales peep decided to use my direct debit details so NTL thought it was fine to keep billing me!
They sent me 2 cheques so far, one for about an 1/8 of what they owe me and another with the wrong name on with about half what they owe me. Both of which I have not cashed yet as I don't trust them to pay up in full if I do.
All those details entered into the small claims court form so lets see how it goes. Still kicking myself because I never canceled the direct debit. A lesson for all btw, always write a letter to your branch asking them to cancel it as well as calling your own bank in which your account is.
Maybe this will give NTL a kick up the arse to pay up in full and stop fecking me around. Every time I called every telephone agent kept wanting to hear the full story again. So annoying. Promised many call backs and no one did.

KeRbDoG

So,
ME -V- NTL COMMUNICATIONS (IRELAND) LIMITED
Day 1, heard nothing yet.
Don't know if the small claims court will take up my case

Sponge Bob

Well you cancelled your CONTRACT , assumed the cancellation was in full effect after yer man removed the gear and they then billed you for another contract with the new tenant instead of billing the new tenant with whom they had started a new contract .

Your contract was "determined" when yer man took the gear out thereby terminating the service and the contract at that moment , they could no longer supply a service and there was no more contract or so you reasonably thought .

Once "determined" there was no more contract and therefore nothing to pay, all the rest is their problem. DDs are a bitch to cancel but you should still leave a note into your bank at all times, thats for another day though.

Very simple and a classic small claim .

daywalker

Sponge Bob wrote:

if in Galway or Waterford they must wait another month or go down to the court to file .That will teach NTL to break appointments which they seem to do all the time recently since they closed down their Waterford call centre and moved their booking system to Chorus in Limerick .

see NTL Complaints thread(s) below here for more on their recent antics

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259

Why is there such a large time to wait difference between Dublin and Waterford, why should it be any different for the odca to act upon something whether consumer resides in dublin or not?

Oh by the way sponge bob, thanks for the info

kerbdog, good luck with that claim, will certainly follow this thread closely

KeRbDoG

Day 3:
Small Claims won't take my case as its money owed to me so its a civil matter arse.
The scope of the cases for the SmallClaims court in Ireland is very limited, as in the UK, this would fall under their small claims.

Sponge Bob

But the small claims procedure IS a civil matter like for suing people for taking your money, . Did you mention 'stealing ' which is a criminal matter

KeRbDoG

spoke to the guy who looks at them all and he said they don't cover that type of matter. Time to talk to solicitor for nicely worded letter

daywalker

Just an update, heard from someone that knows someone, in the Waterford call centre, that is closing today i think, most of the people that were working there the past two months have generally been doing nothing, hardly taking any calls and when they did, generally doing nothing about anything, especially in the service dept, despite this the staff are getting very generous severance payments.

Problem I would have with this is that the people in the limerick call centre don't seem to be doing anything either :mad: :mad:

EDIT: my dad managed to get hold of the business mobile of a supervisor in limerick, so hopefully should get something sorted, tho i doubt it IMO

KeRbDoG

And the wonder why they have such a bad rep for their 'service' they provide?
Have to call them up now for my fathers service which has gone on the blink again!
Pack of ****es.
Want to PM me that number?

Sponge Bob

kerbdog wrote:

Want to PM me that number?

A Linky Poo

Would not want them to think that nobody has noticed their CS department has collapsed.

KeRbDoG

No mention of NTL on that page.
yea sure he works for NTL?

Sponge Bob

NTL closed down and are now Chorus

daywalker

kerbdog wrote:

Want to PM me that number?

as soon as i can get it i will pm you

Sponge Bob wrote:

NTL closed down and are now Chorus

As if a name change is going to make any difference to their reputation, they still have crap customer service no matter what name they operate under:rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

They were almost OK when they were NTL with a call centre in Waterford. Just you wait till you find out what Chorus with its call centre in Limerick is like Have a read of the other threads around like this one here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055018616

Just you wait :eek: .