A Happy NTL Story

stevenmu

I see a lot of threads on here with people complaining about their NTL service, I realise some people have had problems with them, but I think it's only fair that they get praise too when they do things right.

I've had NTL broadband and digital tv for the last 3 months and the service has been perfect, never had any problems with disconnects and any downloads have run full speed. I arrived home last monday to find both the broadband and digital tv not working and the basic analogue had very very snowy pictures. Thought they might just be doing some work in the area so ignored it for the night. The next day the problem was still there so after checking all the connections I rang their support line. The girl talked me through resetting the decoder a few times and when that failed scheduled to send an engineer out thursday, two days later.

The engineer arrived on time, tested the signal strength and it was way too low. We went down to look at the junction box, it was a bit of a mess but after a bit of searching he found 2 cables on a splitter and plugged them both back into proper junctions. Bingo, tv and broadband both back working perfectly.

I couldn't have expected a better response from NTL and hopefully this is indicative of how their customer service will be for everyone.

okcomputer

you were lucky dude. basically everything went the same for me until i got to this part..

"The engineer arrived on time, tested the signal strength and it was way too low. We went down to look at the junction box, it was a bit of a mess"


from there i heard NOTHING for 2 weeks with my connection completely BROKE and the support line telling me nothing other than various variations of:

" A call has been logged and has been escalated to the networks department. It takes 7 to 10 working days. You cant speak to the network department. You will get a phone call when the problem has been resolved "

grr

it took the THREE WEEKS to get my modem back online and i was left in COMPLETE LIMBO LAND the whole time

You were very very lucky

mikemac

That's not a happy story.
You pay for a service and you should expect it to run perfectly. Fair play to the helpful staff but you went two days without service and you're
happy? Will you be getting credit for these two days?

I'd compare it to the ESB. I don't appreciate that my electricity works, I just expect it to.

Because if your electricity worked perfectly for three months, went down for two days before it was fixed, then there wouldn't be a thread here praising ESB staff.

Sorry for my negative attitude OP:(

dub45

Two days without a service that you had paid in advance for?

Have you asked yourself why it should suddenly worsen after three months?

What sort of incompetence lead to the wiring being incorrect? Was it an NTL person who actually made a mess of things while working there?

Have they given you two days refund for the service you didn't get due to incorrect wiring and for which you have paid in advance?

okcomputer

dub45 wrote:

Have they given you two days refund for the service you didn't get due to incorrect wiring and for which you have paid in advance?

unfortunately Dub they have been given the "go ahead" to give refunds but use it as a way to get you off the phone....and they act all suprised when you are not happy with your paltry refund. incompitent buffoons

stevenmu

Two more things I maybe should have mentioned.

When we were down looking at the junction box, the buildings supervisor (I live in an appartment block) mentioned that when he came in that monday that the boxes were opened, and that NTL contractors have always in the past left them closed. Also, if anyone's ever seen these boxes, you need a special key to screw the cable from the flat into the junction box, because my cable and one from another flat were now in a splitter, it would appear that someone tried to hook up the other flat without the key and therefore had to disconnect someone (me as it happens), put the splitter in their spot in the junction then connect us both to the splitter. It seems very likely to me that this wasn't NTLs fault but was rather the fault of the person in the other flat.

Also, because of introductory rates, I'm only paying about €15 a month at the moment, so if I asked for a refund for the two days service it would only be €1. I know I'm just being lazy, but I'm not really too bothered by that

Actually, the cynical side of me just kicked in and is wondering if maybe I got such quick service because I'm still on the introductory offers ?

markpb

I've had NTL analog TV for two years now and NTL broadband for about 18 months. Apart from a few days of flaky connections during the UPC takeover, it's been rock solid the entire time. The only outtage was for three hours last month when road contractors cut the cable outside my house. When I rang they already had a pre-recorded message listing the estates affected.

When I ordered it, the installation team showed up bang at 9am (actually waited outside the door for about five minutes and rang the doorbell at 9am!) and gave me a free wireless router too.

Thumbs up from NTL for me too but I suspect I've been very lucky. Let's hope I haven't jinxed it now

dub45

markpb wrote:

I've had NTL analog TV for two years now and NTL broadband for about 18 months. Apart from a few days of flaky connections during the UPC takeover, it's been rock solid the entire time. The only outtage was for three hours last month when road contractors cut the cable outside my house. When I rang they already had a pre-recorded message listing the estates affected.

When I ordered it, the installation team showed up bang at 9am (actually waited outside the door for about five minutes and rang the doorbell at 9am!) and gave me a free wireless router too.

Thumbs up from NTL for me too but I suspect I've been very lucky. Let's hope I haven't jinxed it now

Why should this be a cause for celebration? It is exactly what you are paying them for and no more. I doubt if UPC staff chat over their coffees saying I must tell you a happy story about customer x and y and z etc they pay their bills every month!

What gets to me so much about these companies is what they put people through and there is so little come back while on the other hand they are only too quick to penalise customers who may 'err' - the upc priority on takeover was an automatic 7 euro fee for late payment of bills and pushing everyone on to direct debit not to mention redundancies.

How many UPC customers since the takeover have had to spend hours on the phone many times, taken days off work for non existent engineer visits and have had lousy service?

Getting what you pay for should not be a cause for celebration:rolleyes:

Freddie59

dub45 wrote:

Why should this be a cause for celebration? It is exactly what you are paying them for and no more. I doubt if UPC staff chat over their coffees saying I must tell you a happy story about customer x and y and z etc they pay their bills every month!

What gets to me so much about these companies is what they put people through and there is so little come back while on the other hand they are only too quick to penalise customers who may 'err' - the upc priority on takeover was an automatic 7 euro fee for late payment of bills and pushing everyone on to direct debit not to mention redundancies.

How many UPC customers since the takeover have had to spend hours on the phone many times, taken days off work for non existent engineer visits and have had lousy service?

Getting what you pay for should not be a cause for celebration:rolleyes:

Too true. Eircom are no different. My relation has Eircom BB for two months now. It can go offline and take hours to come back on. Several engineers later and no different. So it isn't just NTL.

lucernarian

It irritated me to read of NTL staff wondering why they were losing customers. UPC's handling of the takeover strikes me as being very incompetent and amateurish.

Dub45 raises a good point. Their priorities seemed to be direct debits and charging extra for ordinary billing. At least they lived to regret that move.

Do UPC still not have peering with INEX??