NTL Service or lack thereof

GS_DBA

On Sunday my NTL broadband and digital TV went down, I called them and there was nothing they could do on the phone, but they could send a engineer out on Thursday the 26th. I’m a IT contractor on a daily rate so staying home meant the loss of a day’s pay for me and as we all know staying out for trivial things these days are not on.
I arranged to get Thursday off and to make sure that they were coming as we all know they are notorious for not turning up, so I called their customer service and was told the engineer would definitely be there, I also received several calls from their automated system confirming that a engineer would be there on that day and to make sure somebody was home.
Thursday came, no engineer between 9 and 1, called them said engineer would be there before 6, so at this time I decided to cancel my movies package as I don’t really watch it and it’s just a waste of money, I was charged €10 for this.
I waited 6pm came and went, no call from the engineer to say he can’t make it nothing eventually at 7 I phoned them back, They had no idea why the engineer never called etc…, she was going to escalate the call to her manager etc… and I would be contacted ASAP today.
It’s now 10am and nobody’s called and I’m getting more and more p’d off so I’m wondering if anybody knows who I can contact about this crappy service and even know a way to get them to downgrade my package for free.

Big Wave

NTL don't call out, they don't call back, and nobody gives a sh*t. I went through this for YEARS. Cancel is the only option.

Rebel021

In england you are entitled to a rebate of £20 if they make a appointment and don't arrive.
Saw it on Watchdog last monday,I don't know if we are entitled here to anything but a law like that is needed.

bmaxi

Get rid of them and get a rabbit's ears, you may not get many channels but at least you'll be spared the hardship.
Seriously, I went through this last year. Broken appointments, phone call after phone call to faceless people who I could imagine sitting there, reading magazines, or filing their nails or anything except caring about my connection. They even sent a box to another address and tried to bill me for it.
I eventually cancelled and even that was a nightmare, DDs still being drawn down, solicitors letters back and forth, debt collection agencies, you name it. Make sure when you are dealing with them that you get names, log times and dates etc. it will pay off in the end.
Do yourself a favour, if you must have premium channels go for Sky, the lesser of two evils IMO. If not, get a good FTA satellite system.

MOH

They confirmed that they'd transferred my account when I moved house, cut me off a while later. Had no record of me ever having an account with them, at either address. Said that balance at my new address was about 100 quid above what I reckon I owed. Told me unless I could find an account number on an old bill (which I'd naturally dumped all of when moving), I'd be treated as a new customer and subject to a €50 connection fee. But I'd still have to pay the existing balance too, calculated from the time I moved in.

I was a Sky customer 5 minutes later.

For good measure, they then sent me a letter threatening to charge me unless I returned the digital set top box which I never had. A fairly nasty e-mail to the head of customer services eventually got them off my back.

Big Wave

MOH wrote: »

Told me unless I could find an account number on an old bill (which I'd naturally dumped all of when moving)

Who does that naturally?

dub45

MOH wrote: »

They confirmed that they'd transferred my account when I moved house, cut me off a while later. Had no record of me ever having an account with them, at either address. Said that balance at my new address was about 100 quid above what I reckon I owed. Told me unless I could find an account number on an old bill (which I'd naturally dumped all of when moving), I'd be treated as a new customer and subject to a €50 connection fee. But I'd still have to pay the existing balance too, calculated from the time I moved in.

I was a Sky customer 5 minutes later.

For good measure, they then sent me a letter threatening to charge me unless I returned the digital set top box which I never had. A fairly nasty e-mail to the head of customer services eventually got them off my back.

There actually is such a person????????????????????

Sonic_exyouth

NTL Used to annoy me, but I've been fine with them since they went all UPC...

I wanted my broadband installed, they said they would be there betweem 9 and one.

They were there at 9.15 (having called me at 8.45 to confirm that I was there and still required them)

Then, two days later I got a phone call from UPC (automated) asking me to confirm that they arrived on time and that they were quick and clean. They were.

I didn't have to miss work at all thatday, I was very impressed!

Also, My mother asked for her cable to be cut as she had the digital pack
She was supposed to pay the €10 downgrade fee, but, after she explained that the NTL folk had told her that the Digital pack required the 'pipe', she needed both. This, apparently, was not true, and they waived the downgrade fee and suggested she write in for a refund of the months of paying the 'pipe' charge that she didn't use.

Also, the phone line was installed for free and costs a fiver a month.
The only hassle there was getting Eircom to hand over the number!

Really, cannot complain about NTL since becomng UPC.

bmaxi

Sonic_exyouth wrote: »

NTL Used to annoy me, but I've been fine with them since they went all UPC...

I wanted my broadband installed, they said they would be there betweem 9 and one.

They were there at 9.15 (having called me at 8.45 to confirm that I was there and still required them)

Then, two days later I got a phone call from UPC (automated) asking me to confirm that they arrived on time and that they were quick and clean. They were.

I didn't have to miss work at all thatday, I was very impressed!

Also, My mother asked for her cable to be cut as she had the digital pack
She was supposed to pay the €10 downgrade fee, but, after she explained that the NTL folk had told her that the Digital pack required the 'pipe', she needed both. This, apparently, was not true, and they waived the downgrade fee and suggested she write in for a refund of the months of paying the 'pipe' charge that she didn't use.

Also, the phone line was installed for free and costs a fiver a month.
The only hassle there was getting Eircom to hand over the number!

Really, cannot complain about NTL since becomng UPC.

If I send you the money will you buy a Lotto ticket for me? :):)

Brimmy

Right just to clarify you can cancel the 'pipe' and still recieve their digital service? I signed up for this the other day and they kept saying I couldn't... didn't seem right to me..

eth0_

No...if you downgrade to analog you can't receive digital TV, isn't that obvious??

But you can have broadband with an analog TV connection, you don't HAVE to have digital to have broadband.

Sonic_exyouth

Brimmy wrote: »

Right just to clarify you can cancel the 'pipe' and still recieve their digital service? I signed up for this the other day and they kept saying I couldn't... didn't seem right to me..

In Tallaght at least, yes, and has been like that years apparently..

My mother was told the opposite too when she originally enquired.

analog and digital are seperate services.. it's cheaper to go analog in seperate rooms than digital is my understanding

Heroditas

This all sounds depressingly similar to my experiences back in 2007.
They are utterly useless.
I took two days off work and no shows on either day to look at the broadband. The TV signal often broke down too.
Eventually after 5 months of this shoddy service I got a Sky dish installed and have not had a single problem since. We also ditched the broadband and went with Irish Broadband - it's never broken down on us.
NTL tried to bill me a cancellation fee because I "broke" the contract before the 12 months were up. I replied with a letter billing them for the two days of work lost. Strangely enough, they then cancelled the account without looking for the cancellation payment.

dotsman

4 words.

"Cancel and join sky"

Was with NTL for several years at various addresses. Their customer service is non existent (for 1 problem, I had to take 3 different days off work to wait for an engineer - and was a "no-show" all 3 times). Oh, and this as after them becoming UPC. Have also had loads problems with hidden charges (verbal assurances from the sales rep mean nothing), over-billing, being charge a handling fee for a refund (due to them over-billing me!), poor tv reception - the list could go on. In all my times with NTL (say, 4 years), I've probably had to ring them about 40 times, (plus several emails, and registered mails) with an average wait of 15-20 minutes on hold.

Joined sky last year. Have only had 1 problem. 1 phone call (on hold for maybe 3-4 minutes), and an engineer was out to me at the agreed time. The engineer contacted me directly and worked out a time. As I didn't want to take a half-day or a day off, he offered to be at my place for 8.30 am. Sure enough, he was there at the precise time, took about 5 minutes to do the repair, and everything sorted.

I will never, no matter how many times they spam me (about 1 flier a week) ever go back to NTL.

P.S. I don't work for SKy or anything! And I know some people have had problems with sky (both proportionally, far more with NTL). But after everything I went through with NTL, I feel very strongly on the topic.

5uspect

Freesat ftw.

bugfreebob

GS_DBA wrote: »

On Sunday my NTL broadband and digital TV went down, I called them and there was nothing they could do on the phone, but they could send a engineer out on Thursday the 26th. I’m a IT contractor on a daily rate so staying home meant the loss of a day’s pay for me and as we all know staying out for trivial things these days are not on.

Ditch NTL. There is no way that this "service" is reliable enough to depend on for business purposes. That's why businesses don't use it. Their customers are almost entirely residential, and most people just put up with the lousy service.

You can get excellent TV service free-to-air - Satellite for UK channels and Digital Terrestrial or Analog for Irish channels. Get a nice Combo box which does both Satellite & Terrestrial, and you will have fully digital service, HD channels, Recording (like Sky+), etc for less than the price of one years NTL subscription. If you really must have the Premium sport/movie channels then go for Sky. For Broadband use eircom DSL. Whatever people say about eircom, it's much more reliable than NTL and you could depend on it for business purposes. Eircom have excellent bundles at the moment with free calls to all Meteor mobiles, although I'm not sure whether they apply to business customers.

One of the big problems with the NTL network is that it runs from gutter to gutter in most areas. Where I live, all the houses are about the same age and in need of getting Fascia's replaced. Every few weeks someone decides to gets their Fascia replaced or do an extension and knocks service off for the whole area. Combined with their useless "customer service", this makes the service rubbish. I actually considered getting the ugly NTL cable removed off my Fascia recently while getting it replaced, but they threatened to charge over €3000 to reconnect the house afterwards, if it was ever needed. While I have no intention of ever using NTL again, I didn't want to upset any neighbours who are still using it (although almost everyone has changed to Satellite), and I was slightly worried that someone buying the house in the future might want the option - so I declined to get the cable removed.

Big Wave

bugfreebob wrote: »

For Broadband use eircom DSL.

While I agree 100% about ditching NTL, anyone who knows anything about internet or IT would never recommend Eircom. Use Magnet: dedicated line, much faster speeds than Eircom, no UL/DL limits, and no contention ratio. Eircom is for residential suckers.

Just look at the prices, FFS:
http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1000593746.1235836428@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadegifkfgidcefeceiedffndffj.0&cid=7MbHomeAdvanced&site=Res
Eircom is €40 pm for 7mbps broadband, with a crappy 50GB download cap.

http://www.magnetentertainment.ie/products/llu/24.htm
Magnet is €40 pm for 24mbps broadband, free phone service with 200 minutes, and no download cap.


And that's just residential - their business packages are better again.

bugfreebob

Big Wave wrote: »

http://www.magnetentertainment.ie/products/llu/24.htm
Magnet is €40 pm for 24mbps broadband, free phone service with 200 minutes, and no download cap.

The Magnet price you have quoted doesn't include Line Rental or free calls to Mobile. The eircom package I am on includes Rental and free calls to landlines and Meteor. Before I went on this bundle, calls to Mobile were by far the biggest thing on the phone bill. Having also moved the family to Meteor, calls to mobile are now insignificant, and Meteor's mobile deals are fantastic also. Regarding speeds - I find the speed absolutely fine - always close to the spec - it's completely reliable, and I have never been charged for downloads. Personally, price and reliability are the most important to me. I think most customers want the same - I think there is a lot of hype about speeds and download caps. (I appreciate there may be some people who download videos all the time from file sharing sites who might need more speed - not me)

jaffa20

Moved this week and called them thursday. They said a technician would be out on Saturday between 1 and 4pm to transfer the account and install it at the new address. All went fine, no problems, no charge for installation again so i'm happy and i'm still on the same contract. I've never had any problems with them expect the waiting time when you ring them.

Talliesin

Heroditas wrote: »

NTL tried to bill me a cancellation fee because I "broke" the contract before the 12 months were up. I replied with a letter billing them for the two days of work lost. Strangely enough, they then cancelled the account without looking for the cancellation payment.

I did much the same when I was living somewhere they didn't have a service to for a while and they kept sending me higher and higher bills (because they kept adding for more service) after I'd cancelled them. They stopped after I sent a bill with such items as "waste of paper charge", "irritation charge", "stupidity surcharge" and so on coming to the same total as what they were trying to get from me. I likewise found it shut them up. In my case though they were simply billing me for something I'd never actually asked for or agreed to, so my next move would have been to actually charge them for real (you aren't actually allowed to just ask people for money for stuff they never asked for, after all).

Sonic_exyouth

Big Wave wrote: »

While I agree 100% about ditching NTL, anyone who knows anything about internet or IT would never recommend Eircom. Use Magnet: dedicated line, much faster speeds than Eircom, no UL/DL limits, and no contention ratio. Eircom is for residential suckers.

Just look at the prices, FFS:
http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1000593746.1235836428@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadegifkfgidcefeceiedffndffj.0&cid=7MbHomeAdvanced&site=Res
Eircom is €40 pm for 7mbps broadband, with a crappy 50GB download cap.

http://www.magnetentertainment.ie/products/llu/24.htm
Magnet is €40 pm for 24mbps broadband, free phone service with 200 minutes, and no download cap.


And that's just residential - their business packages are better again.

but..
Magnet requires an Eircom Landline installed, so, add €24 a month onto that Bill

UPC = €42 pm for 20Mb, and only €10 pm for the Line Rental (Or only €5 if you also have TV with them)
Thats €52 (or, €47 if you already have TV with UPC) versus €64.. and UPC have a significantly lower contention rate.

dub45

Sonic_exyouth wrote: »

but..
Magnet requires an Eircom Landline installed, so, add €24 a month onto that Bill

UPC = €42 pm for 20Mb, and only €10 pm for the Line Rental (Or only €5 if you also have TV with them)
Thats €52 (or, €47 if you already have TV with UPC) versus €64.. and UPC have a significantly lower contention rate.

What are you basing this claim on? UPC afaik never state what their contention ratio is. I emailed them months ago asking that very question and needles to say I am still waiting for a reply. And there are many people on here with consistently poor speeds from UPC who would certainly debate your contention claim.

smelltheglove

After a year long of ts sort of thing I have just cancelled and still getting hassle. I still get bills, and most recently a text asking me to call to discuss my account, I called and told them they were now boardering on harrassment as I am receiving so many calls and letters saying I owe them hundreds yet they still have not sent me the adequate bill from when I cancelled.

I have spent 2 months going through this with them, they even collected their equipment yet they are still charging for the service:eek::eek::eek:

My advice is cancel, it will be awkward and you will want to kill them but better than getting a service that breaks down constantly.

Big Wave

Sonic_exyouth wrote: »

but..
Magnet requires an Eircom Landline installed, so, add €24 a month onto that Bill

UPC = €42 pm for 20Mb, and only €10 pm for the Line Rental (Or only €5 if you also have TV with them)
Thats €52 (or, €47 if you already have TV with UPC) versus €64.. and UPC have a significantly lower contention rate.

Ah yes, but I never compared Magnet to UPC - UPC/NTL broadband is very fast, BUT you have to deal with UPC/NTL - not worth it, which is the whole point of my post - I was listing alternatives for the OP.

dub45

smelltheglove wrote: »

After a year long of ts sort of thing I have just cancelled and still getting hassle. I still get bills, and most recently a text asking me to call to discuss my account, I called and told them they were now boardering on harrassment as I am receiving so many calls and letters saying I owe them hundreds yet they still have not sent me the adequate bill from when I cancelled.

I have spent 2 months going through this with them, they even collected their equipment yet they are still charging for the service:eek::eek::eek:

My advice is cancel, it will be awkward and you will want to kill them but better than getting a service that breaks down constantly.

They seem to be getting worse if thats possible!!!! Has anyone ever tried a letter to the Chief Executive with their complaints?

GS_DBA

OP here, if I could get sky and a decent BB provider in my area I would have kicked NTL out a long time ago, anyway I was eventually told that there was no way I was going to get a engineer out on the weekend, and that my call would be given the highest priority for today ( i.e. a engineer would be there by 9am today ), luckily the mother in law lives nearby and she came over, well 9am turned out to be 15:30, anyway I now have everything working god forbid if it breaks now.

Moojuice

Heroditas wrote: »

I replied with a letter billing them for the two days of work lost. Strangely enough, they then cancelled the account without looking for the cancellation payment.

Thats the thing to do, in future, any time I deal with a utility company, making calls, waiting at home etc, I am going to keep track of costs and work out what they owe me. I can then send a bill , at the moment it is board Gais. But I had problems with NTL before and it took a threat of legal action for them to do anything. In future I will be for all my time and expense as they seem to bill/charge people at the drop of a hat.

dub45

Moojuice wrote: »

Thats the thing to do, in future, any time I deal with a utility company, making calls, waiting at home etc, I am going to keep track of costs and work out what they owe me. I can then send a bill , at the moment it is board Gais. But I had problems with NTL before and it took a threat of legal action for them to do anything. In future I will be for all my time and expense as they seem to bill/charge people at the drop of a hat.

The likes of UPC are very quick to impose charges themselves say if someone does not want to pay by dd or is late with a dd payment but they have no sense of responsibility whatsoever in relation to treating people properly.

Basically companies in Ireland have nothing whatsoever to fear in how they treat their customers so they behave accordingly. For example IPSO have confirmed for me that no company has ever been expelled from the direct debit scheme - now you would think that with all the horror stories we have heard that even one company would have been made an example of - but no!

Do what you like lads you have nothing to fear!

Sonic_exyouth

dub45 wrote: »

What are you basing this claim on? UPC afaik never state what their contention ratio is. I emailed them months ago asking that very question and needles to say I am still waiting for a reply. And there are many people on here with consistently poor speeds from UPC who would certainly debate your contention claim.

Chorus NTL(UPC) Contention Ratio - 17:1

UTV Broadband Contention Ratio - 48:1

BT Broadband Contention Ratio - 48:1

Perlico Broadband Contention Ratio - 48:1

Eircom Broadband Contention Ratio - 48:1

Magnet ADSL Broadband Contention Ratio - 48:1

Magnet FOTN Broadband Contention Ratio - 1:1*
* House and local area need to be wired for fibre optic cable

MOH

Big Wave wrote: »

Who does that naturally?

I'd imagine most people wouldn't pack all their old bills and take them with them? Given I was paid up to date, I'd phoned NTL, they'd confirmed my account had been moved, I didn't really see the point in taking my old bills with me?

dub45 wrote: »

There actually is such a person????????????????????

Probably not. But there was a name on the bottom of the letter I got which seemed to be head of something similar, so I sent it to them.

smelltheglove

dub45 wrote: »

They seem to be getting worse if thats possible!!!! Has anyone ever tried a letter to the Chief Executive with their complaints?

I did but any type of interaction with them seems to get ignored. Apart from the one time I asked them to collect their equipment asap and it was collected the next day. Then again someone else arrived to collect it less than 2 weeks later again.......

My issue is still ongoing, the company seems to have a serious problem logging any details spo my advice to anyoone is to log any interaction in a folder and keep it safe, you most likely will need it one day, example: the start of the cancelation process I spoke to one person and said I have basically had to call on a monthly basis due to errors, this was the end of January, her reply was, well actually you havent called since October 26th so I returned by sayingm how do you persume the technician knew to come to my house last Thursday to repair my faulty internet again? THEY LOG NOTHING

NTL = Brutal.

dub45

smelltheglove wrote: »

I did but any type of interaction with them seems to get ignored. Apart from the one time I asked them to collect their equipment asap and it was collected the next day. Then again someone else arrived to collect it less than 2 weeks later again.......

My issue is still ongoing, the company seems to have a serious problem logging any details spo my advice to anyoone is to log any interaction in a folder and keep it safe, you most likely will need it one day, example: the start of the cancelation process I spoke to one person and said I have basically had to call on a monthly basis due to errors, this was the end of January, her reply was, well actually you havent called since October 26th so I returned by sayingm how do you persume the technician knew to come to my house last Thursday to repair my faulty internet again? THEY LOG NOTHING

NTL = Brutal.

I Know it can be expensive but there is alot to be said for communicating with these companies (the likes of NTL and BT especially) by registered post particularly when it comes to matters like cancelling contracts and so on.

It is an appalling reflection on business in Ireland but the simple truth is that these companies cannot be trusted.

smelltheglove

Isnt it disgraceful, I mean where is the customer service???? Majority of phone calls I have had to ask the reps to allow me to finish my senternces, how will they know my issue if they wont listen to what I am trying to say.

I was once in customer service and am now a photographer if i worked like that I'd be out of business.