Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

I'd just like to say thanks to the Cable Forum Team for all the hard work and effort that they have put into establishing a good working relationship with the NTL heirarchy.

I'm sure that all of the good, positive, things that come out of that relationship will be of enormous benefit to CF members and NTL customers.

I'm glad to see, as well, that we are seeing a number of instances of excellent customer services being reported here on the site. This should go some way to showing NTL that we don't just damn them when we get it wrong, we also recognise and acknowledge when they get it right. It would be terrible if, after all of the hard work that the team have put in, NTL were to get the impression that this site is nothing but a refuge for people wanting to moan about NTL and share new and exciting ways to get one over on them.

<Edit: Oh deary me, did I post that in the wrong thread? ;) >

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Indeed.

12mth contract ends with {enter mobile network here}. You phone them up, tell them that 3/Three are offering x minutes and x texts for £x.xx a month. You tell them you're thinking of moving over and would like a PAC code.
{enter mobile network here} says "oh, we'd like to offer you x minutes with x texts for £x.xx a month too..." or "we cant match that, but we can offer you y minutes with x texts for £y.xx a month".
Customer says "Oh, OK then, I'll accept that" and agree to another 12mth contract.

If companies like these do that, WHY DON'T NTL?!

Fair enough, offer people half price tv for 3mths, after 3mths, they'll try again or go elsewhere.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Well I'm glad my thread has proved to be so popular and that people are calling to try to get similar deals to new customers. Seems orangebird is getting kinda annoyed too which is always a bonus. :D

No one is forcing NTL to offer these deals to people - NTL are a business and people are entitled to negotiate better terms if they aren't happy about constant prices rises and poor products/service.

Back in the early days of Cable and Wireless there was no need to phone up and negotiate better deals - they were such good value for many things that you'd probably have been laughed at for even considering it. In fact I even remeber when NTL gave me free dial up for a year or so and free digital TV - that was such good value that I would have been insane to go elsewhere or even to hint at such a thing.
\
The fact is that if NTL didn't keep giving me the occasional discount I'd have left several years ago. I cancelled the base pack a year or two ago and only kept the thing whilst NTL offered it free of charge or for next to nothing - it simply wasn't worth playing more than a couple of quid a month for to me. Freeview is far better value and gets better by the day.

NTL still don't offer caller ID here (or to many others) and it feels as if I need it more than ever right now. On top of that they've put the line rental up and capped broadband and even started using annoying Indian call centers who makes the UK ones actually look quite decent. Therefore I mention such problems every 12 months or so and rather than fixing these problems like most normal companies would do they prefer to offer discounts instead.

If NTL want more money they should offer the services people actually want. I'd happily give them more cash if they offered fully featured services and wouldn't have to threaten to go elsewhere if they didn't threaten NTL's low end broadband customers with stingy caps.

I DO agree that special deals should be subject to a 12 month contract, but if NTL are too stupid to insit on this then who cares. NTL's customer service is still fairly poor, the products still aren't quite up to standard and in many areas they are becoming poor value for money compared to the competition - eg E4 is now on Freeview, ridiculously cheap phones calls are at 1899.com (despite NTL' best efforts), skype.com etc

NTL have little choice than to offer discounts IMO

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Do you think it might have something to do with the fact, particularly in my case i got half price broadband on a rolling contract, who is going to find 3mb broadband or equivalent for £17.50 a month.

Besides, I think I had a valid claim since I was legitimately thinking of moving over to BT (Phone), UKOnline (Broadband), Sky (TV)

Anyway I opted to go for NTLs Talk 24 Unlimited with Digital for £25.00 and the likely hood of me moving is like 0 unless telewest install in my area which isn't going to happen.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

That's quite sad really. :dozey:

I'm not annoyed. Just a little dumbfounded at how some people **** an moan about crap services, but expect ntl to improve it all with no money. How ignorant can you get? :monkey:

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Bit of a catch-22 - NTL services are felt by some to be poor, so people look for discounts to match the service actually received which means NTL have less money which means they can't improve the services (or pay their staff a good salary), so those people continue to see the services as poor.

But anyway, if someone has all the cables etc already installed (at least for TV/broadband) isn't the monthly rental almost pure profit? I've not had a problem for years that has required NTL to do anything to fix. I have the same cable box and modem. So for me (ignoring the initial cabling costs!), my payments are almost pure profit to NTL (other than to pay the billing system charges). So I can understand why NTL might be willing to give customers half price deals to retain at least 50% of that profit. I can't see they make a loss on those deals. They would make a loss if the customer went elsewhere or if a large number of people were given the 50% deals. But then it would be their own fault for offering the deals to all those people.

If NTL believe their standard pricing deals are good value and give their customers the best service amongst their competitors, then perhaps they should just have a bit of courage and let people go if they say they can find a better deal elsewhere. If NTL really do have the best deals they will soon attract someone new to replace them.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

As I said in my OP in this thread, I complained as I am happy with the BB and happy to pay retail for it (though I don't use NTL mail or web services and the free newsgrous are still pants but I don't have time for that at the moment) and happy with the DTV, my biggest problem was / is that NTL cannot take over my BT ISDN numbers and I HAD TO PAY FOR A PHONE LINE, even though it sits in the corner doing nothing.

NTL gave me the phone line for free for a year, considering it is not used and last time I tried to use it there was a fault on the line I consider this a reasonable retention. If NTL want to offer ISDN then I can port my numbers and will pay full price again.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

NTL are not the only ones who will and need to pay the retentions game. My neighbour decided he wasn't getting money out of his Sky contract (Sports + Films) so phoned to cancel and was offered the same package at half-price for a year (costs around about £18 now I think). I doubt Sky are doing that to loose money either.

APS

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

NTL need the money to improve their services, otherwise people will continue to have problems.

However... people have a right to haggle for the best deal. The levering point on haggling is the threat of going elsewhere. If you are genuinely going to go elsewhere, then haggle away.
But if you're just after a good deal and would not go elsewhere if NTL said "no, you'll pay the proper going rate", then you're not being fair to the whole user community.

May be worth calling some people's bluff when they try such things... see if they're aware of what they're being offered elsewhere and are not just trying to get a cheaper bill at the end of the month.

Its the empty threats that are the problem here, not people looking around to see if the grass could be greener and NTL offering them a package to stay a while longer.

But NTL do need to get some sort of contract incurred when people accept these special offers, otherwise they're gonna continually be taken for a ride by freeloaders.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Would also be pretty sad to somehow believe NTL are a charity who we should all willingly throw money at. Just becasue they're not quite as annoying and nasty as BT doesn't mean we should pay over the odds for what are not especially good services.


Maybe if NTL went bust they'd get taken over by a decent company who charged fair prices and actually invested their money in getting the basics right. NTL invest cash in developing pointless complicated crap like video on demand, yet they still can't managed Caller ID yet. If they can't be bothered putting the network right they should just stop selling phones lines and offer a VoIP phone service with caller ID instead.

one otherthing - I don't think I even have online billing yet :td:

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

NTL appear to think they will profit by offering VOD. They probably will. Look at Homechoice.. Also, bear in mind NTL is not actually paying for the development and implementation of VOD. The company that provides it is. So, NTL have a greater chance of making profit.

Now, if you can show NTL they will profit by introducing Caller ID (which will cost millions as a lot of switching hardware and software will need to be upgraded), I am sure they will upgrade.

None of which detracts from the point that NTL need to spend more money giving a good service, therefore reducing the amount of cancellation bribes they give out.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

I dare say NTL probably won't make much money from on-line billing (or from caller ID). But if they want to stay in business they'll have to catch up with the competition eventually.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

Hmm - £9.49 off the Family pack for a year.
I'm happy.

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

This is a big question and serious for once

we have never renewed our contract so can we phone and get the new deals :confused:

Re: Latest NTL special offers - useful when renegotiaing after contract is up
 

I think its new contracts only!