A week without - compensation?
 

For NTL, if a customer reports a fault & an agreeable time for that fault to be repaired cannot be made for a whole week, is the customer entitled to with-hold payment for that week?
Do repairs have to be done at an agreeable time for both parties?

Also what is the NTL compensation arrangement for lengthy outages?

Can anyone also explain the same for Telewest.

A bit of info why these questions:
On Saturday a colleague reported that his Telewest cable TV was out since Friday, Telewest said that they could come and fix it at 2PM Tuesday, this was an unnacceptable time as the house is empty because people are working.
They then offered the same time Friday!
Eventually they can come round on Saturday when someone is in.
I would like to know what would/could happen if he were with NTL.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

I'm sure there's something in the T&C'S which states that ntl cannot be held liable for things like this as when you take ntl on, you do agree that it's not possible to supply a fault free service.

Anyway, what is it with compensation these days???? That's what you're entitled to if you lose a limb due to medical imcompetance or something....not because you missed an episode of 24 ....:rolleyes:

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

I would personally say that a week to repair a fault is not acceptable.


Any repair for anything has to be done at a time that's agreeable for both parties.


There isn't one AFAIK-It's all down to goodwill & discretion.


Things differ from firm to firm-EG, BT have a superb compensation package, something like a month for every day out following a report of phone failure?

From what I gather, ntl will offer a Saturday fault fix, but only when pushed to do so.

HTH.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

I think this will depend on the natur of the fault. If you are without TV for a week I think you are within your rights to ask for a pro-rata refund for that week you are without a service.

If your phone is off, then this needs (and I believe is treated as such by ntl) a priorty, so are quicker to get it sorted.

There is no pre-defined (at least not publicly available) amount of compensation they will give you for an outage. After all it is a fault, it not like they did it on purpose. What they should be doing is making arrangements for the fault to be rectified in a 'reasonable' time.

I agree that the appointments they always seem to offer you are always during the week (particularly for TV - don't know if it is still correct, but I was once told that Saturday faults appointments are only for emergencies and telephone faults).

This is a bit stupid, becuase most of this country works Monday to Friday, so evening and weekend appointments would offer a better service - but then it would cost more to employ people to work antisocial hours.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

That is correct. :)


Not necessarily.....:angel:

At the end of the day, why should anyone pay any company for a service that didn't work (for example) 3 out of the 4 weeks that they bill you for that month?

People don't mind the odd day here & there, but more than that & it becomes poor-the thing is with compensation is that it is (hopefully) like a punishment in that they will strive not to be in the same situation again.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

I agree, but I don't think that people should be asking for compensation at the drop of every hat. Asking for a refund for the service that you are not recieving is fine, asking for compensation becuase you have had to wait for (and let's face it he turned down the first appointment time) three days is not.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

:tu: :tu: :tu:

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Agreed. :)

Having re read the 1st post, ntl could well have offered a repair slot the same day/next day-but that was 'not agreeable'.

Appointments should try to fit in with a customer 1st, & a company 2nd IMHO, but there always needs to be a bit of give & take too.

[Edit]-The title to this thread is misleading IMO. It implies that someone was without one of their services for a week.

What it actually was, was a scenario where neither the poster (presumably?) & ntl could agree on a suitable day/time slot for a week.

Not quite the same thing..... :nono:

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

It was actually Telewest, not ntl in the example....

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Thanks for the replies, although the colleague is a tight Yorkshireman :D Its not compentsation that he is after I just queried that, the main reason for the post is what NTL would do if his services from them were to be off for a week. Even better for what Telewest do in these instances (although I realise that this is not a Telewest site).

As has been said, he should not be required to pay for a service that is going to be off for a week through no fault of his own.

As for the title of this thread, yes it was the first scenario Neil, albiet with Telewest. Although it included a bit of the 2nd. :D

He was prepared for a bit of "give & take" & has cancelled what he was going to do at the weekend (Golf I believe) but was not prepared/able to take the time off from work that would be needed to enable the repair.

As for employing people to work antisocial hours... But they are the only hours where the services fail :D lol.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Ok-my bad. :dunce:

Principle is the same though. :angel:

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

If you want a service repaired the next day then be available the next day, if you were having a sofa delivered they would say it'll be this day between 8 in the morning and 8 at night end of story.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Not quite, Neil.

My phone was out for 11 days earlier this month. BT diverted incoming calls to my mobile free (actually they've charged me for the diverted calls by mistake, but I am assured a refund will appear on my next bill :rolleyes: ), £1 a day towards calls made on my mobile (it cost me more than that ringing BT to try to find out what the hell was going on), and a refund of the rental for the days I was without a service.

Fortunately I'd had wireless broadband installed just a few days previously, or I'd have been going mad without email and internet too. :disturbd:

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

I did put a '?' at the end to point out that I wasn't 100% certain about their compensation policy.

I have to say that sounds like a resonable package they have offered you, & I can't imagine ntl/TW ever offering anything like that (esp the diverting of calls to your mobile at no extra cost)

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Yes, Neil, I know you weren't certain; I was just answering the '?', and letting you know what BT are currently offering.

I'm not complaining about the package - as long as it all shows up on my next bill.

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

http://www.bt.com/customerservices/c...e_compensation

Interesting read that.....

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

Perhaps because of the divert they are not offering it, but they used to offer a months line rental per day your service was out beyond the contracted repair time, being about 48 hours for a residential line.

They took 3 weeks to repair my Home Highway line once as no ISDN engineers were availible (who says NTL are the worst). I was paying £25 a month line rental (you need to subtract the call allowance). They recomenced me £525 on my next bill and then didn't take a direct debit for about the next year!

Seems to have changed a little these days.

http://www.bt.com/customerservices/d..._guarantee.pdf

Re: A week without - compensation?
 

We had an intermittent problem with the service several months ago. This continued for maybe two - four weeks and the cause was that we rarely had any watchable television at the weekends for that duration.

I eventually "threw the head up" (I'd had enough) :) ;) and complained to CS and faults. Apparently it was traceable to a nearby cable box and engineers were attempting to fix the problem but could not isolate it - in other words it was not an easy fix.

A member of staff from NTL called soon thereafter and arranged for someone to come out and check the cabling around the house as we would be very susceptible to faults (because we have telephone, 3 STBs, and Broadband)

This person, whom I assume was a manager of some description kept in contact with me throughout this time and offered to pay compensation for the loss of service during the 2/4 weeks of disruption.

If I remember correctly, we got a reduction around the value of the Family Pack (£28). To be honest, I wasn't looking for compensation and I thought, and still do think that this offer was generous as it was only the television service that was disrupted.

What can we say about this?? Some sections of NTL are generous, kind, and full of goodwill. If you treat them with respect, it is more than likely that they will treat you the same.

James