NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

NTL have tried twice in May and Twice this Month (June) to set up an illegal direct debit on my bank account.
This has left me overdrawn twice and has created many financial and personal problems with my partner and I who got NTL for it's alledged cheapness!
I have never had a bill and to top it all when you ask for a replacement bill they charge an additional £4 for the pleasure.
I can see no way of complaining and the staff that you talk to seem ignorant at best.
I have incoming calls only on my landline and a reduced TV service despite the correct direct debits being paid.
I will not be paying for this shoddy service,they can eat the cr#p from my ar#se before I give them anymore money.
They have failed contractually to maintain my service,and have attempted to illegally remove funds from my account.
If and When NTHELL decide to prosecute me, I will counter sue them on these grounds.
I would advise anyone thinking about using NTL services to consider the shoddy way this company operates and consider using cheaper and faster ISP such as Homechoice via a BT line.
NTL upload speed is painfully slow...zzzzzzzzz!
Sod Them.
NTL are S#it at best!!!

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Welcome to the site :wavey:

First of all calm down! If you PM me your full name, address and account number, I'll get one of our ntl contacts to look in to this for you :)

Fortunately the vast majority of ntl employees are helpful, especially those who post here and help out in their own time.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

there's another satisfied customer not!

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

OK Russ,
I will get my Partner Emma to PM you later...I think I'm having a sense of humour failure and I'm gonna miss startrek!!!!

It's a joke!

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Anybody could help me please?:help:
I'm so stressed out it is sickening.

The folllowing is an email that I sent to NTL. I got a automated reply
dating 25/4/06, but nothing else. Be warned this is long.

Another two DDs were taken from my account in May'06, so I cancelled
one of them myself.

On Monday of this week I lost my internet connection. Thought it was the normal dodgy NTL so I left it. Come Wednesday night it still did not work, so I called Tech Support. Eventually I was told that my account was suspended due to arrears. CS was closed so I had to call Thu.

Thursday (today), called NTL at lunchtime. Got through surprisingly quickly and spoke to a guy. Spent ages explaining about the email and what had happened. I could not give him an account number for the internet services because I have never received a single bill for either of them during the 3yrs. I gave him my Tel account number and details instead.

He then said that he would not be able to help me without the numbers and therefore would not what each payment was for. I told him in frustration that I did not care and all I knew was that it was paid to "NTL". I asked him if he was arguing with me and he said "Yes".

He then told me to hang up and get back on the queue or he would hang up. I asked to speak to his supervisor, but he said "No" and repeated the hanging up thing. I was gobsmacked and stunned, so I hung up.

By this time I was no longer frustrated and just felt knackered and stunned. Called CS again, spoke to a nice lady. Repeated the same stuff in a zombie state. Got passed to Credit Control. Got passed to another Credit Control and this helpful person cancelled both DDs and reconnected me. He told me that I would need to call CS again to deal with the two accounts and that he could only see 9 payments on both. Then got disconnected by CS. By this time my lunchtime was over.

Called CS this evening. She told me that I need to make an indedmnity claim on the DD at the bank and print out a list of payments as they do not have a record of 3yr payments. I don't really want to do this as I'm afraid that NTL would chase me for the money and end up giving me bad credit.

So far NTL staff have all been helpful apart from the first guy who told me to hang up. I really was gobsmacked and hardly could say anything afterwards. I admit I was frustrated (with good reason), but I never said anything rude.

I tried cancellations, but they were closed. I do not know how I could stay with NTL anymore.

Anybody from NTL who could sort it out for me, please?

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

On the direct debits there will be a reference number (quite long), something like (1052069876530976368). Ignore the first two digits and then the following 8 numbers are the Account Numbers for the BB so any CS rep should then be able to trace your accounts easily :tu: ie your Account Number would be 52069876 in the example above

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

I get phone calls from NTL reps several times a week asking to set up,or reset up my DD account?
I'm not entirely sure these people that say they are from NTL are from NTL at all,I have been reading several cases online and also have spoken to other NTL members at both the websites I run for my old schools and they have all had similar problems.
Russ seems very helpful via this forum,but we will see tomorrow when I get a call from an NTL representitive.(hopefully a potentially bright one!)
Most People I have spoken to today have stopped the direct debit and have told me that they will sue NTL if they continue to set up direct debits without their knowledge.(Which is illegal.)
My bank is pretty fed up aswell and I'm pretty sure every court in the land would back us up.
Post your comment and ask for help here:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.legal
Google groups uk.legal It's free!
Very helpful.
I think you will find the first two hours of every solicitors time is free of charge, get the legal advice, try not get into to much of a state, lifes to short.
Sounds to me that it's a case of give them enough rope!!
Apart from that I've shouted and got rude enough for everybody for one day.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Thanks Marge for that helpful hint. I have since looked more thorughly at my bank statements and the DD reference numbers do match the two Broadband Account numbers that the Credit Control who helped me to reconnect.

I have double checked and I have been paying double since Mar '03. A meagre £988.77 . :shocked:

Per my bank statements the monthly refernce numbers are the same since Mar'03, but NTL say they only see 9 payments. I think it is unfair that I need to do all the work to prove that they have wrongly taken money frrom me. If they had to do any extra work on my behalf they'lll be charging me admin charges left right and centre!

I cannot believe that a company of their size doesn't have a means of calling up a ledger printout of receipts from a specific customer, but instead would require the customer to go to their bank and ask for one.

Is it just laziness on their side? I admit that I'm lazy too, but in this case I just don't have the time to go to the bank. Will probably have to do a letter instead.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

On the billing system used for the BB it does have a list of all the payments made on the account, dates and amounts and then a lump sum total eg 23 payments £670.00 so it is simplicity to see exactly how much someone has paid and when. If you wanted me to have a look for you then I will do...

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Thanks Marge!

I'll take you up on that offer! ;)

PM sent.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Nice one Marge for getting involved.

A word of warning, Marge does work for ntl, but it's always worth checking before anyone divulges confidential information - things might not be as they seem ;)

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Well, this is exactly what makes you angry. That some of them are ok.
I was paying compliments to one of them who enabled my call divert service that didn't work for weeks, ensuring me that everything will be ok from now on. Unfortunately, I was disconnected without warning later on the same day...

But as I said in a previous post, nothing (BUT NOTHING) compares to the scam of the international calling plan. They tell you they activated it and off you go making calls abroad. Then, by the magic commodity of DD they get off you large sums of ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£ÃƒÆ ’‚£s telling you that they can't see International calling plan set up on your account.

Also, I wonder if they ever reply to complaint letters / emails (they sure don't in my case)

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

http://groups.google.com/group/uk.le...b5e922587402e/?

I'm Just not impressed!
These people think they know what they are doing but they do not.
A word of warning for people that installed NTL software on their PC's, It's riddled with keystroke spyware.
Zone Alarm pro picked up on it.
I'm Still awaiting a call from NTL and seeing as my Mrs is the account holder It will be better to call between 4 and 5 PM BST or Now 10.15am and Noon.

Steve.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

Riddled with Keystroke software???

I hope you can back that up with some decent evidence.

Re: NTL Illegal Direct Debit
 

More than likely a false positive