Update:-
They were finally able to sort my new box out today.
Following Monday's debacle and after waiting for their phone call from them to arrange a replacement box (and not getting the phone call), I phoned them yesterday - but no one knew what I was talking about. Another hour being pushed from department to department - all of whom proclaimed that it wasn't their department that handled such problems. The phone calls ended again with the promise that someone would phone back within 2-4 hours.
Four hours later someone did phone back but was convinced that our problem was with the Interactive TV system which I'd never mentioned. Oh, and broadband problems were not their department... cue another endless cycle of waiting for phones to be answered only to find out that they didn't deal with broadband either. Finally I was told that an Engineer would phone within 24 hours who would talk me through some changes required on the STB.
Not convinced, I began scouring magazine ads for BT Broadband, Tiscali, and anyone else that didn't have "NTL" in their name.
Then, at about 10.30 this morning, I found a message on my answerphone from an NTL guy saying that they'd sorted it all out at their end and a 2min reset on the STB would make everything hunky-dory. And he was right! Thank Heaven there's at least one person at NTL who knows something about NTL Broadband.
Why do their customer support department(s) constantly give customers the runaround? Do they have too many customers and they want them to go elsewhere? Is their motto "the customer must be avoided at all costs"..?
All this because they want us to change to a service that we didn't want to change to in the first place. I was happy with the 1Mbit service. One of the dozens of NTL phone people admitted that this was true of a lot of their 1Mbit-ers who were not happy with the hassle.
I think the most annoying this is that, while trying to convince them that the broadband wasn't working, all the recorded messages kept saying how wonderful NTL Broadband was. And then to have your nose rubbed in it by someone saying the upgrade to 1.5Mbit was for free. Do they seriously believe that they've effectively conned anyone with that line?
Anyway, the story ends, the broadband works again, and if I ever need to talk to NTL's customer support again it'll be a millennia too soon.
