[schmoe001]

Things are going from bad to worse for me! After all my issues with the cancelling of my "contract" I decided to contact customer services and arrange to pay. The advisor told me I could pay in installments and after arranging the collection of NTL's equipment, tranferred me to the credit control dept. to arrange a payment schedule. I arranged to pay £30 per month, until my £370 bill was paid! I asked if this was a normal procedure as i did not want this bill to affect my credit score, and was told yes it was, customers do this all the time. I duly sent a chq for the amount agreed, then 2 days later received a letter from a debt collector asking for full payment! I contacted NTL who basically said it was a crossover in communications and that they would get in touch with the debt collectors & notify them of my arrangment. A few days later i received a monthly statement from NTL for £207.43 , they had received my payment, had removed £100 from my bill plus another £29! Great, I thought it's all been sorted!!
Oh how wrong I was! Last Thursday I received another letter from the debt collectors asking me for £336 or legal proceedings would be started against me. Extremely detressed! I took the morning off college & rang NTL & told them about this letter. They then denied all knowledge of my calls arranging a payment plan (even though they had collected their equipment, as organised on the same call!!) & told me i could not continue paying NTL as the debt was no longer theirs and i'd have to pay the debt collectors in full and that NTL do not arrange payment plans!! On Monday I received a letter from NTL telling me how disappointed they were that i had to cancel my contract and that my account had an overdue amount of £207.43 , "possibly an oversight on my part" (their words). Then today I receive a letter from a solicitors on behalf of NTL stating that if I did not pay the amount of £336 by Monday court proceedings would start!!
I am so stressed out by all this I can't believe such a large company can get away with treating people like this. I've got exams at college & i'm finding it hard to concentrate with all this hanging over me. If i'd have known how bad a reputation NTL had i'd never have touched them with a barge pole!!!