Hi everyone. Just thought I'd share my experiences trying to move house with NTL and then trying to cancel my account.
I exchanged on my flat (and new house) on November 20th. The same day I went to the NTL site, got to the "Moving House" section and submitted my details in the on-line form (first mistake!). My move date was December the 10th. Got an email back fairly promptly saying that I'd be contacted shortly to finalise details.
Second mistake; I got somewhat caught up in the whole move, and realised at the beginning of December that I'd not heard back from them. Emailed a reply to the message I'd gotten, then the next day I called up. The people at the home moving department ummed and ahhed and eventually said that while my request had been "on file", no-one had actioned it. They said there was no way they could do the transfer on my move day. Nor, in fact, until the middle of the next week. No-one would be around that day, so they then said the next weekend.
Obviously this left me in something less than a great mood; they'd had my request for nearly two weeks and just not bothered to do anything about it. I'd had pretty terrible service all round from NTL, so this seemed enough to convince me to move. Two phone calls later BT and Sky had arranged to set up telephone and TV on the day of the move and two days later (respectively), so I called NTL again. Got through to a customer service rep. Asked to cancel the service. Was told to call a different number.
Then repeat the next section some 4 or 5 times... Call number given by customer service rep. Enter home phone number. Get either "number unavailable" tone or just cut off. Call customer services and tell them number doesn't work. Get given another number. Repeat.
Eventually, after about an hour and a half, I get through to the disconnections department. They ask why I want to disconnect; I tell them. They say that they can arrange the transfer for the day of the move.
As you might imagine, this is the last straw. They're essentially admitting that they
could have sorted out my move perfectly easily, but basically thought they could get away with not bothering. I point this out (politely - I've worked in a call centre so I do my very best never to be rude or to get angry, no matter how hard it is) and the rep (as is standard) umms and ahhs and fails to really say anything useful.
I ask again to have my account terminated from the 10th. Rep tells me that I will be charged for 30 days from the day the account termination request is made, and that in any case I have to provide written notice (so why was I told I had to call the disconnection department?). Gives me rather suspicious seeming address - different from the one on my bill.
Where I work, I deal with NTL as well. I had to call our account manager anyway, and he told me that the address I'd been given wouldn't be able to deal with my disconnection request. Interesting.
Anyways, after reading various disconnection horror stories I sent a polite, detailed letter, Recorded Delivery, to the address on the back of my bill. I pointed out that I was cancelling because of NTL's lack of care and attention to my move, and because I now knew that they could have done the transfer but elected not to until I threatened to cancel. I pointed out that I had never been compensated for the numerous outages I'd reported to the broadband helpline (on the rare occasions that I managed to get through before they closed) and said that I expected my account to be closed on the 10th, and for no charges to be made for any service after this date.
Yesterday I got a letter from NTL. Addressed to my new house. In it was a bill - or at least that's what it looked like. On actual inspection, it was a refund against the last bill, crediting back a proportion of that bill such that I wasn't then paying anything after the 10th.
Imagine my suprise. I've not had an actual confirmation at all that the account has been closed, but it certainly looks like NTL have taken me seriously and actually given me what I asked for.
Just to polish the whole experience off, our Sky engineer fell off a ladder the day before our installation and broke his leg, but they got someone else out to us the next day. The phone worked as soon as we got into the new house, and our broadband was up and running a week later (there was no spare capacity on the local exchange until then). Magic.
Join CF
You are here: 
to Cable Forum Andi ... there's plenty to talk about even for us $ky slaves ... stick around!
