What is the REAL accounts number?

[Richard M]

Evening guys.
I've got a long story but I'll try to keep it as short as possible...

Basically, I lost my internet access in November 2003 due to late payment of a bill.
Due to the family member who I share the house with not paying his half, I was unable to settle the bill and it spiralled to an enormous amount very quickly.
Enter a quote from my blog:

NTL are practising their usual dodgy business tactics again -- I found out late last week that during the 3 or so months that I went without internet access, they were still charging me full amount for my cable modem even though I couldn't use the bloody thing.
So rather than downgrade me to 150k (£17.99 a month), they kept me at the top level 1MBit tier - overcharging me by nearly £140 when other (unused) services are taken into account.
Apparently, NTL are within their rights to do this according to the Scottish woman on the phone who sounded ****ed off that I'd interrupted her game of Solitaire.

Now I don't have a problem with paying the money I owe for services that I used and the line rental since November - that's fair enough, but I do object to paying full price for the CM when I had no access at all.
When I first lost access, I spoke to a guy in CS who told me that I'd "...have to pay the outstanding balance before we can downgrade your cable modem speed...".

Bit of a catch 22 really isn't it?

Anyway, fast forward to last Saturday... I'd decided that I wanted to start paying the bill off by £20 a week by direct debit so I phoned 0800 052 2000 and pressed the option "3" to go through to a CS Advisor in the Billing menu (goes through to Glasgow I think).
I told him the situation and he recommended that I phone back on a weekday (office hours) to speak to the accounts department.

This is exactly what I did about an hour ago, I phoned through as before and simply asked to be put through to Accounts.
He then proceeded to put me on hold for 5 minutes then came back, not to tell me that he was putting me through but started to read a number.
The number he gave me started with 8000 so I said "Do you mean 0800?", his reply was "No, 8000"..."So is that an internal number or something", I said.
"Don't ask me, it's just what my supervisor said...you could try changing the start to 0800 if you want to see if that works".
"..." was all I could manage, and gave up.

So, after trying various combinations of phone numbers I called it a day and thought I'd try you guys...
Can anyone help?

[Marge]

I would say that anyone who works in Billing should be able to help you with your account queries, charges and payments can be accessed quite easily. If you want to pay by installments then it is normally Credit Control that agree that. Certainly in my BU there isn't a separate accounts dept as such.

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Debsy42

I would say that anyone who works in Billing should be able to help you with your account queries, charges and payments can be accessed quite easily. If you want to pay by installments then it is normally Credit Control that agree that.

That's what I meant...
Credit Control - Accounts Department, all the same to me. :pp

Anyway, do you have the number?
Cheers Debs.

[Hell's Child]

Try 0800 052 2000. Type your phone number in (or if you haven't got one just make up a number starting with your area code) then choose option 1 (billing or payment) That should direct you to your areas billing team. Granted they only work till 5pm though so you will have to call them during normal business hours.

Hope this helps.

[Marge]

Originally Posted by Richard M

That's what I meant...
Credit Control - Accounts Department, all the same to me. :pp

Anyway, do you have the number?
Cheers Debs.

I can't remember the direct number not in work till tomm

however ringing the customer services number and asking to be put through should work

or I can find it and PM it to you tomorrow

[Macca]

Originally Posted by Richard M

That's what I meant...
Credit Control - Accounts Department, all the same to me. :pp

Anyway, do you have the number?
Cheers Debs.

Try 0800 0521567 that is the Accounts Dept for Celtic.

[Richard M]

Thanks for the help everyone, I'll give Macca'a number a go tomorrow.

[Derek]

The accounts number I use is 0800 052 9722

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Macca

Try 0800 0521567 that is the Accounts Dept for Celtic.

OK I tried that number and was partially successfull because I set up a standing order to pay the balance off.
The only problem left (and it is a major one) is that the woman I spoke to said that the £35 a month for the cable modem (non) access was a "standing charge" and there was nothing anyone could do about it!
She even said that I had to call NTL because there was nothing she could do either.

As I've already explained in this thread, I believe that they were wrong to charge me the full amount for the three or so months and want the money refunded!
If I could at least get the amount reduced to the same price as 150K I would be happier, none at all would be best though with just the line rental which I thought was standard practice.
Hmm...turns out that standard practice is to rip you off just because you can't pay a bill!
Stay away from NTL at all costs!
Defo going to ADSL now.