I've had a nightmare of a home move recently - I must have spent a few hours on hold to customer services listening to that looped music and the patronising voice over.
I read the Customer Charter on the webpage and wrote an official letter of complaint - I even highlighted that they promise to acknowledge the complaint within 48 hours - it was a month before anyone got back to me...
For your amusement - here is my original letter reproduced:
Quote:
Dear Sir/Madam
I would like to make a complaint about the service I have received recently from NTL. When reading this complaint, please bear in mind that I have been a loyal NTL customer for over 11 years (dating back to the Nynex days) and this is the first time I found myself seriously considering leaving NTL completely.
I recently moved house (as you can imagine – a stressful & busy time) and for convenience purposes I filled in your online form to request my services were moved to my new home. I requested 13th October AM and received an automated email response to say that my call was logged. This was on the 28th September, over two weeks before my requested move date.
On the 13th October, no one arrived so I called Customer Services and was told that my appointment was booked for the 16th! In the two weeks since I booked it online no one bothered to contact me to let me know the date was going to be different.
The Customer Services rep (he gave me his first name as Anil, but would not give me his surname) was most unhelpful saying the best he could do was to credit my bill with the 3 days I would be without services – this was said like he was doing me a favour, when in reality it would be little short of theft for you to charge me for 3 days service I have been denied. I await my bill with interest to see if this credit actually appears. If it doesn’t then I shall doubtless be writing to you again.
I then asked to speak to his supervisor in an attempt to escalate the issue. He put me on hold for 5 minutes (during which time I had the pleasure of listening to the recorded message telling me how I could book my house move online for easy service and take the pain out of moving etc) - then he told me his supervisor was "not available". I left my mobile number and asked him to get his supervisor to call me ASAP – needless to say, despite his promises, I never received a call. This one call cost me around 20 minutes on my mobile phone (because of course my NTL phone was not yet connected..).
The engineer duly arrived on 16th October and was polite and helpful. The TV and Telephone were re-installed without fuss, but he presented me with a Cable Modem telling me that they no longer supported Broadband through the STB. He said that someone would call me with a new PIN number to install the Cable Modem. Whilst he was packing up his tools he received a message on his laptop telling him my old PIN number would still work and that there was no need for them to call me. He expressed some amount of skepticism about this as the old PIN number did not seem to be in the correct format but suggested I try it and call Tech Support if it didn’t work.
As he suspected the PIN number didn’t work so I called Tech Support and spent around 10 minutes on hold. Upon speaking to an engineer, he spent a further 10 minutes trying to generate a new PIN but eventually told me he had to transfer me to a different department as he couldn’t do it.
After a further 5 minutes on hold I spoke to a lady who also unsuccessfully tried for 10 minutes to reset my PIN – this time claiming that I “wasnÃ¢à ‚¬â„¢t in her billing area†– she transferred me for a 3rd time to another operator – this time in Customer Care.
10 minutes later they also claimed that they were unable to resolve the issue and said they were passing me back to Tech Support. At this point I had been on the phone for 40 minutes and I was getting quite frustrated so she offered to call me back (which to be fair she did immediately)
The 4th person I spoke to was able to add my Cable Modem to the network at their end within a matter of minutes and I didn’t need a PIN number, or the installation disk. The question therefore is – if it’s so simple then why on earth had I spent nearly an hour on the phone trying to resolve it??
I refer you to your own Consumer Code Of Practice in which section 5.1 you state “We aim to deliver service to dates agreed with you†and “If you move please contact us in good time beforehand and we will arrange to move your ntl:Telewest services to suit your convenienceâ€ÂÂ
I think it is quite clear that you contravened both of these statements, nor did you offer me the “excellent service†you refer to in the Code Of Practice.
I expect to receive acknowledgement of this complaint within 48 hours of receipt – as per your procedure. I also expect you to confirm that I will NOT be billed for the 3 days I was without service, and I would like to know what you plan to do to retain my loyal custom in the light of the appalling service I have received.
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Following on from the lack of response to this letter, I ended up calling Customer Services AGAIN to try and complain. This time the operator I spoke to said that he sympathised with me but couldn't do anything - suggesting that I call the "Retentions" department and ask for a discount. Could he pass me through? No - because they go home at 5pm!!
So the next day I called Retentions and the operator attempted to put me on a cheaper package but found that my Broadband package was messed up on the system (presumably because the previous guy added me at their end rather than me going through the registration process??)
He said he would fix it for me if I gave him my MAC address. As I wasn't at home I couldn't do this, but he said if I called back he would leave a note on the account to say that they should add my MAC address and put me on a cheaper deal, assuring me that this would be straight forward.
So the NEXT day I called back with my MAC address, expecting a quick and easy call - but instead I got another confused sounding operator who said she couldn't help and that this wasn't something they could do in Retentions (despite the fact the last guy in Retentions was about to do it for me..) I had to talk to the Movers department! Aha! This was where all my trouble started!
So I talk to someone in the Movers Dept and they become the latest "confused sounding NTL operator" - this time they inform me that my broadband account is still showing as being through the STB..and that they have to set me up a brand new account for the Cable Modem. Obviously this took AGES and then they tried to generate me a new PIN - which didn't come through, and they told me to ring back the next day for the PIN.
The NEXT day (sound familiar?) I rang back for the PIN and encountered MORE confusion - although after explaining the whole thing again for the umpteenth time they did apparently put me on the cheaper deal and give me a new PIN.
At this point my Broadband worked fine for a month and then I got a call from a Sue Roberts in Customer Relations in reply to my original letter. She had investigated my case and despite ALL the above, they had still not managed to set up my Broadband account properly, and in fact I was getting free Broadband because the billing wasn't set up. She "generously" offered to write off the months worth of free service I'd had and said the new billing would start from the day after.
I've now had 2 Direct Debits taken from my account for Broadband (for different amounts) but I've not seen a single bill (see my other thread in the Billing & Payments section) - which is pretty poor as I'm still not sure what deal I'm on
I work in the IT Services industry and I can't believe what goes on and how a simple house move can be so badly handled - If I performed to that standard I'd be sacked immediately.
My advice to anyone moving house who has a STB broadband connection is - read the above very carefully - they WILL make you move to a Cable Modem and it WILL be a nightmare as they clearly don't have a clue what's going on since all the mergers took place
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