NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience

[Rillington]

I was staying at a pal's hosue during the summer and he allowed me to have the offpeak unmetered calls. Therefore, I caleld up the call centre and was told I was in the wrong call centre. I was then out through to the 'correct' call centre and was told it was in th wrong area. Third time lucky, 20 mins later, I got through to the only call centre which could deal with the query. NOT a good start, being told that I had to be talking to a specific call centre to do one simple task. Anyway, they out this on and was told that it would appear immediately. Hoiwever, it did not and they tried to charge me for a wekend of metered calls, which came to quite a lot of money. We did get the money abck next month but that wasn't the point.

Also, after I left, the guy whose house I was in wanted the offpeak thingy removed and he was told that he ahd to give 30 days written notice to remove the offpeak freecall thing. We all know that is rubbish and that you only have to give notice if you are leaving ntl altogether. Theyw ere basically just trying it on.

Therefore, 1 out of 5.

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by progers

I have to say that my experience is clouded by having to write to the MD to get problems resolved soon after joining. Since then I have had occasions where I had to call and waited for 10 minutes for a reply. The last time they answered within a few minutes and were helpful.

Hi guys, I must reiterate again that I have never had a problem with CS - simply because I can never get to speak to one! The lines are constantly engaged and on the days when I do get into a queue, the line just goes dead after a few mins! With my ongoing saga, a guy rang me from CS the other day and *demanded* I pay the arrears asap - he asked me how much I owe and when I was going to pay it? The dept he was ringing from wasnt even aware that my complaint was being processed by the ombudsman! In my experience, although CS reps arent to blame (although some of them can be patronising), the whole system needs a review. I had no responses to emails, no responses to correspondence (after gawd knows how many letters sent to them) and a recorded delivery letter to the Celtic region MD, who completely ignored my letter!! and when I took it the ombudsman, NTL decided to get real cocky about it all - no apologies, nothing, just a twist on the truth, trying to make *ME* out to be the bad guy! Had a letter last Friday, it was a lovely one, *with* an apology and I think "why couldnt you have been more forthcoming, *before* I closed my account with you??" I liked my NTL ISP, I liked the competitive 24/7 internet accesss package. There is lots I liked about NTL, the only problem was, a problem developed that caused nothing but stress and frustration. I am still gobsmacked by the way NTL dealt with the whole matter.

Tracy

[Julian 1964]

Well today i had someone come round to sort my set top box out because of so many problems we have had with it..The picture always freezing..Then when you change channels,ages for the channels to come up,all you get is a blank screen..He told me that this was fixed due to signal problem..We have a cable box on the main Street..And i saw him messing around with some wires and thought he was going to get it fixed..He left and said to see how things go.Its worst than ever and no,i dont want to phone customer service up again.I am really stressed out with the problem and i now want to cancel the whole service..But i cant because the boardband is ran from the box itself..Once i cancel my service i will never go back to ntl because at the end of the day their dont give a toss about the customer..I pay about £75 a month and feel its a complete waste of money..In the early days ntl where great..But not anymore

[Julian 1964]

and by the way my friend has SKy and said the service is excellent

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Julian 1964

and by the way my friend has SKy and said the service is excellent

You can cancel your tv and have sacm for bb instead

[Julian 1964]

Originally Posted by orangebird

You can cancel your tv and have sacm for bb instead

And yes still having problems with the set top box after 6 weeks now..One guy came round and gave a load of bull..Must have been in a hurry..Phoned up NTL to ask for someone else to come and check it..And the guy who came was very helpful and tryed everything to find out what the problem was with the set box..He stayed for over 30 minutes...CHecked all the leads which where ok..Did a reboot on the setbox to see if the picture was still freezing about 5 times with no luck,even though he tryed to sort it out..He said it was somthing that need some work and felt it might be the cable undeground which would need working on..He called for someone to come out on the 20th as he felt the service i had recieved and the fact the problem was on going could have better..Lets say we not be able to watch the TV for 6 weeks now and its lucky we had one in the bedroom..We had problems with boardband non stop..Have 600k and feels like 56k dail up..The Telephone line is so bad i cant say anymore..I am moving out end of the month and is it really worth it to have this sorted out now or shall i just leave it..If when i move i will not be having NTL again.I just cant wait to get sky with sky+1 keeping my fingures cross the next landlord will agree to this..NTL used to be excellent when i first had it..But sorry to say even if you disagree that it has gone down hill really bad.Julian PS 4 more weeks to go NTL

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Julian 1964

And yes still having problems with the set top box after 6 weeks now..One guy came round and gave a load of bull..Must have been in a hurry..Phoned up NTL to ask for someone else to come and check it..And the guy who came was very helpful and tryed everything to find out what the problem was with the set box..He stayed for over 30 minutes...CHecked all the leads which where ok..Did a reboot on the setbox to see if the picture was still freezing about 5 times with no luck,even though he tryed to sort it out..He said it was somthing that need some work and felt it might be the cable undeground which would need working on..He called for someone to come out on the 20th as he felt the service i had recieved and the fact the problem was on going could have better..Lets say we not be able to watch the TV for 6 weeks now and its lucky we had one in the bedroom..We had problems with boardband non stop..Have 600k and feels like 56k dail up..The Telephone line is so bad i cant say anymore..I am moving out end of the month and is it really worth it to have this sorted out now or shall i just leave it..If when i move i will not be having NTL again.I just cant wait to get sky with sky+1 keeping my fingures cross the next landlord will agree to this..NTL used to be excellent when i first had it..But sorry to say even if you disagree that it has gone down hill really bad.Julian PS 4 more weeks to go NTL

Julian which STB have you got. The pace 1000 is too slow to carry both TV and BB old and not enough memory is what I diagnoised... The pace 2000 is teh best for service and BB but they are in short supply.. The 4000 are not worth having... I should ask for a change if you are using both services through a STB I had a 1000 for over 12 months but never used teh TV so didn't have any problems. I did find the 2000 was better when it replaced the dead 1000. My friend who ended with a 4000 had it changed within weeks.. Keep trying to get it changed.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Julian 1964

And yes still having problems with the set top box after 6 weeks now..One guy came round and gave a load of bull..Must have been in a hurry..Phoned up NTL to ask for someone else to come and check it..And the guy who came was very helpful and tryed everything to find out what the problem was with the set box..He stayed for over 30 minutes...CHecked all the leads which where ok..Did a reboot on the setbox to see if the picture was still freezing about 5 times with no luck,even though he tryed to sort it out..He said it was somthing that need some work and felt it might be the cable undeground which would need working on..He called for someone to come out on the 20th as he felt the service i had recieved and the fact the problem was on going could have better..Lets say we not be able to watch the TV for 6 weeks now and its lucky we had one in the bedroom..We had problems with boardband non stop..Have 600k and feels like 56k dail up..The Telephone line is so bad i cant say anymore..I am moving out end of the month and is it really worth it to have this sorted out now or shall i just leave it..If when i move i will not be having NTL again.I just cant wait to get sky with sky+1 keeping my fingures cross the next landlord will agree to this..NTL used to be excellent when i first had it..But sorry to say even if you disagree that it has gone down hill really bad.Julian PS 4 more weeks to go NTL

Julian which STB have you got. The pace 1000 is to slow to carry both TV and BB old and not enough memory is what I diagnoised... The pace 2000 is teh best for service and BB but they are in short supply.. The 4000 are not worth having... I should ask for a change if you are using both services through a STB I had a 1000 for over 12 months but never used teh TV so didn't have any problems. I did find the 2000 was better when it replaced the dead 1000. My friend who ended with a 4000 had it changed within weeks.. Keep trying to get it changed.

[Jason1]

Thank you ntl after 3 years of hell they have finally agreed to refund all i have paid for my faulty 600k broadband and family sports and movie pack since 9 oct 2001 and cancel the service without a 30 day notice peroid thank you and goodbye now going back to a customer focused company sky & bt good ridens shame on you

[Seti]

I have been an NTL customer for about 9 years. I have stayed with them through two moves. WHen I ring customer services normally I am sorted out straight away, especially if it is a problem, woith the STB. I have had 5 STB's in the last 3 years becasue they have been faulty. I have to admit NTL were extremely good then.

However, since being diagnosed with MS in the last year, I realised that NTL did not have a good base for disabled customers. Ok I could set up a password and i became priority for call outs but I need a liitle bit more from NTL; like a bit of time to get a carer to the post office or pay point to pay my bills. NTL changed my billing cycle 8 times in the last 9 years without notifying me first so now I am always in arrears and risk having vital services (yes ok broadband is vital to me ) cut off without warning.

Also when I told NTL that my computer woul dhave to be moved upstairs becasue there was no room downstairs they refused to give me extra cabel so i had to have it downstairs and end up paying £20 for a bit of cable to make an RJ45 thingy out of.

Generally they are polite and efficient in dealing with queries its when things go wrong or when someone is not aware of policies. I think the accounts department has to be the worst one for customer service and celtic collections, well lets not talk about them.

Seti^

[carthage]

Originally Posted by gary_580

Been an NTL customer for a long long time (10 yrs + i think, well it was CWC and beofre that cablevision), analogue, digital, phone and BB.

Bad Points

Took them over a month to get peterborough BB stable in Jan 2003. But was after 18months without a sign hic up

I lose my channels and BB often but dont bother calling as its usually working again by the time i would have got through. (yes i know how to reboot my STB without them asking me to do it!!)

No caller id in my area

Was promised free call NTL world which ended up being delayed 18 months +

When converting to digital salesman told me id get SSX (however they refunded the difference between digital and analogue for a whole years payments)

Good Points

Had engineers round within the hour on 3 occasions.

Got my new house connected up and working when i moved before i actually got in the house

We dont lose BBC 1 like Sky do in my area


Overall i'd rate them as "Better the devil you know"

Regarding caller id

It depends on the area you live in and if the area is old or new ntl - For example it is not avavilable in ex cwc nynex areas re the infrastructure of the telephone side - It seems to be the case in Peterborough

[zendawn]

Originally Posted by carthage

Regarding caller id

It depends on the area you live in and if the area is old or new ntl - For example it is not avavilable in ex cwc nynex areas re the infrastructure of the telephone side - It seems to be the case in Peterborough

Is 1471 a different system to caller display? Even if it is, how come we can get the callers number using 1471 but not using caller display?
Does 1471 identify the phone no at the exchange end and caller display identify it at the user end?
Why do birds suddenly appear, the moment you are near? LOL

[punky]

My experience with them has been a bit hit and miss I guess. Here's what happened

For a couple of years I had a phone line with NTL which was fine. It was nice as it only cost something like £9 or £12 to install, not the usual £30,000 , or whatever it is BT charge. And they had to dig up the garden to lay the line from the street, and ran the cable properly going all the way through the attic, and down into my room. So that's a plus point.

Then I went to Uni, and in my last year, I signed up for an NTL phone line in my door. Came back from xmas holiday and the line had gone. It turns out that the temp that processed my DD order screwed up and my line got cancelled. When I asked to have it turned on, they refused because it community net (NTL service for Uni dorms) had been disbanded and no new contracts were allowed. I didnt have the time to sort it all out, being final year and all, but it was important as I had no internet access in my room. So my mum took up the challenge (she always get results with things like these). Anyway, 3 months later, after eventually talking with various people who I gather were high up in NTL (Ian Calvert, ive just looked it up), they managed to hook it back up.

Leaving Uni, I was finally able to get BB. So I ordered it for my room. There was free installation, so as per my phone line, I got him to run the line out the house, up the wall, through the attic and down into my room. Except when he left it wouldnt work. After a several calls to BB CS, they eventually sussed it was the cabling at fault. So I had to wait for another engineer to come out and re-wire the plug that the guy screwed up.

Everything was fine for like 8 months, then in the Great Heatwave of '03, I started having serious problems with my STB, but because after restarting the box everything was fine for a couple of hours, they wouldnt send me out an engineer. I kept calling every day, and eventually they thought I might have a problem and sent a guy out, to give me a new box.

So all in all, BB has been good so far *touches wood*. Speed has been consistently running at 100%, and downtime has been pretty minimal. The TV service hasn't been as good though. Some channels pixelise, and the box crashes now and again. Also navigating the menus are so slow sometimes. I once counted how long it took the Now/Next box to appear after hitting TV and it was 45 seconds or there abouts. Also, interactive service would be nice. I can't get Sky, so i'm stuck with NTL for digital TV, so im hoping that perks up sooner rather than later. Dealing with NTL customer service/technical support has never been a resounding success, but eventually everything got worked out. I just wish there were a bit quicker/more able. Everything always seems to take a minimum of 3 calls, but eventually everything seems to get sorted.

[Comfortably Num]

Depends who answer the phone and the time of day. I have had some CS staff be more than helpful and polite ,while others were rude and cut me off after sticking me back in the queue

[dusty]

The Customer Service as far as contacting them via email is NON EXISTENT, a
disgusting way to treat clients. As far as the call centre, it very much depends who you get, that is why I voted 50/50.and of course that is dependant on whether you can get through to them, and are prepared to wait 40 minutes!