Ntl..cr*p painted red?

[NTLVictim]

Mr Branson is said he was "happy with progress" at the media launch regarding customer service....

Yeah, right. Richard? read this....

A while ago, I was lured by the promise of 16 meg Broadband at a cheapo price from Sky, but they screwed my line up at the exchange before they even came round, and left me with zero faith in their abilities.

NTL, meanwhile in the shape of a nice man called Bernie McSweeney was in contact, and he wanted to woo us with an upgraded package to keep us...he had an advantage over the sky droids (he was human) so having dumped sky as totally unreliable we said yes.

Now, I know that telewest/ntl/virgin (now known as virgin media) were going through a difficult multi layer admin process re-adjustment, but...
First we got a call on the Wednesday saying they wanted to collect our set-top box...fair enough, we were going over to cable modem, but it would have left us without connectivity, so I said please collect it on the Saturday that we got the cable modem installed, as we were upgrading.

That nice Mr Bernie McSweeney intervened and phoned me off his own back just after I'd received a few phone calls from completely separate departments, to say the cable modem tech would collect the set top box equipment on Saturday at the same time as we were upgraded, so it's all sorted.

That same evening, all our email accounts disappeared, a chancer in Shilpa Shetty land created a whole new account, but said the others "did not exist".

This took an hour and a half on the phone...

I personally tracked down that nice Mr Bernie McSweeney the next day after getting a load of dead numbers and full answering machines. He got someone in the same office as him (Steve) to look at it, and our accounts were back in 20 minutes, minus whatever mail anyone had sent to us while we didn't exist.
It gets worse..

The tech turned up on Saturday 31st of October, plugged in the cable modem and told me to give it 20 minutes.

He then disappeared TAKING THE NOW REDUNDANT SET TOP BOX WITH HIM (please note..!!!)

Login didn't work, our account was dead, it took me the rest of the F**ing day to contact that nice Mr Bernie McSweeney Who spoke to his mate (Steve again) and sorted it out. In 10 seconds. For everyone on the ball ntl has like Bernie and Steve, they also have 100 cretins by my reckoning, but at least we were finally sorted.

This was months ago.Suddenly today, we got threatened AND FALSELY ACCUSED by NTL/ Telewest/ Richard Branson/I don't care any more... here is the letter, in all its glory....;


"Our Ref. **********
18-Jan-07
PRE-LEGAL NOTICE PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY
Dear ********
Account Number: **********
We previously contacted you about collection of your NTL equipment, however this still remains seriously
overdue.
If we do not receive all equipment outstanding within 5 days of the date of postage of this letter, we
will instruct our debt collection agency to recover these on our behalf.
The Debt Collection Agency may take LEGAL ACTION against you, which could result in:
• A Judgement in your name and address entered in court records.
• A court bailiff may be instructed to seize goods from your premises.
• Your employer may be ordered to deduct payments directly from your salary.
Each of these steps will incur additional costs that you will have to pay. This may significantly increase the
balance outstanding on your account.
Debt Registration
NTL participates in the registration of bad debts with credit referencing bureau. This may seriously affect your
ability to obtain credit in future.
Avoid Action.
You will also be charged £250 for each item of unreturned equipment.

You can contact our contract partners, Kelly Communications, by Email at pickups@kelly.co.uk
or by phone on 0800 389 0959 to arrange a collection.
If you have already returned the equipment within the last few days there is no need to contact us. Please
disregard this reminder.
Yours sincerely,
Ntl:Telewest

ntl Group Limited
Registered office:
ntl House
Bartley Wood Business Park
Hook
Hampshire
RGZ79UP

Registered in
England and Wales
number 2591237"

...Still "happy with progress", Richard? I have complained and got nowhere except for Bernie saying he would find out why I got the letter, but that was weeks ago.

Updates (if not when) can be read here... http://www.lifeandshopping.co.uk/php...ic.php?t=10488

[MovedGoalPosts]

Have you done anything to follow up the letter your received, other than relying on the phone call? I know if I had a letter of pre-action, I'd want to get something in writing. Send them a recorded delivery letter advising them they did collect it, and that you now require their confirmation that they, not you have made the error.

[lostandconfused]

did you get a reciept when the stb was collected?

[NTLVictim]

Greetings both...Ntl "engineers" have "self certification" paperwork, or in the case of a friend of mine with no service was told by his "engineer" ( the second one) that they were getting their jobs via text messages with no paper work or info at all...

My original post does mention an apology from some poor sod at ntl, but it is easy to miss in the torrent of angst that ntltelewestvirginmedia can provoke...

[NTLVictim]

What worries me is some berk in telewest approved the wording of that letter, and it seriously upset my other half when she opened it.

The obnoxious dipstick is probably still working for Virgin Media....

[jcuk]

hey mate, sorry to hear about this.

Id recommend you give us a call, we have a stb collections dept who dont seem to keep contact with our install techs. therefore it is our fault

give us a call and we should be able to clear your name

[NTLVictim]

Good evening Jcuk.

Your stb collections dept don't keep contact for a few reasons....
The first is because they are a separate company called Kelly.
Second, their call centre is in India, and they haven't got a clue.
Thirdly, they were told to chase us by Telewest two days after the stb was picked up (31st of October 2006), and they never did contact us through being useless, the first we knew was when my other half opened that nasty and possibly illegal letter.

The Bangalore boneheads were phoned once we'd calmed down enough, and told that the stb had been picked up and when, and they swallowed it without a murmur.

It wasn't Kelly that sent us that letter by the way, it was Telewest in Edinburgh, may they rot and perish.

Bernie McSweeney was emailed by me in a still incandescent state on the 23rd of January 2007 at 22:28.

He emailed me back on the 24th of January 2007 at 11:00, with a promise to look into it.

Since then, silence... I suspect he's been muzzled.



Customer services have had their chance and found to be wanting.
This is now a high level complaint.
Customer services do not deal with high level complaints.

[antwire]

do you have the contact details for their high level complaints?

---------- Post added at 09:31 ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 ----------

sorry meant to say if you do i could really use it

[B3rti]

the main reason is we are a comms company with a real major problem with communicating to other departments, since we merged with The ever so aweful NTL things have changed for us, it seems the company likes the ntl way, good luck to them. i can only but appologise to all telewest customers that have to speak to the berks at ntl. virgin media looked great and exciting but let me tell you its still the same, we have too many billing systems that are confusing, as an ex-telewest employee we had 1 database thats why we were able to deliver excellent service now we have ntls billing side and im not surprised in th slightest that problems are arising people being routed 7 to 8 times because they have re-routed the call tree but gave mediocre training on the new billing systems but you want to know why customers are getting routed because we attempt to pass them to the specific call tree for there dept but guess what its our dept, and we are restricted from using the web based billing system called SABS. i really really hope someone from main management virgin media will read this and realise the merger with telewest, ntl and virgin will destroy the company. keep bumming of the ntl way and i hope you get the ntl name rubbed over everything, we should start saying 'welcome to virgin media, how can we **** u off today'

[monkey2468]

Originally Posted by NTLVictim

Mr Branson is said he was "happy with progress" at the media launch regarding customer service....

Yeah, right. Richard? read this....

A while ago, I was lured by the promise of 16 meg Broadband at a cheapo price from Sky, but they screwed my line up at the exchange before they even came round, and left me with zero faith in their abilities.

NTL, meanwhile in the shape of a nice man called Bernie McSweeney was in contact, and he wanted to woo us with an upgraded package to keep us...he had an advantage over the sky droids (he was human) so having dumped sky as totally unreliable we said yes.

Now, I know that telewest/ntl/virgin (now known as virgin media) were going through a difficult multi layer admin process re-adjustment, but...
First we got a call on the Wednesday saying they wanted to collect our set-top box...fair enough, we were going over to cable modem, but it would have left us without connectivity, so I said please collect it on the Saturday that we got the cable modem installed, as we were upgrading.

That nice Mr Bernie McSweeney intervened and phoned me off his own back just after I'd received a few phone calls from completely separate departments, to say the cable modem tech would collect the set top box equipment on Saturday at the same time as we were upgraded, so it's all sorted.

That same evening, all our email accounts disappeared, a chancer in Shilpa Shetty land created a whole new account, but said the others "did not exist".

This took an hour and a half on the phone...

I personally tracked down that nice Mr Bernie McSweeney the next day after getting a load of dead numbers and full answering machines. He got someone in the same office as him (Steve) to look at it, and our accounts were back in 20 minutes, minus whatever mail anyone had sent to us while we didn't exist.
It gets worse..

The tech turned up on Saturday 31st of October, plugged in the cable modem and told me to give it 20 minutes.

He then disappeared TAKING THE NOW REDUNDANT SET TOP BOX WITH HIM (please note..!!!)

Login didn't work, our account was dead, it took me the rest of the F**ing day to contact that nice Mr Bernie McSweeney Who spoke to his mate (Steve again) and sorted it out. In 10 seconds. For everyone on the ball ntl has like Bernie and Steve, they also have 100 cretins by my reckoning, but at least we were finally sorted.

This was months ago.Suddenly today, we got threatened AND FALSELY ACCUSED by NTL/ Telewest/ Richard Branson/I don't care any more... here is the letter, in all its glory....;


"Our Ref. **********
18-Jan-07
PRE-LEGAL NOTICE PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY
Dear ********
Account Number: **********
We previously contacted you about collection of your NTL equipment, however this still remains seriously
overdue.
If we do not receive all equipment outstanding within 5 days of the date of postage of this letter, we
will instruct our debt collection agency to recover these on our behalf.
The Debt Collection Agency may take LEGAL ACTION against you, which could result in:
• A Judgement in your name and address entered in court records.
• A court bailiff may be instructed to seize goods from your premises.
• Your employer may be ordered to deduct payments directly from your salary.
Each of these steps will incur additional costs that you will have to pay. This may significantly increase the
balance outstanding on your account.
Debt Registration
NTL participates in the registration of bad debts with credit referencing bureau. This may seriously affect your
ability to obtain credit in future.
Avoid Action.
You will also be charged £250 for each item of unreturned equipment.

You can contact our contract partners, Kelly Communications, by Email at pickups@kelly.co.uk
or by phone on 0800 389 0959 to arrange a collection.
If you have already returned the equipment within the last few days there is no need to contact us. Please
disregard this reminder.
Yours sincerely,
Ntl:Telewest

ntl Group Limited
Registered office:
ntl House
Bartley Wood Business Park
Hook
Hampshire
RGZ79UP

Registered in
England and Wales
number 2591237"

...Still "happy with progress", Richard? I have complained and got nowhere except for Bernie saying he would find out why I got the letter, but that was weeks ago.

Updates (if not when) can be read here... http://www.lifeandshopping.co.uk/php...ic.php?t=10488

I had the same letter last week. It was from when I moved house in October. The install tech at the new house took the old STB's, replaced them with new ones but they didn't get taken off the system I called the number on the letter and was sorted within 30 seconds. (someone in Glasgow)

[prawncocktail]

Originally Posted by B3rti

the main reason is we are a comms company with a real major problem with communicating to other departments, since we merged with The ever so aweful NTL things have changed for us, it seems the company likes the ntl way, good luck to them. i can only but appologise to all telewest customers that have to speak to the berks at ntl. virgin media looked great and exciting but let me tell you its still the same, we have too many billing systems that are confusing, as an ex-telewest employee we had 1 database thats why we were able to deliver excellent service now we have ntls billing side and im not surprised in th slightest that problems are arising people being routed 7 to 8 times because they have re-routed the call tree but gave mediocre training on the new billing systems but you want to know why customers are getting routed because we attempt to pass them to the specific call tree for there dept but guess what its our dept, and we are restricted from using the web based billing system called SABS. i really really hope someone from main management virgin media will read this and realise the merger with telewest, ntl and virgin will destroy the company. keep bumming of the ntl way and i hope you get the ntl name rubbed over everything, we should start saying 'welcome to virgin media, how can we **** u off today'

Ive got a simple post about your comment, im disgusted with you. I feel ashamed to work in the same company as yourself as your post is most definately not the Virgin way. My advice is if you cannot say anything constructive or positive then say nothing at all. It is comments like yours that give companies a bad name and you cannot blame everything on management. EVERYBODY within the company has a part to play and it will take time for things to change, that is just plain obvious.

I can however state with certainty that with an attitude like yours you will not enjoy working for VirginMedia and will therefore not be around for much longer, and that my dear friend can only be a good thing for customers.

In regards to the original post, mistakes happen, sometimes again, but we as a company are learning from mistakes of past and constantly trying to rectify and improve on the way we do things.
I remember once I received the exact same letter as you did from a couple of years ago in an almost identical situation and you know how it was resolved, I was calm, collected and phoned customer services where it was resolved. Now, yes the 1st person I spoke to did not manage to sort it out but the 2nd person did, and the only reason I can think of is in the grand scheme of things this type of error doesnt happen all that often so maybe they didn't have experience, which is why the 1st person couldnt help me.

At the end of the day, there are more important things in life and most certainly more important things going on the world, just take a step back, relax and it will get dealt with.

Shaun

[NTLVictim]

More important than us being falsely accused of theft and then being threatened in six different ways?
Anyone who does that had better make sure they are more than an arms length away from me, obviously we value our honour and reputation more than you do.

Suppose someone vulnerable got that letter?? How much harm could it do??
With ntl's history I'd say the probability of the wrong people getting those letters was quite high!

As for being dealt with, if it had been I wouldn't be typing this, would I?

Oh, are there any Lawyers reading this? Is that letter Libel? Opinions please...

[prawncocktail]

Originally Posted by NTLVictim

More important than us being falsely accused of theft and then being threatened in six different ways?
Anyone who does that had better make sure they are more than an arms length away from me, obviously we value our honour and reputation more than you do.

Suppose someone vulnerable got that letter?? How much harm could it do??
With ntl's history I'd say the probability of the wrong people getting those letters was quite high!

As for being dealt with, if it had been I wouldn't be typing this, would I?

Oh, are there any Lawyers reading this? Is that letter Libel? Opinions please...

May I ask a simple question from you, has your issue now been resolved? Have you spoken to customer care and they have agreed it is their mistake and withdrawn the charge?

If the answer is no I suggest you call one final time to get it resolved. I can assure you that If everything you have said is correct and that the box has been collected and it is what was NTL:Telewest mistake then you will not be taken to court as you have done nothing wrong, so as i basically just said, calm down, there is nothing to worry about.

Shaun

[NTLVictim]

I know I won't be taken to court, but ntl might...

[prawncocktail]

Originally Posted by NTLVictim

I know I won't be taken to court, but ntl might...

Dear Sir,
Is there a reason why you are unwillinging to answer my 2 questions.

Shaun

ps just throwing this in the air but I quite like this phrase, "if you are unwillinging to help yourself then nobody can help You"