NTL caught out well and truly and its costing them

[Hell's Child]

Originally Posted by andygrif

OK, so it's a little annoying that they've changed the billing date, and I do agree that any customer focussed company should OFFER its customers the CHOICE of billing dates, but ntl do not.

You can actually change your "billing" date, i.e the time of the month the bill will be generated by calling C.Serv/billing.

I know people who do not pay by dd (eg customers I sign up!), and do not have the same problems as you NN so This seems like a one off case as oppsed to a major ntl billing problem.

Perhaps another option is to pay via paypoint whenever you get your benefits through. Again, to use a customer of mine as an example, I have a customer who recieves both disablity and in-capacity benefits, which she picks up fortnightly. She has a paypoint card, for which she pays a little each fortnight so that she can set the amount she pays and that covers enough of the bill so that a non payment letter doesn't get sent out. This way ntl doesn't have control of your bank, you don't have to get hacked off with reminder letters and it gives you time to pay the remaining balance off the bill within/over the 7 days of you recieving your bill.

This seems like an option, have you tried??! If works for her, maybe it could work for you?

[NitroNutter]

well bill date i have certainly will not suit most on benefit as most of them will shy away from dd, because paydays will not allways tie in with a dd date.
Now as you allready know I got my bill friday gone. I was paid today. I went to make one phonecall before ringing NTL to pay as usuall and what do you know Phone is suspended.
As I have said before there seems to be many staff at NTL who just arnt trained, (not all but many) even tho they must know this new billing system of 3 weeks pre period jump will affect some people. neither the lady I spoke to last friday about the collection letter and the person I spoke to today to pay and get the phonme back on offered me any kind of idea that the billing date can be changed. I really do not see why it has changed to 3 weeks pre billing period and they are now cutting you off before that billing period even starts.
well they cut me off today, now im cutting NTL of next week, I will still have my phone number. i WILL become ex directory, something else NTL seems unable to handle.

[Hell's Child]

Call ntl up and ask them to change the date so the due date is a bit more convinient for you. Also the paypoint option, seems like the best option for you, try it, see if it helps along with the new billing date and if not, get off ntl.

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by Hell's Child

Call ntl up and ask them to change the date so the due date is a bit more convinient for you. Also the paypoint option, seems like the best option for you, try it, see if it helps along with the new billing date and if not, get off ntl.

Ok ill give it a go with getting due date changed to more back where it was end of month/beginning of billing period as I do still have a cable modem thats limping on NTL, but whats the chances of getting my due date back to where it was before and a statement arrive on my door step up to a week before the due date? Not sure on they paypoint thing tho we do use PO paypoint for other utilities but I have on a few occasions had to chase missing payments from there. Never had any problem dialling 150 every month in 8 years for NTL tho.
As for returning my chopped services Ill be giving that a miss. base isnt much different to freeview on TV, and the ex directory will be a true blessing once the old phone books die off. My brother and his GF fell foul of NTL not being able to get ex directory right for them either. NTL lost big time there he quashed a large chunk of contract with them because of it. Swears he will never entertain NTL again after that.
Never seen the problem my sister in law had with NTL phone anywhere else (this was an unusual one), rakes of #'s dialled at a time of day when both were at work and house was empty. Very strange, and funny how it stopped when he killed the NTL phone and went to BT. Most people would probably miss these tho, my sis in law boyfriend lives by his job and disects every penny or fraction of that is spent as a family just as he does when he is investigating all the petroleum stations for short measuring customers, double swiping cards etc, notice how many stations have shut down in the last few years, you should be a lot safer at most of the big supermarket garages.
Its a lot easier for his firm to get round the super markets and whats left of the garages now.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Hell's Child

Call ntl up and ask them to change the date so the due date is a bit more convinient for you. Also the paypoint option, seems like the best option for you, try it, see if it helps along with the new billing date and if not, get off ntl.

I'm not sure this is the crux of the issue is it? I might be missing something, but I thought that the big problem was that NN's bill was being sent out around the time that the bill was due - meaning that the bill was overdue when it arrived. You're right though, a call to billing hopefully should help straighten things out.

I see that NN is also having problems with being ex-directory, is that right? They should be able to handle this (indeed I'm ex-directory and not had a problem). Sounds like your sister's number slipped through the net.

And this is the bottom line...mistakes do happen. You make them, I make them, ntl make them - it's human nature. The skill is in how we make amends. In your case it looks like ntl (and this does seem to happen a lot) didn't do very much to help, and this makes matters worse (something I wish many companies including ntl would wake up to).

If they sorted out what is usually a simple problem at the first point of contact, they would have a lot more happy customers, and a lot lower churn rates.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by andygrif

If they sorted out what is usually a simple problem at the first point of contact, they would have a lot more happy customers, and a lot lower churn rates.

That pretty much sums it up for me Andy.

I have said for a very long time, that I don't have a problem with things 'going wrong', be that my STB failing, or someone forgetting to send me something I have asked for-$hit happens & I totally accept that.

What ntl don't seem to grasp, is that when aa customer phones with a problem caused by ntl (be it that employees fault or not), they should go that 'extra yard' to get it sorted.

My experience with ntl was that ringing them to follow anything up usually made things worse.

[Nemesis]

Thread Closed.

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