NTL offering package to challenge talk talk

[N00N00]

I got the info when I called retentions. They told me a list of all the countries that would be free and everything. I didn't even ask for free international calls - they offered it and i accepted the offer. In a later call other members of staff also confimred the offer.

A few other people have been offered free international calls as well I believe - I guess they'll just say anything to keep hold of customers.

[etccarmageddon]

you need to call them again - it will be recorded on your account who you spoke to in retentions and what they offered you. I know cos my 10meg at £10 a month direct debitted incorrectly last month and they checked the account and found the details of it and how it had not been applied correctly.

[dcclanuk]

Originally Posted by N00N00

I got the info when I called retentions. They told me a list of all the countries that would be free and everything. I didn't even ask for free international calls - they offered it and i accepted the offer. In a later call other members of staff also confimred the offer.

A few other people have been offered free international calls as well I believe - I guess they'll just say anything to keep hold of customers.

i think that u got offered the international calling plan for free, which allows u to call certain countries for cheaper. Not free calls to those countries.

Well thats what i understand!

[paul11974]

so is this cable tvs answer

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...quad-play-deal

i am still trying to work out if this is a good deal ?

[Chrysalis]

"ntl Telewest have issued us with a press release today which states, it is to give free digital TV to all new home phone customers."

bit of an oops on the all /me rings up for my free digi tv.

[paul11974]

so its just for new customers then ? lol come on ntl look after your existing customers 1st

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

"ntl Telewest have issued us with a press release today which states, it is to give free digital TV to all new home phone customers."

bit of an oops on the all /me rings up for my free digi tv.

absolutely, I presume you have it all installed, now - I know your situation is a tad unique, but it does expose the BS in the blurb, doesn't it?

[lucid]

Omg its taken me hours to go thru all the posts in this thread.
I'm in leeds and been with NTL for about 6/7 years with the DTV+phone and dial up 1st then fastest BB when it came available.

I used to periodically call the local (0113) sales number who were always great and do deals or upgrades but this has been dead for a year or 2.

Firstly some relevant info for all.

1) Got my friend set up on talk talk from a BT tel line (not under any contract to bt) was able to swap within about 10 days and the BB took 12 weeks or so and is about 2meg DL speed and is fine all working ok.

2) my dad decided to go talk talk from ntl line (says no one from retentions called them but they were on holiday so could have missed the call.
Basically you can swap yr tel no. back to BT and pay line rental to them for 3 months in advance. But start on Talktalk straight away for the £9.99 all calls option then as soon as the 3 month bt contract is up pay the rental to TT then get your free international calls and apply to get yr BB. Not sure as to whether you have to wait to get the BB or not.

3) For my mum (different house) i arranged to get BT to get the TT (from NTL line) then the cancellation team kept calling. 1st time just offered half price line rental for 6 months and would waive the non DD charge, said i wasnt interested and to call me back in a week or so.

When i mentioned TT they said they would match TT offer. So in the end got £21 for TEl line+24/7 TU + 1mb unlimited BB + discounted Int call package (normally £1.50 though it now includes mobiles abroad! and was told its ALL international locations not just 30).

I thought this was fair enough as the net will be just for email and occasional browsing when I'm there.

Now i have to sort mine out, just got my Bt date as 1st August through, and will call NTL retentions 2moro i think after reading the 30 or so pages of this thread or they may call me 1st who knows!

The CS are in Newcastle i believe but when i spoke to them about my mothers account the chap said they definitely could not offer free international calls??though some people on this thread said they have. Unusually they were more keen to advise on alternative providers of cheap international call than themselves which although strange i thought was honest and honourable.

Generally i've found them (NTL) to be good in terms of CS and the times when i did have loss of service for my BB they refunded the whole months bill without a quibble. just a tip for those worried about the 0870/0845 CS numbers just google "say no to 0870" and no longer worry!

lets hope i get a good deal 2moro or whenever.! I suspect the price war will continue now Sky have their deal in place and orange too...soon o2 and voda and T mob no doubt!!

[lucid]

Well got everything sorted with retentions.
Albeit a long time on hold whole thing took an hour and a half but worth it. I've been paying top whack for years, so thanks to talk talk the market is now more competitive.

Well done to NTL for being responsive enough to price match and not give customers a hard time over it. It will pay them back in the end as customer loyalty is built on such. Hopefully if everything is in order when the bill arrives I will be happy and all thats left for me now is to cancel the BT engineer for next week.

I imagine their income will fall drastically because of the TT offer but at least they'll have some income from me as opposed ton none if had proceeded with the switch.

We'll wait and see how long this lasts etc got the nearest to talk talk as poss, ok not FREE international calls but the £1.50 price plan thrown in which is ok for me as i can call mobiles abroad as cheap as a landline and get to keep my 10meg BB. Would have had to wait for about 10weeks for the TT BB to come on line so we'll see what shakes.

Ok just to say also i've always found NTL Cs to be both polite and always eager to help sort probs out even if sometimes it messes up and takes a while. Wheras from my memory of my 12 years with BT i wouldn't have said the same. O2 are the worst though, they mess your bill and wont even admit its wrong. most of the bods have no idea how their own billing system works.

I'm not going into detail but I'm amazed they still have any customers. Great offers on the telly but god forbid what happens when all your minutes just vanish into thin air and your billed for what are supposed to be free calls. Imagine a company that refuses to fix it denies its wrong and leaves you the only option to write to them with a pen and paper
Believe me I'm like a dog biting your leg but i could get nowhere with these guys. What can you do when the person lacks any fundamental understandin of how their own rollover minutes work.

Sorry for the off topic rant...feel better now.

[IanGuy]

I rang up as both my offers of 9.99 1mb broadband and 12 months free sky sports had ran out.

I told the lady on the other end at retentions that I was told to ring back in order to get the offers renewed (which I was). She said no problem, took about 10 minutes (literally) and then said those offers have now been reapplied for 12 months.

I get a bill and have been charged full price for both services. Not happy at all as I would have cancelled Sky Sports otherwise. I rang back up today to state the situation to CS (as retentions isn't open until Monday), she gave me 9.99 1mb broadband for 6 months, which she said was all she could do.

I accepted the offer, as I could just ring once again when it runs out; I then asked her if I could cancel Sky Sports and she did so. I'll be ringing retentions soon to complain about this blatant lie over the phone that discounts have been applied and not. I'd rather them say they can't or simply don't want to apply the discounts for me, other than let me have an unexpected extra £13.50 on my bill.

[lucid]

Forget customer services just get back on to retentions and let them sort it, i'm sure they will.

I had the same prob the bill comes and its a nightmare to understand. The total price is right split between BB on 1 bill Direct debit and the phone bill. But they do it by adding all sorts of weird discounts.

Ah well i look forward to another lengthy call come monday to fix my mothers bill which really is a work of fiction.

So whats the crack with international call plan..used to be included vin TU24 then told its £1.50 then look on the website it says its still included the again says its £2 the click and its a £1.50.. no wonder i'm confused and was told it was it applied to mobiles at the same cost as landlines abroad...great i think 30min call to italy then ireland...

£9 on the bill WTF!

[gordies]

personally I have found retentions very good. I telephoned to cancel and was offered Tel, B/B 1meg (going up to 2mb for free in september) and Digi TV for £21.99 per month. I didnt get the 24/7TU but did get the 5p call plan.

However, I might just ring retentions in the morning and see if I can get 24/7TU as well but, to be honest, not at home during day so wont really use it and dont begrudge the 5p evening calls.

the only gripe I have is that someone upped me to 4mb b/b without asking or telling me but retentions queried this with me and have credited my account to avoid any charges for the 4mb period. I dont know if they ticked the correct boxes but I am still running at 4mb and not being billed for it so I might keep mum on that one.

[lostandconfused]

i dont mind it when people want to get a better deal, but what really bugs me is when you look at the notes on an account and you can see they have called in practically every month to "cancel their services".

what makes me laugh. "ok sir, youll have to give 30 days notice but ill take that from today... would you be available on the 5th for an engineer to collect your set top box?"

ummm... errr arnt you going to try and keep my custom?

"unfortunatly sir there arnt any more offers i can add to your account at this time"

ok hold on a second..... line goes dead

[davecs]

I've been browsing throught this thread. I discovered this site today. I have been seriously thinking about getting shot of NTL. Despite the complete lack of service at TalkTalk, I have got it for my Mother-in-Law and Sister-in-Law. SIL's connection was fraught, involved long conversations with their rubbish CS, eventually they decided that the disk sent out with the Speedtouch 300 modem had a wrong driver version, so we connected up with dial-up, went to Speedtouch site, downloaded a later version (which itself was dated 2003 -- go figure) installed, and hey presto it sprang to life.

MIL was sent the Sagem 800 and that worked first time. I set her computer up to dual-boot Windows and Linux (PCLinuxOS) and they both work. You can add scripts to Linux so I wrote one to detect dropped connections and reconnect. Nice.

The e-mail was useless. Wouldn't accept password via Thunderbird, occasionally did from webmail, often didn't. So I got a friend to send me a Googlemail invitation, and then I invited both of them. It's great, no more Thunderbird / Outlook Express etc for us any more!

So yes, TalkTalk is awful, but for me I can work around it.

NTL's cable broadband is more reliable, but does go down from time to time. And it's SO expensive. Just as I expected prices to tumble following TalkTalk's announcement, NTL rates just go inexoriably upwards. I've had enough paying for Sports and Movies, I only watched the Arsenal games anyway, and I'll just have to see the highlights on MOTD. My wife hardly watches the films, so that's gotta go. All we really need is another Freeview box to feed our Video/DVD Recorder.

But now we're talking about £17.99 for Broadband, £11.00 for phone, plus calls. Against TalkTalk's £20.99 for Broadband, phone plus free calls, it just doesn't stack up.

Some people in this thread talked about NTL's low profit margins, how can they supply phone and internet service if we all get lower prices? I suspect that much of their expenditure is on infrastructure. Once the cables are in place, I cannot see the provision of what is mainly an automated, non labour-intensive service, expensive to run. Put it this way, they'd be better off charging me £21 a month to match TalkTalk than me withdrawing my custom. The wires are there anyway, it's £21 they'll either get or not.

Anyway, this thread has given me food for thought, so I reckon I'll be after them for a deal in the next few days. Otherwise, I'm off as soon as it can be organised.

[shnookumshnum]

Anyone got the number for retentions? and are they open Saturday or Sunday???