How long does it take your bill to arrive?

[dogsbody]

Recently NTL have changed their Bankers and account numbers for telephone payments. Well somehow I managed not to pay them last month the enormous sum of £16.23. I'm still looking at my online banking records to find what went wrong. I was not aware of this ommission until 15th March when my current bill arrived. The Statement date was 7th March 8days previous, am I correct in thinking they come from Winnersh Reading or evven Hartney Witney ?? so why so long to get to READING? Spotting that I now owed them £27.64 I went online to the Bank on Tuesday 16th and paid up making plans to find out later where last months payment had gone. so far so good.
Thursday 18th I tried to call from one of my 2 phone lines and it had a continous tone, so I tried the other line same result. So having a spare 20 minutes I ring the faults line and they tell me that I have had my outgoing calls barred for non payment of my bill. I ask the man to check and he confirms payment of £27.64 HAS been received and he will reconnect my out going calls. I complain that I would appreciate advance warning of restriction and am informed that NTL find the best way to draw a customers attention to a problem is service restriction!!.
Two hours later still no outgiong facility so anther 25 minute wait to speak to anther man who tells me that it will take up to 24 hours to reinstate my outgoing calls. A protracted and heated discussion then took place regarding who was the customer and who was the service provider but NTL still maintain that a debter must be punished, but after explaining the phone is an essential life line for my wife due to her medical condition I get reinstated an hour later.
On Friday 19th dated 12th March ( another 7 day delay) I get a letter "despite our previous reminder......"(NONE SENT) "If we do not receive the ammount outstanding within 7 days from the above date" That was the day I received the letter and the DAY AFTER THEY CUT MY CALLS!!
So Yet another call this time to 0800 052 0453 accounts and they answer in a record 12 minutes , must be desperate for the money!!
I explain the facts and are rudely informed that "restriction of the service draws the customers attention to the problem" and that I should take up my complaint of postal delay with the post office. I did not pay the mail service THEY (NTL) did. I request a chance to speak to a supervisor and am told they will ring me back in 48 hours
Sat 20th call from an appologetic supervisor who states"restriction of service draws the customers attention to the problem"
Now I don't mind being cut off if I dont pay but I would like to be told when they have not received payment first after all I do spend £1200 a year for services from NTL
How long between bill dates and receipt of the bill do you experience?
Sorry my first post is long but I do fell better for it.

I get 8 day delay by the time i get the phone bill

[Graham F]

They should hit your mat between 5 to 7 days after the day they are produced. This is what ntl predit and its fairly correct in the whole

i got my phone bill friday 17th bill dated 8th april

[Robbie]

Normally about a week or so after the bill date, but I have had two glorious experiences where I got reminders before the actual bill arrived! That was back in the days when it seemed to be at least 2 weeks before the bill arrived (second class) but the reminders were sent out first class, dated two after the date on the bill...


When I phoned up ntl to point out that it was annoying to get reminders threatening disconnection etc if I didn't pay, in advance of the actual bill arriving all I got was someone in CS trying to defend the indefensible and basically talking out of their backsides.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Got my bill Saturday 17th April....it's dated 5th April. So that's 12 days to get to me. Amazing how slow my postman is these days.

[NitroNutter]

and the funny thing is the bill is due on print day not the week or so later drop on the mat day. by when you should have paid the bill

Iv been in touch with ofcom the other day on this issue, and unfortunately calls to ntl just resulted in me being treated like the **** customer who doesnt pay, owes them big time etc. Wierd how i have an 8 year or so cable history of never needing to sort out with debt collections any payment plan, What made this matter worse was they changed my billing period and march I got 2 bills, but to them its my fault and only my fault im showinfg arrears.
Hence theyve lost my phone and TV custom so far

[Neil]

Just wanted to say a quick to our new friends in this thread......

[zoombini]

Me and many hundreds more (by the sound of it) still have not recieved our March bill, there was an error or something & many did not get them.

Ringing NTL up all you get now is that "they have sent it out & they have a reciept from the post office" as if that counts to me!

I got told last night that the Giro slip at the bottom of the bill, well they are no longer accepting them.
Then why the F*&! did they send it out?

Arse > Elbow.... no idea!

[zoombini]

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...93&postcount=8

say no more...

"restriction of the service draws the customers attention to the problem"

If that is their line then I think they have lost the plot somewhat.

I have defended NTL many times in this forum as they have always been good to me - but I cannnot defend that attitude. Since I pay by DD I'm probably never going to hear that line - which is fortunate for NTL as my reply could well be pretty swift.

"I find that that removal of your services from my home is the quickest way to draw your attention to the stupidity of that attitude".

[MikeyB]

Originally Posted by Pem

"restriction of the service draws the customers attention to the problem"

This is not a new thing at NTL
About 3 years ago, I managed to run up a huge NTL phone bill by constantly calling a mobile phone from my landline (the troubles girls can cause hey!!!)

I didn't know there was a problem, though everything was fine. She went on holiday for 3 weeks, so I wasn't using my phone much, just calling mates etc so it was fine.
I had to call some company (can't remember which) who had an 0870 number, couldn't call it. Tried a couple of other 0870's and didnt get thru. I also found I couldn't call any mobiles any more.

Called NTL and had the "restriction of the service draws the customers attention to the problem" line (can't remember exact words) so they stopped me calling anything but normal land lines!
I think it had been like it for nearly 2 weeks when I called NTL.

Why the hell they just couldn't phone/email/write to me to let me know??? It's a very strange way to go about things indeed.

Thread Closed.

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http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=11446