Furthermore

Sky Freesat

Well, the NTL TV contract was coming up to the point where we'd have to start paying for it, and then it stopped working properly anyway (a little box saying "Loading" appeared in the screen and lots of features stopped working on the remote). So rather than face their customer service again, we just had Freesat installed and It. Just. Works. All the same free channels, £150 install and that's it. You can upgrade to proper Sky at any time if you want to.

Of course, even cancelling a service with NTL is painful. The woman wanted to know why I wanted to cancel (I told her), and then launched into a long explanation of why it would be more expensive for me. No doubt this performance was more for her benefit than mine, but it still shows the contemptuous view NTL have of their customers.

NTL are you listening? We still have phone from you, but if anything goes wrong with it, we're out the door and never coming back.

Update: A couple of caveats about the Sky service vs Freeview. Firstly, I seem to only be able to video the channel which the satellite is currently receiving. So I can timeshift a program, but I can't record something while watching something else. Bit rubbish. Also, because of some kind of contractual dispute between Sky and C4, you can't get E4 or More4 on Freesat. Also a bit rubbish.

The Last Word

Credit where it's due - I just got a mail from NTL offering me a goodwill payment of £25 for the hassle I've been put through. I didn't have to write and complain again, so as long as the phone continues working, I feel that's a reasonable outcome. I wouldn't go so far as to recommend them to other people, but we'll call it quits for now.

Today's call to NTL

Rang NTL today again to try to get a bit of compensation for the time and effort its taken to try to get the phone working again. Didn't get the name of the chap I spoke to, but I got their line about not offering compensation. Anyway, he told me I'd already been credited for the time we'd been disconnected. I said I wasn't happy, but I couldn't see the point of taking it to his supervisor. I think I'm going to write a letter though.

The penultimate chapter?

Engineer came out yesterday and spent 2 hours tracing a line fault. The phone is now working again. Interestingly, he said that the call out on Monday was marked as cancelled - and that certainly wasn't us. Not only that, but he said he needed help to open the NTL box on the street, so that casts some doubt on what we were told about the call.

Anyway, the final thing is to sort out some sort of compensation - not today though, I can't bear to talk to them again. Also, if we leave it over the weekend, it'll at least give us some idea if the phone is going to continue working.

more NTL

Quick update - Janine called my wife back and said that she'd arrange for an engineer to phone and make an appointment. She said she'd phone to check it had happened. Good to her word, she phoned again (no engineer had called) and shortly after that, lo, an engineer did phone and made an appointment to come the next afternoon (ie, today - the 29th). Janine phoned again to check it had happened. All in all, not bad service for a change. Still no working phone though.

More NTL woes

The latest installment. I've not heard anything further from my complaint to Mr Hussain. I am going to cancel if I don't get a resolution very soon now.

• 2004/7/26 (Mon) - my wife waited in for the engineer. Eventually phoned in and was initially told that we had cancelled an appointment on Friday. This was totally untrue so she spoke to Sian who figured out that the engineer had been out, but had only been to the NTL box on our corner, and had neglected to come to the house to say he was finished. The service still needs some internal work done apparently, and Sian estimated it would be working on Wednesday.
• 2004/7/28 (Wed) - My wife spoke to Tracy who told her that there seemed to be a problem with the way the number had been ported from BT on June 3 and that we should phone them to report the fault as BT wouldn't do anything otherwise. I phoned BT and they assured me that all their tasks had been completed successfully. My wife phoned back to NTL and Tracy said she couldn't do anything further, but said she thought we'd been treated very badly, and said her supervisor, Janine, would call us this afternoon.

Letter of complaint to NTL

Here's the letter I wrote to Aizad Hussain:

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:59:14

Dear Mr Hussain,
I am writing to you after having a very disappointing experience with your
customer service team in Cambridge. On Friday last week I noticed that my phone
service had been disconnected. No engineer was available to fix it until
Monday, so my family was without phone service for the better part of 4 days.
This is the second time this same fault has occurred (on the first occasion the
service was disconnected for a week and we got a months rental as compensation)
and the problem is entirely an NTL one - our number is apparently being treated
as temporary and reallocated periodically.

When I phoned customer service to ask for some compensation, I was offered one
pound, on the basis that line rental is £9.50 and this works out about 30p a
day. A supervisor confirmed that this is all that would be offered to me. The
supervisor would also not confirm that the same problem would not occur again.

This may well be a policy decision, but it is not good customer service. There
are two key things here: firstly, if I can't get a phone service from you that
is reliable, I shall have to go back to BT - I switched so I could bundle
cable, phone and (in the future) broadband from one provider - I don't want to
go back, but having a working phone is a necessity. Someone needs to assure me
that the necessary steps are taken so that the same problem doesn't happen
again.

Second, it isn't really about the money - I'd much rather have a working phone
and pay you a fair rate for it than have to write this kind of email. I just
want a token acknowledgement that you made a mistake. BT would offer a months
rental in these circumstances. A pound is an insult.

Finally, I ought to just point out the outstanding service I got from Neil
S, the engineer that visited us both times this problem has occurred.

Thank you for your time. I hope you can help me with this matter.

yours sincerely,

Matt Freestone

NTL Woes

Since I signed up with NTL around the end of May (to take advantage of their cable+Talk 24 offer), I've had recurring problems with my line being disconnected. This post is going to cover all the contacts I've had with them so far. I'll let you know when this is sorted out one way or another.

• 2004/6/9 (Wed) - phone disconnected.
• 2004/6/10 (Thu) - rang service centre but nobody called back.
• 2004/6/11 (Fri) - spoke to Peter I (very helpful). Engineer booked for Saturday.
• 2004/6/12 (Sat) - engineer called Saturday afternoon. Told us phone was fixed and gave us a new temporary number. I didn't think to test the phone before he left, but ten minutes later it wasn't working again. The new number we were given was already in use by someone else. Customer service is closed, but if you have a loss of dial tone out of hours they give you another number to try. Called them and spoke to John R at ANMC Bromley. Very apologetic, but he can't do anything, and there are no engineers who can come out.
• 2004/6/14 (Mon) - spoke to Wayne L. He says the problem has been closed and that the line should be working. It's not, so we have an engineer booked for Tuesday.
• 2004/6/15 - engineer Neil S calls and fixes the problem.
• 2004/6/16? - phoned to complain about the loss of service and I'm offered a month's line rental - £25 as compensation, which I'm happy to accept. All seems well, until...
• 2004/7/16 (Fri) - phone disconnected. Reported fault to Lyndon E. Engineer booked for Monday.
• 2004/7/19 (Mon) - spoke to John about billing error (did I mention this was wrong as well?). Said Sales was closed and he needed to talk to them and get them to ring me back. Nobody rang back, so I spoke to someone else a bit later who agreed the bill was wrong. She said she would alter the package and we should see our credit on the next bill.
• 2004/7/19 (Mon) - engineer Neil S called and fixed the connection. He said the problem was that our number was on a list of temporary numbers, and that this was why it was being disconnected. He said he would tell the relevant people and get them to phone us back to make sure the fix had been done.
• 2004/7/20 (Tue) - spoke to Rhona about compensation for loss of service. She calculated our line rental was about 31p / day (line rent is £9.50 and month separate from the talk 24 package) and that we were therefore owed about £1. I said it wasn't good enough and asked to talk to a supervisor. Scott M called back and reconfirmed what Rhona had said. He also wouldn't guarantee that the problem wouldn't occur again. I was pretty fed up at this point and went hunting around the web and found the cableforum site (my thread). They were very helpful and I composed an email of complaint to the UK MD Aizad Hussain. I figured it was more likely to get somewhere than writing to the address on the back of the bill at any rate.
• 2004/7/21 (Wed) - got a response to my email via Peter I on behalf of Gavin L, saying they were looking into the complaint. I replied to Peter with my understanding of what needed to be fixed.
• 2004/7/22 (Thu) - phone went down in the evening. Called the out of hours support line but no response after leaving my details.
• 2004/7/23 (Fri) - spoke to Chris at the service centre around 8am. Explained the issue about the temporary number. He said he would investigate and get back to me. Around 11.30 I thought I'd phone again to see what was happening. Spoke to Daryl, who said he had no record of the previous contact. He spoke to several people, who seemed to tell him conflicting things about the line - that it was disconnected, active, etc. Booked an engineer for Tuesday. He said he couldn't redirect our line to a mobile.
• 2004/7/23 (Fri) - My wife phoned them (now they're in trouble) to say that Tuesday was not acceptable. She spoke to a chap called Andrew who seemed to take the complaints more seriously - he's got our appointment moved to Monday, and will talk to his supervisor if anything can be done sooner.

That's the story so far, watch this space for breaking news.