NTHell

[chrisvenus]

End of june I ordered cable services from NTL. You may notice this is over two months ago. two weeks ago I got an install date. The engineers told me that I'd need the road dug up to get a cable to my house before they could do there bit. They sent their manager round to have a look and he agreed and arranged for the engineering department who were meant to do their stuff yesterday. Yesterday when I got home nobody had dug anything up for this cable so I phoned up today to get a rude (in that she seemed to have the attitude of somebody who was going hugely out of her way to help me) customer services representative who happily told me that there was no possible way I could get connected because there was no cable anywhere near me. The fact that I had seen it 10m from my door didn't phase her at all. It was akin to me asking her to turn water into wine.

Personally I think she is talking crap. I think much more likely is that they need to get my neighbours permission before they can dig stuff up (since it would affect them and is potentially on shared communally owned land or something). I a awaiting a call from either the sales team or the gap department. The former are likely to at least make the effort to get my money, the latter are at least likely to be able to give me an intelligent answer on why the engineering work didn't happen.

To same I'm not happy is an understatement.

Now it looks like I might have to try to persuade letting agency/land lady to let me install a satellite dish to get sky (I've never liked satellite dishes, I think they look awful and I personally wouldn't give the permission) and then get a BT phone line. Anybody want to reccomend ADSL services to me?

The thing that I am most unimpressed about is the amount of time they have kept me waiting before telling me this. That and the rather rude way in which I was told.

Colour me unimpressed.

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Zen. More than happy. Wouldn't ever go back to NTL.

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

Bangladesh

[chrisvenus]

should that make sense to me?

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

I went into nauseating detail about it here

[chrisvenus]

ah, yes. I remember now. :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

To same I'm not happy is an understatement.

Technically it's more a typo than an understatement.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I've been really pretty happy with BT Broadband, because they have had surprisingly good reliability. One thing I miss with dial-up is having pay-as-you-go providers available as a backup, which just don't seem to exist for broadband. (Unless you know otherwise?) Thankfully, so far, one hasn't been needed. There, that's jinxed it.

I don't think anyone has a good word to say about NTL service, but once you've got up and running, they're pretty good, especially if you're a "download tens of GB of warez and movies from newsgroups" sort. Allegedly.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Force9 has a pay-as-you-go dial-up backup service for broadband customers.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

My mother knows somebody in Swansea who is profoundly deaf.
NTL were supposed to be installing the broadband.
Things went wrong.

My mother phoned them. There were two discussions.

"We can't discuss this with anybody other than the account holder."
"That's not possible: she's deaf, and can't use a telephone. That's why you're installing broadband."


"We can't discuss this with you, under the data protection act."
"That's alright. You don't have to tell me anything. Just write all this down..."


I hope you've got a name of the manager who came and looked at things (on a letter, maybe?). You want to talk to him. You've got an agreement that they're going to do things. It's all the CSR people have to do is put you through. Put you through. Put you through.
(ie. They probably don't know what's going on, because it's not on their system. So you give them the really easy choices...)

[chrisvenus]

I don't know his name. However, I he was part of the gap department who have seemed generally clued in and helpful which is why I'll probably try to talk to somebody from there if I try to phone again. I'm hoping though that if it is the case that its a permission thing because its private land that the sales guy will be able to help with that kind of thing. I shall give them 24 hours to phone me and then tomorrow afternoon play the "phone NTL" game.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

The solution is your stated case is a letter from the deaf person to ntl (possibly via a fax) stating that this person can speak for them.
Otherwise NTL shouldn't even listen. It is a pain but they are mostly right.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Um, I can't remember precisely what the situation was: Mum didn't want to get into the situation where she could be a "responsible contact" (or whatever), as one of the things she was trying to organise was as much autonomy and self-reliance for Margaret as possible.

And the DPA didn't apply, as, essentially, Mum was just informing them of all the things they'd agreed they were going to do, and then failed on. So there was no information they didn't have anyway, they just didn't (claim to) have it all in one place.

I think it took about 6 months to get it all sorted out.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I was also thinking that they aren't allowed to assume anything your Mum said was actually true or came from the customer in question without a more formal statement. And a contact letter doesn't have to last for ever, it can say "for this conversation" or whatever.

A list of complaints can probably get through anyway though :-)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Oh, they can assume it (or not). The point was that that's not part of the DPA, which is what they were hiding behind.

(They can't record it as part of the permenant record, under the DPA, without some verification. But it was stuff they should already have known. And, you'd hope that if somebody phoned up and claimed to be the original customer, they'd still do some verification before recording the details, wouldn't you?)

[cleosilver.livejournal.com]

If you've got the account password our ntl people will merrily tell you everything about the account whether it's in your name or not. I've phoned about my partner's account many times.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Sky dishes are much smaller than they used to be. Tiny little black things. Ish.

[chrisvenus]

well, we shall see. others have got them so it won't be like we'll stand out.

[danfossydan.livejournal.com]

I use and recomend Demon internet. £25 a month with fixed IP. Not cheap. But good.

[tyasante.livejournal.com]

Damn, if only I could remember the website that compares everything about broadband and associated crap. It's really good and I was using it before fate forced my hand.
Whatever you do, DO NOT USE BT BROADBAND. They are the crap. I can't describe to you how happy I'm gonna be when the 12 month contract runs out. I'll keep looking for this comparison website, and get back to you asap.

And Yes, NTL have been crap to my parents as well. Even though we have since stopped using their Dial-up about seven months ago, they are still claiming that we owe them money for an internet service we apparently still use.

[chrisvenus]

if its http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ then you can stop looking now. And I've heard similar things baout BT so am planning not to go for them.

[tyasante.livejournal.com]

Damn you. Damn your demon quick fingers!

[chrisvenus]

Well I was just trying to stop you from wasting lots of time really. The fact that you found it in minutes is a sterling reccomendations to your research skills and stuff.

[tyasante.livejournal.com]

[tips her hat] Merci.

[tyasante.livejournal.com]

Ah, simpler to find than I was expectings: DING!

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

They are fairly good, independant and check customer service as well.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

We're with Force9, which do various pricing options, and apart from initial screwup where they tried to turn on our broadband slightly before our phone line existed on the exchange, it all went ok. I've never really had to use the customer service though. (If you go with Force9, we can get a recommendation discount)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

A NTL customer service person talking crap? Never!

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Ah, NTL...

I use Demon for my ADSL, and of course Sky for my TV channels. I tried to get an NTL connection shortly after I moved in... But while all of the odd-numbered houses on the other side of the road have access to cable, all the even-numbered houses on my side do not.

Apparently just because there's a cable passing really close to you doesn't make it possible to connect it up...

[zorac.livejournal.com]

I tried to get NTL in when OnDigital went bust a few years back. Despite the fact that they have cable running right in front of my building, they were unable to do anything. I eventually managed to grab one of their engineers while he was doing an install in the next building along - apparently it was about needing permission from the ground floor shops to run cables up the side of the building. Apparently nobody within NTL can be arsed to sort that out, so now I have the dish + DSL combo.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2002-11-06