Decided to e-mail NTL to make a complaint about their service, detailing all the info that has been discussed in this forum, the rudeness of their staff, them expecting me to call a premium rate number.  I decided to wait a couple of weeks, to make sure the service is back to normal, and sent an e-mail last night.  Got a swift reply back this morning.




Dear Sir

Thankyou for your recent email.

I can only apologise for the problems that you have experienced. The fault that was logged was in fact a problem on the BT network. They were not fully aware of this and neither were ourselves until BT actually reported it to us. In regards to this issue they gave us no time frame in which they would solve the problem but just continued to update us, information which we then placed onto the website and via recorded messages.

All of our customer service agents are not technical trained and therefore when a technical issue does arise they have to inform the customer to contact our technical support department, this also applies to any fault reporting as well. Once again i can only apologise for the way that the agent may have spoken to you.

In regards to any call backs, we have a system in place which means that if there are calls waiting we have to respond to them first. Now due to the call volume at the time we were unable to make any call backs at anytime.

The issues that you have given us in your email will be looked into and dealt with. Any formal complaint that you wish to lodge woudl actually need to be placed in a letter and our customer liaison team will look into that and contact you either in letter format or telephone.

Kind Regards,

Stephen

ntl: Freedom Support Team




So it would appear it's NTL's policy of making customer call a premium rate number to report a fault, and it seems strange that it's BT who told them of the problem.  I actually told them of the problem 1 day earlier, yet they didn't believe me!!

Their customer services can't be that well trained, if they can't lodge a simple complaint about a fault with the service.  Even if it's not them dealing with it, if they get loads of phone calls reporting not being able to connect, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that there is a problem.  NTL should be contacting BT, not the other way around.  How would NTL know about this problem if BT hadn't told them.  They would have just denied having a problem as nobody is allowed to report it without paying for the privilege.

Before writing this, I e-mailed back and asked for the address to write to, to make an official complaint, and got a swift reply back.




Dear Customer

Thankyou for your recent email

The address you iwll need is

Customer liaison team
Ntl Freedom
Ntl House
Bartley Wood Bsuiness Park
Hook
Hampshire
RG27 9XA

If you add in the cover letter FAO Managing director they will then be able to pass it onto the relevant department

Kind Regards,

Steve


Anyone on this board know of any e-mail address for the board of directors, as I feel that saying FAO managing director might not reach his office, but putting his name might.

Just received this joke of an e-mail.  I had copied the e-mail to both enquires, and support.  The previous e-mails were from support, this one is from enquiries.


Dear Customer.
Thank you for your email.

I'm afraid we will  not be able to give you any credit adjustment for the loss of service during that period of time, because we did have a problem with the server at the time and we did have a recording message about that on our line. he service your on also is free dial up service. I am sorry about the incovience made in that period of time.

Kind Regards,

royhema

ntl: Freedom Support Team




The recorded message, was just "Sorry the number you have called has not been recognised"

So, I'm on free dial up!!  Why should that make a difference, I pay a monthly fee for a service that wasn't provided!!  Does that mean that if I was on broadband then I might be treated differently as a customer!!

And no mention about the rudeness of their staff!!

Definitely worth taking the matter with otelo then!!

Thankyou NGM for your help on this matter, and I'll certainly be e-mailing the top brass at NTL!!

I e-mailed customer services earlier with this:



Hello

Thankyou for your correspondance

Please can you justify why I cannot receive a rebate for your lack of
service.

Also, you did not address the problem of your customer service agent who
behaved in an appaling manner.

Can you read my e-mail again, and come up with a more satisfactory solution.

Please note that I am also very unhappy with the refusal to refund my
account.  You failed in your duty to provide a service, and I ask again, am
I going to be refunded.  I have paid £15 for 30/31 days service, but for 6
days of that, I recieved no service.  Taking payment for the days which a
service is not provided is in breach of the sale of goods act 1982.

You do not appreciate the gravity of the situation, and a blatant refusal to
credit is unacceptable.

I would also like to remind you, that there are other internet service
providers in the market, and as a customer I am free to choose my provider,
based on quality of service provided, and customer service received.

I would also like to point out that if I do not get a satisfactory result, I
am taking the matter to otelo for resolution.

I have suffered a great deal of inconvenience, and wasted time calling your
call centre, and attempting to access the internet.

I await your reply, and hope you come to a different conclusion this time,

Regards

(my name)



And got this reply back.




Dear Customer.
Thank you for your email.

But I'm afraid to say you will not be getting a refund fro 6 days loss of service. The package you taken is a FREE dial £15 you pay us for is for call (which is call credit). I do apologise for the inconvenient at the time. I do apologise again but we will not be able to give you a refund on this case. NTL do not give refund for any BT fault. the 6 days outage on dial up, the server was down at BT end. If you have any more questions please don't hesitate to call me on 0870 445 0445 ext 2614 or email me back

Kind Regards,

royhema



So, they are dodging the issue by saying that I'm paying £15 for call credit, and they're providing me with free internet, and what they failed to provide, is something that I'm getting free, but as I'm getting what I'm paying for (the calls) then I'm not entitled to a refund.

Well, I pay through the nose for £15 worth of calls that I do not need to use fully, and which I would not use at all, if I didn't have free internet with it.  Who in their right mind would pay NTL £15 for the privilege of £15 worth of calls, where you pay more if you use more, and still £15 if you don't?

The only thing that makes the deal attractive, is the "free internet" that I'm getting.

I shall be contacting the directors, and copying all e-mails that I've received.  Lets hope that they see things differently.

On top of that, no mention at all about the rudeness of their staff!!

I have just been to the link you provided, and yes it does indeed list the board of directors.  I cannot find their e-mail addresses though.  Did you find out from another source, or by the common logic of firstname.surname@ntlworld.com

If so, it could be surname.firstname@ntlworld.com.

Anyway, I shall certainly be taking this to the CEO, just hope he's not on at the start of his 3 week golfing holiday!!

Yesterday, I called Judith for clarification, and she was most helpful.  She confirmed that the board of directors do indeed have the e-mail address of firstmame.surname@ntl.com

She also said that if I get any problems, then just give her a call back, and she will be happy to find out any information I need.  Now thats what I call helpful customer service.  Certainly gives me a bit of confidence that at board level, their attitude is different to that in customer services!!

I sent an e-mail to the 3 people you mentioned NGM, and got a reply back from one of them.



Dear Mr (name removed)



Thank you for taking the time to write to me personally.  Please accept my profound apologies for the most unsatisfactory experience you have received.  I have asked for your issues to be resolved as quickly as possible and I will personally follow this up in the next few days.


Kind Regards

Neil Berkett - COO



In my complaint I also bought up the subject that I should be entitled to £50 compensation, along with a copy of the offending e-mails, which did of course include my original complaint.  Just hope they're as forthcoming as vodafone was to NGM.

I have today got a letter back from NTL.

However Neil only passed my complaint back to customer services, who instead of sending an e-mail, decided to write a letter instead (perhaps they think their service is so bad, I might not be able to connect to read it!!)

Basically they cannot make a refund on the grounds that the outage affected them and loads of other ISPs, and that the service is not gauranteed against such outages.

They also said that because I didn't call technical support, they could not determine whether it was a fault with my computer, my phone line, or their systems.

And no mention of the rudeness and the way I was spoken to.

However, whilst writing this, I received a call on my mobile from NTL, saying that there is this outstanding issue (they were not informed of my more recent complaint, only the fact that they have on file an unresolved issue)

They have agreed to credit my next bill with £15 which covers one months service.

Maybe not the £50 I was asking for, but I won't be cancelling my account just yet!!

if this is an extra charge, demand a chargeback.