Looks like an e-mail to the director to sort this mess out, or contact egg to arrange a chargeback, on the grounds that I have complained, and they admitted their mistake, but haven't refunded as promised, and have now told me to call a premium rate number to sort out their mess, which I don't want to do.

Also, they insist on calling it National rate.  I know OFCOM won't care too much about it, and the ASA won't deal with it, as it's not advertising.  Is there any authority to complain to?

Better be quick - according to this Mail on Sunday article they're sacking 4000 staff and moving their call centres overseas - so you won't get any sense out of them shortly (even if you do now).

I have just been on the phone to a deputy of a director to sort this mess out.  Was basically told off like a naughty school boy for not using 0870.

She argued until blue in the face that it was a National rate number, and said "When I signed up to NTL, I accepted these terms and conditions that I must call 0870 customer services"  Comments like "Well, if you call to book train tickets, you have to call 0870" and "If those tickets didn't arrive, would you call 0870 or risk losing out on your trip"

I said that as an ex customer I haven't chosen for them to take extra money from my credit card, and why should I pay to complain.  I was basically told that if I had called customer services, "Why should we pay your phone cost"

This is the attitude at director level!!  When I said about my refund, I was told "Well if you went through the correct channels, you'd have it sorted out by now, and be able to query why it's not been credited back.  Also you must allow 28 days"  I had only actually allowed 20 days.

She was adamant that 0870 is National Rate, and I even mentioned OFCOM and the ASA advising against calling it that, but she dodged the issue, and said that "As a business, we're entitled to use this number as customer services"  She dodged the National rate description.

The end result was that she was going to chase the matter up on my behalf, despite telling me that she didn't have to.  I said that if it wasn't cleared within 28 days, I would be arranging a chargeback with Egg.  I also said that if the credit appears back on my account, then I'll consider the matter closed.

I find this kind of attitude appauling.  Being told off for not calling their premium rate numbers, being made to feel it's doing me a favour by looking into the matter, when infact I didn't want this whole mess in the first place.  Also being told that I'm only assuming that it's not been credited back, because I haven't waited 28 days.

I just hope that someone from the media is reading this.  It's quite common for stroppy customer service in the NTL call centre, but this kind of attitude from an assistant to the director certainly proves their attitude to customer service, and this only reinforces my decision to cancel was the right move.

So, they're justifying ripping off people and lying about the call costs so they can pay the redundancy packages of the 4000-6000 they're sacking and the cost of setting up their overseas call centres!

Shiggaddi wrote on May 8^th, 2006 at 3:47pm:


I think you will find your so called assistant to the director was just a high level customer complaints person officially allowed to masquearde as such and those people are hard as nails and paid to say No.  Real Directors are usually very helpful if you can get to them or their secretaries.  Customer service people are like concentration camp guards in mentality in many instances.

I suggest you email the director directly.  Executive Complaints at many companies like Royal Bank of Scotland simply = escalated customer services.

bbb_uk wrote on May 15^th, 2006 at 6:18pm:


I officially got the escalated Customer Services Department Manager of HP to admit that if anyone rang the geographic number for their uk main switchboard asking for the Managing Director's secretary they were put through to her team.  Unless they could ask for the Managing Director's secretary by name they didn't get through to her.

Worse than that if you were put through to the escalated customer complaints team their staff were deliberately rude cheeky and hostile and only when I began emailing the US Managing Director of HP directly did their attitude suddenly change and all the disputed warranty repair items get done without question.

One lesson I have learned with customer service departments is that far less customers have the energy to moan in writing than on the phone and that by writing an email you can copy in five or six senior directors in the company usually to far greater effect.  This is one reason why I no longer call nearly as many 0870 numbers as I used to and now write far more emails.

The Royal Bank of Scotland group is the one depressing organisation I am a customer of where all attempts to write to senior management directly by email fail and are instead passed back to the useless numbskulls in Customer Relations for a response that says and admits nothing.

jamesbond wrote on May 15^th, 2006 at 8:01pm:


Ummm. No use at all I'm afraid.

Its a good job that I am not M 007 or you might soon need to be looking for a new career!