NTL

Really, need I say more than the title? So many people for so long have been giving out crap loads about NTL and their customer service and so I will add my little tuppence worth me thinks.

It all started last Friday when I arrived home from work at 7.40pm to find that their was nothing happening on the telly. The box at the bottom of the screen which tells you what is on now and what will be on next were frozen at 4pm. This type of crap has happened before and usually switching of the decoder and putting it back on again usually works. This time it asked for an activation Pin which the engineer didn't leave.

Being late and knowing that NTL close at 8pm I called straight away.

At 7.56pm the call gets answered. I gave my name, address and telephone number, as we haven't received out customer number yet, and they verified me. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

"Yes, there is a problem in the Raheny area at the moment. We expect the engineer to be out in the next hour to fix this."

"OK. But can I have the activation pin please so I can check it?"

"I'm sorry, the department that deals in those pins is closed at the moment so we cannot help."

"OK, but when the TV comes back will that message be removed?"

"It might be."

"It might or it will?"

"It may be removed but if not then the other department are open at 9am and they can help. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No thanks. Bye"

The TV did not come back that night.

The next morning at about 12pm I decided to check the TV again. The message was still displayed and no sign of it moving. Flucker. So I called NTL again and I must stress that I went through the exact same options as the night before.

"Hi. There was a problem in the Raheny area last night and our picture is still not back. Is the fault still happening?"

"Hang on till I check for you. Nope, it should be resolved."

"Ok, can I get the activation code please for the TV?"

"Yes, one second please. The codes for Dublin are XXX, XXX and XXX. Can you try those please?"

Now none of the codes worked and I went through the reboot process with her (amazing how she had the codes and a collegaue last night couldn't get them?? Another department me hole). None of the codes worked. She advised she would send a signal down the line that might take 15 minutes and to try then. However, she would book and engineer visit just in case to ensure a speedy recovery. This was Saturday morning at 12.20pm. The first available engineer was Wedneday morning. Yup, Wednesday.

What she stated next really startled me to be honest. She told me that 9 times out of 10 when an engineer goes to fix a fault like the previous evening's it usually results in some people losing their reception and NTL need to revisit the location and fix the fault again. Yup, that's what she told me. Can you believe that? Its unreal. Their first time fix rate is shite. Really, really shite.

Anywho TV came back last night at 8.30pm some 4 days after it went down. I was assured that if we noted how long we were without the service we would be refunded in the bill but lets wait and see.

To be honest if there was any other way of getting TV without using NTL or Chorus I would but fucking management companies wont allow dishes to be installed unless it's one of those shared ones. I do wonder what they would do if you installed one on your balcony??