Well at long last I am back on the net, no thanks to my service provider NTL.
Its been a long hard frustrating struggle just to get my internet bloody working again at my new address, forget the name NTL, the should be called NT-Hell !
I phoned them about a week before I moved and was told everything would be a seamless transition, that a technician would call at my new address on the 24th and to take my old cable modem with me and everything would be working as it was at my old address. Well the technician came and went, it was straightforward as the previous occupant had NTL before me, in fact her old tv box still worked, I know as I connected it up to my telly and watched free films!
On leaving the technician said I may have to call their broadband helpline to get properly up and running, he also wrote my new phone number down wrongly causing me to pass it onto folk who couldn’t contact me, they must be on commission the speed they are in and out of your house.
So, when he went I couldn’t access the net, so rang the helpline who said they couldn’t help because my old address was still active, this being several days after I had moved, I was told matters would be resolved after midnight when my details changed on the server.
The next day came, still no internet. Another phone call and I was told because NTL have merged with Telewest there had been problems and I was called a ‘hanging house move’ and it would take two days to update my details, which basically was just a change of address, amazing. I did protest but was told nothing more could be done until another department entered my details, unfortunately there was a back log.
So the weekend passed and I was on the case Monday again only to be given a whole raft of excuses and call centre swerves. People promising to call back or resolve it, or email another department etc, nothing seemed to happen and my blood began to boil. This debacle went on till this morning when I kept on insisting to speak to someone higher up the ladder, the promises of ‘oh don’t waste your time in queues or your money calling us, someone will call you, nobody did. Another round of waiting on the phone till eventually I decided to take no prisoners and wouldn’t leave the phone until it was resolved. So eventually a tech guy from India calls me and resolves it quite simply in the end, something that could have been done days ago should anyone have been interested.
The reason I kept NTL was that I wanted to keep my email addy etc and was happy with the previous rock solid connection that never seemed to let me down.
My advice to anyone dealing with call centres is take names, id’s and extension numbers, ask them if they have updated tracking notes with every call, because people were conveniently not updating notes every time I called so they’d take no responsibility etc.
I told the supervisor that dealt with my case that questions needed to be asked from this, the fact from the date of installation till my net working was a week, 11 days inclusive of the move from my old address. Having worked in a call centre for the MOD before I know the tricks and swerves people use working in call centres, so that helped.
One thing I have realised is how much I rely on the net just for day to day stuff, internet banking, paying bills etc, and of course chatting to friends. Moving to a new town and having no net made it even worse, and I hate texts as a rule. I have got 2 months free services out of it all but that’s not much to a massive company like that.
Ironically the guy that sorted it was supposed to call me back at 4pm as a courtesy to check if my net was now working…… he never called.
Its been a long hard frustrating struggle just to get my internet bloody working again at my new address, forget the name NTL, the should be called NT-Hell !
I phoned them about a week before I moved and was told everything would be a seamless transition, that a technician would call at my new address on the 24th and to take my old cable modem with me and everything would be working as it was at my old address. Well the technician came and went, it was straightforward as the previous occupant had NTL before me, in fact her old tv box still worked, I know as I connected it up to my telly and watched free films!
On leaving the technician said I may have to call their broadband helpline to get properly up and running, he also wrote my new phone number down wrongly causing me to pass it onto folk who couldn’t contact me, they must be on commission the speed they are in and out of your house.
So, when he went I couldn’t access the net, so rang the helpline who said they couldn’t help because my old address was still active, this being several days after I had moved, I was told matters would be resolved after midnight when my details changed on the server.
The next day came, still no internet. Another phone call and I was told because NTL have merged with Telewest there had been problems and I was called a ‘hanging house move’ and it would take two days to update my details, which basically was just a change of address, amazing. I did protest but was told nothing more could be done until another department entered my details, unfortunately there was a back log.
So the weekend passed and I was on the case Monday again only to be given a whole raft of excuses and call centre swerves. People promising to call back or resolve it, or email another department etc, nothing seemed to happen and my blood began to boil. This debacle went on till this morning when I kept on insisting to speak to someone higher up the ladder, the promises of ‘oh don’t waste your time in queues or your money calling us, someone will call you, nobody did. Another round of waiting on the phone till eventually I decided to take no prisoners and wouldn’t leave the phone until it was resolved. So eventually a tech guy from India calls me and resolves it quite simply in the end, something that could have been done days ago should anyone have been interested.
The reason I kept NTL was that I wanted to keep my email addy etc and was happy with the previous rock solid connection that never seemed to let me down.
My advice to anyone dealing with call centres is take names, id’s and extension numbers, ask them if they have updated tracking notes with every call, because people were conveniently not updating notes every time I called so they’d take no responsibility etc.
I told the supervisor that dealt with my case that questions needed to be asked from this, the fact from the date of installation till my net working was a week, 11 days inclusive of the move from my old address. Having worked in a call centre for the MOD before I know the tricks and swerves people use working in call centres, so that helped.
One thing I have realised is how much I rely on the net just for day to day stuff, internet banking, paying bills etc, and of course chatting to friends. Moving to a new town and having no net made it even worse, and I hate texts as a rule. I have got 2 months free services out of it all but that’s not much to a massive company like that.
Ironically the guy that sorted it was supposed to call me back at 4pm as a courtesy to check if my net was now working…… he never called.
1 comment:
I hear Mr Branson has been expanding his empire in the ISP business. If this proves to be true i would consider changing ISP. Virgin never had a good name with their internet!
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