NTL SUCKS

I have a few stock responses to the NTL customer disservice drones when asked “Which ntl services do you have sir?”. The run along the lines of:

• “None actually, though I’m paying for three.”
• “That’s what I’m calling about. I don’t have any. Perhaps you could explain why you’re charging me for three services then?”
• “Oh, only the TV. (We pause here, they are thinking that their security checks have failed). I then add “I’m paying for broadband and telephone, but you see fit not to provide those services”

I know practically all these useless morons. There’s Chris, and Chris, James and James, Welsh Git and Welsh Twit. They’re ever so polite. Except Keith today who thought he’d try it on with me until I nailed him several times. When I calmly informed him that interrupting me would only result in the call escalating and he would have to explain to his boss why he was losing an argument on semantics to an already hyper-fucked-over customer, he began to behave.

A partial list of grievances follows:

1. I have had no telephone service for at least three days, but it is probably longer.
2. I have had no broadband service for a month, but it has now been fixed.
3. I have been kept on hold for over an hour on occasion (when my NTL phone was working) to no avail.
4. I have been promised engineer visits that never materialised.
5. I have had an engineer turn up earlier than the allotted time, costing me a day off work and leaving me a note that just said “p.m.” for when he had turned up. I then called customer services. I asked the bitch (a male, don’t worry girls) at the other end to give me his word that he would log the call. He gave me his word. He then put me on hold for 35 minutes. I was of course calling from a public phone booth, smelling of urine and stained with tramp-sweat. The irony of calling NTL from a BT phone booth, because that’s the only way I can call them free. Of course, my NTL phone and NTL broadband were not working. So I hung up. Deflated. I went into the flat and after about 45 minutes, an engineer called and had fixed the broadband from outside, without having to come into the property. This was outside work hours. Why the fuck they couldn’t do this without me having to take a precious day off I just don’t understand.
6. The selctively log calls. Then to heap insult to injury, the cocksuckers have the temerity to claim that they log all calls. Keith the Kunt today claimed that he could “read back a record of all the calls you have ever made to NTL”. I asked him to comment on the 43 minute call to Chris the Thursday before last. He declined. Kunt.
7. The television signal cuts out from time to time. Usually at a crucial point. Like Steven Gerrard striking the last-gasp equalising volley in the Cup Final. OK, I was actually in a Santa Monica pub for this, but I can assure you, it’s pretty annoying when it happens.

(I just realised that Santa is an anagram of Satan. It took me 40 years to realise that???)

Enough of my list of grievances, time for some questions:

Why don’t these morons keep decent appointment hours? In the old days, if an engineer made an appointment, it wasn’t for a fucking 6 hour window! It was for “3p.m.” and that was that. Now it’s between 12 and 6. And then they don’t keep the hours they promise. What the fuck is that? Can’t they keep a fucking appointment? Is it really that difficult in the computer age to stick to a bloody time?

When I go to an NHS chiropodist for example, the rules are brutal:

1. Arrive within 10 minutes of your appointment time or you will have to re-arrange it. (And you won’t get another for three months or more).
2. Pre-notify them 48 hours before the appointment of your intention to arrive. If you fail to do this, your appointment is cancelled.
3. If you fall foul of their draconian rules, you’re off the list and you need to book an appointment with your GP (same rules) to get referred again.

And yet, it’s alright for the GP to keep you waiting over an hour.

Here’s the NTL alternative. And the same applies to Sky, BT, the Gas man, or any other so-called service cunt.

1. They can arrive at any time within a six hour window
2. They can can arrive outside this window and request that you re-arrange the appointment
3. Your equipment, or your service is faulty, but you pay for the day off
4. They have a look around, grunt for a couple of minutes, then fuck off. When the service resolutely fails to work, you are forced to go through call-centre hell again, passed from pillar-to-post, with your calls not logged, nothing done about anything.
5. When you complain, they have the gall to claim the moral high ground.

This is what we have to endure. They call this service. I’d like to say it’s NTL alone, but they’re all like this nowadays. Every mobile company is shit. Every Cable provider, just about every ADSL provider, Sky (they’re the fucking worst! Condescending Scottish cunts) and the rest.

What are your experiences of these bastards? How do we get them back? Because there is no VP of Customer Service you can write to, ever. You cannot contact them. They charge for support, which is never actually given. How do you get these people?

To counter this diatribe, I will next write about one of the best examples of customer service I have ever experienced. (And no, it’s not the Derek Rose story!)