NTL Charging Me LOTS More on My Bills

topyam

Hi everyone,

This is my first post. Been a regular on MSE but never posted on the forum.

I've been with NTL for the past year on their phone,broadband and cable for £30 offer. I don't use the phone so assumed £30 was being taken out each month. I never have received any bills. I called up to request bills for the last four months and was told by the person on the phone that I would have to pay £4 per bill. After a while and me getting rather cross, they agreed to send them out for free. Bad enough already I know. Just checked my bills and I'm being charged about £70-£90 a month (it varies slightly). How can this be? Has anyone else had such bad service from NTL? I'm starting to wonder how long this has been going on for as I only have received the last four month's bills!! NTL - I don't recommend them.

topyam

Heinz

Welcome to the MSE forums topyam.

It is well known that NTL/Telewest are amongst the most expensive providers for telephone calls.

How much of the £40 to £60 was for calls?

magentadreamer

Check the bills very carefully and see what extras you're being charged for and if it's wrong then ring NTL up - I've always found an Excuse me you've over charged me call reaped a good reward for me in return!

topyam

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me. I've been overcharged £60 on average for the last 4 months. All of it was for calls. I don't have a phone at the moment to make calls so know I haven't made them.

topyam

SambaRamba

Hmmm, wish i'd read this board before siging up to them! I hope you get sorted out soon.

Voyager2002

topyam wrote:

I've been overcharged £60 on average for the last 4 months. All of it was for calls. I don't have a phone at the moment to make calls so know I haven't made them.

Weird! I hope you will tell us what was going on.

topyam

Will definitely post any developments on board.

peskie_pixie

firstly welcome to the forum.

firstly if contacting them avoid the 0845 numbers and getting charged even more and try 150 from an ntl phone or ring 0800 052 9403 (this is retentions but they'll sort your problem)

I've also found it very useful to contact them using their complaint link on the website
http://www.ntl.com/home/contact/generic/customer.asp

every time i've done this i've had the automatically generated email but also they've phoned me and written to me. My complaints/probs were only slight compared to yours but they were sorted and i also received refunds and additional goodwill credits and they reduced the costs of my packages.

hope this helps

xmfclick

This is about phone+broadband, but the general principle applies (I've done the same before) ...

Yesterday I called NTL's Customer Retention team because I found out I've been paying for Talk24 for the last few months when I had been told I would get it free for a year (and BTW the call confirmed what silvercar said here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=340605 about NTL special offers only lasting for 3 months). Anyway, I had a bit of a rant, calmed down, and the nice person at the other end told me the following:-

1. Since the NTL/Telewest merger they have been moving 1.5 million customers over to the Telewest billing system (hence the high level of customer service calls and the difficulty in getting through)

2. If NTL offered you a year's free Talk24, for example, it depended on the call-centre person you talked to going in to the system every 3 months and renewing the 3-month freebie.

3. After the merger all the NTL customer service staff were made redundant, so any offer you got as per 2 above probably fell out of bed.

I said that I was not a happy bunny and my friend had switched to TalkTalk and was very happy (true!), and paying about £20 per month. After no pushing on my behalf I got the following deal:-

One NTL phone line for £11/month
Broadband for £10/month
Second NTL line for £5-50/month

Total saving over what I was paying yesterday: £24/month

I also got a £40-odd refund for the overpaid Talk24.

RESULT!!!

The moral of the story is to talk to Customer Retention, explain the problem, tell them about another supplier's better deal and ask how you can cancel the contract with NTL.

xmfclick

topyam wrote:

I called up to request bills for the last four months

Er, didn't you get any bills, or did you throw them away?

Mandles

NTL are a constant nightmare to me too. I have been overcharged and they did refund me in the most complicated way ever. By the way, i cant believe that you had to fight to get the bills!! Rediculous.
I am on the same package as you by the sounds and be careful as i thought from original offer that internet was included in this but it is not and you discover this when they cut your internet connection. It is £10 on top and is a whole seperate bill.
their bills vary from month to month so i am not keen on them . The best thing to do is ring up and cancel as you will probably be offered a good deal not to leave(thats what i do occasionally! but i feel justified as it is a poor service and the guide rarely works on the tv so whats the use of all those channels if you dont know whats on. Sounds lazy but it is a right pain scrolling through 100 channels to see whats on).
Currently got it half price for 3 months due to me going to leave (tee hee)
Good luck