NTL - is this legal?

dub45

surveys wrote:

Not been my experience with Sky. ! A load of *????* Not setting up channels I paid for. Not giving help until I threatened to go elsewhere. Standard email replies with no 'answers' and not replying at all until I had re-sent the same email 3 or 4 times. ! Not paying my friend who introduced me through 'introduce a friend'. Put on hold for 'hours'. ! etc.etc. A total disgrace. !

You should assemble a dossier for Rubert Murdoch!:)

Safrole

I don't think people realise that Sky's non direct debit 'invoice' fee is actually five euro - and the fact that you can't get the service without going direct debit.

That said they do offer a much better service - any time I've called them they have been quite helpful, and I got through to a talking person in less than five minutes, any time of day.

NTL have a long, long history of being an incredibly bad managed company, from the top level down. How they are still in business in Ireland is beyond me, they have always had cash flow issues - which is where this debate comes in. NTL have been seen as the bill you can get away without paying, I know of students who ring them every few months, give a false name and say they have just moved into the apartment or house - NTL then clear the old bill, send it to credit control and issue a nice new clean account to the fictional name.

Other stories involve people not paying their bill for over a year and still getting service, or people getting cut off but still having the channels.

Their call centres are understaffed, hence the problems of getting through to someone. I'm not sure whether it’s a headcount issue (i.e. they won’t approve further headcount to cope with the call queues) or a finding staff issue - most people don't want to work for them, you would earn more working in a restaurant in most cases. This includes their credit controllers, who are based in a call centre also. Vicious cycle mucho.

It's legal for them to charge the invoice fee, it's also legal for them to charge late payment, but last time I checked if NTL change the contract terms you have an opt out and can cancel any further subscription even if you are contracted for a year etc.

MOH

They lost my account when I moved house. I didn't realise because I had NTL in the new place for a couple of months, assumed they'd transferred my account OK. Then one day they cut me off.

I rang them, got through OK, and the guy on the phone was very friendly and helpful. But I had no account number because I threw out all my old bills when I moved. They couldn't find any record of me in their system at my old or new address.

He said if I paid the outstanding debt (which was about 100 quid more than I reckoned I owed) they'd reconnect me. But unless I could prove (how?) that I'd requested a transfer of my account from my old address, there would also be a 50 euro 'first time connection' fee. He ended by suggesting I go and have a really good look for an old bill with my account number.

I would happily have paid what I owed them, but wasn't getting associated with the massive debt on the account, or paying the 50 euro connection charge. So I hung up, rang Sky, never looked back.

Then started getting hassled by NTL a month later for return of a non-existent set top box, when I never had digital. A snotty e-mail to their head of customer care eventually sorted that one.

It's no wonder they're losing money.

is_that_so

dub45 wrote:

Being able to cancel a direct debit does not stop companies hitting your account with amounts which may be wrong - then try and get a refund from them. Companies now are tending not to give refunds but to give credit on the next bill which means you may be without the money for a long period. (Ask anyone who had the delights of dealing with Esat/Bt and their abuse of the direct debit system over long periods).

Many companies conveniently ignore the 14 day minimum notice periods before hitting accounts and now they have a new system which reduces the notice period to 7 days. (the notice period is not defined in the direct debit code.)

Companies never warn you in advance of penalty charges if the direct debit is not met. Have you ever seen any of those nice leaflets encouraging people to sign up for direct debits which warn of the penalty charges from both company and bank if the direct debit is not met. It is not unknown either for a company to recreate the direct debit after it has been cancelled. Also there is no central authority to complain to about the abuse of the direct debit system by a company.

Have you ever seen a copy of the direct debit code of practise in any bank branch?

My sympathy to you. You've obviously hit the worst kind of problems. I remember working in the UK and ringing banks that were taking annual accounts out monthly to the blissful ignorance of their account holders. Ultimately however it is your account and you get to say what comes out of it. If the bank screws up then they have to refund you and you probably should move accounts. I myself have been a client of almost a dozen banking institutions over my lifetime .You might find this link useful in explaining the Direct Debit scheme.

AnnaStezia

NTL give you too short a time to pay your account.

Last year I think our bill arrived several days after it's official date of issue and we had about 5 days left to pay it. This was not unusual as similar tight payments periods applied in previous years. Imagine if you were away for a week ?

Anyway, we paid our bill immediately in 2005. However, many of our neighbours around Donnybrook and it's environs obviously did not ! I never saw so many disconections carried out over a two week period. Nice way to collect more fees for reconnection !!

Given the uniformly negative view of their customer service you would be mad to give this lot a mandate for DD. Imagine trying to rectify any problems ! No bloody thanks.....

dub45

is_that_so wrote:

My sympathy to you. You've obviously hit the worst kind of problems. I remember working in the UK and ringing banks that were taking annual accounts out monthly to the blissful ignorance of their account holders. Ultimately however it is your account and you get to say what comes out of it. If the bank screws up then they have to refund you and you probably should move accounts. I myself have been a client of almost a dozen banking institutions over my lifetime .You might find this link useful in explaining the Direct Debit scheme.

It may explain the schemes but sadly there are far too many defects in the scheme and people put up with the scheme far too readily. The most recent innovation of only requiring a company to give 7 days notice is pure lunacy in my opinion.

dub45

AnnaStezia wrote:

NTL give you too short a time to pay your account.

Last year I think our bill arrived several days after it's official date of issue and we had about 5 days left to pay it. This was not unusual as similar tight payments periods applied in previous years. Imagine if you were away for a week ?

Anyway, we paid our bill immediately in 2005. However, many of our neighbours around Donnybrook and it's environs obviously did not ! I never saw so many disconections carried out over a two week period. Nice way to collect more fees for reconnection !!

Given the uniformly negative view of their customer service you would be mad to give this lot a mandate for DD. Imagine trying to rectify any problems ! No bloody thanks.....

It is extraordinary how weighted in favour of a company things have become:

Companies can now apparently charge late fees without any justification for the amount involved.

They can 'force' people onto direct debits by fining them if they dont.

They can send bills out with any date they like on them and then say the customer did not pay in time.

There is no time to resove a disputed bill before a late fee becomes payable.

Increasingly it seems that companies are refusing to give refunds saying that they will be credited in the next bill etc etc.

And in turn a customer has no comeback when service is bad or non existent: when technicians dont keep appointments; and there is little point in saying leave the particular business as it may not suit the person to do so - this is particularly so in the case of NTL.

And your thought for today: if 10% of NTL customers are late with their payment even by a small interval how much will NTL make out of effectively doing nothing each billing period. In fact isn't there an incentive for NTL to minimise the notice interval as much as they can get away with?:eek:

parsi

AnnaStezia wrote:

NTL give you too short a time to pay your account.

Last year I think our bill arrived several days after it's official date of issue and we had about 5 days left to pay it. This was not unusual as similar tight payments periods applied in previous years. Imagine if you were away for a week ?

Last night on The Last Word they had yer woman from the National Consumer Agency who decried the whole additional charge thing. When the issue of late bills was raised _she_ said that NTL told her bills were issued X days in advance. Matt Cooper then asked her "so are you blaming An Post?" and she replied to te effect that she believed NTL so it could only be AN Post's fault ! The worst part is that they can date the bills for whatever date they want but now that most of that post isn't franked we - the consumer - can't prove when bills were sent.

parsi

is_that_so wrote:

I have been on Chorus digital for almost 6 years and have never had any payment problems. Puzzling that one half of the company seems to do things properly or at least in my experience.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - you've yet to learn grasshopper. I spent months underpaying my Chorus bill (to compensate for days that the service was down) and they'd lash oon late payment charges. I'd write a cheque for the correct amount and I'd remind them of the time they fraudulently debited my credit card by amending a form after I signed it and then they'd shut up for a while. When Sky Digital came there was a fierce exodus in Cork from Chorus.

I've found Sky tobe ok - if you do have a dispute you can usually batter them into somesort of submission and when I last reconnected they gave me a free box and half-price for six months just by asking.

dub45

parsi wrote:

Last night on The Last Word they had yer woman from the National Consumer Agency who decried the whole additional charge thing. When the issue of late bills was raised _she_ said that NTL told her bills were issued X days in advance. Matt Cooper then asked her "so are you blaming An Post?" and she replied to te effect that she believed NTL so it could only be AN Post's fault ! The worst part is that they can date the bills for whatever date they want but now that most of that post isn't franked we - the consumer - can't prove when bills were sent.

I think in this case An Post are an easy blame - if you look at stuff from banks etc it is often dated up to 10 days before you actually receive it - even if all is above board it is easy to lose a few days - suppose a company does a billing run on a friday and the enveloping etc is done on the monday and the bulk of the stuff gets to An Post on the monday and it reaches the customer on the Tuesday thats 5 days gone already! Given the number of customers that NTL have (350,000 ?) I wonder how long a billing run actually takes from the time it starts to the time An Post actually receive the bills?