NTL bill dated Dec 28 - arrives Jan 10th

trout

short time lurker ... first time poster ... forgive me if this has been discussed already

i got home this evening to find an NTL bill, dated December 28th, along with a leaflet called "your NTL bill is changing" which explains all about my new bill ... great

so ... bill is dated December 28th, arrives today, and is due by Jan 12th and here is the kicker, "you should allow allow 4 or 5 working days for your payment to clear to your account"

when i read about NTL introducing a late payment charge of €7.68 for all bills paid after the due date, it got me thinking about how much time elapses between the bill date (28th of Dec in this case) and the date i actually receive the bill (today - Jan 10th).

My memory of recent NTL bills is there can be a week or 10 days discrepancy between the date of issue and the date of delivery

question : is this a common understanding ?
question : how do you feel about the introduction of a €7.68 late payment charge ?
question : how do you feel about the €2 charge for not paying by direct debit ?

gerryo

trout wrote:

My memory of recent NTL bills is there can be a week or 10 days discrepancy between the date of issue and the date of delivery

question : is this a common understanding ?

Have seen it happen with NTL + other bills.
Can be very bad round xmas.

trout wrote:

question : how do you feel about the introduction of a €7.68 late payment charge ?

Very unimpressed, although most CC companies do this also, so can't really complain about NTL, except if they are slack with sending out the bills.

trout wrote:

question : how do you feel about the €2 charge for not paying by direct debit ?

This is very bad business practice, sharp practice really. ESB encourage you to go DD with entries into a draw. This is the way to go. From what I've read here on boards it can be very hard to cancel the NTL service, so giving them a DD mandate is a bit like swimming in leech infested water.

I think they have cash flow problems, some bright person suggested this, except it's a really bad time to anger & pi$$ off customers, since $ky now have C4 & there are rumours of 20 channel Irish terrestrial TV on the way*.

Besides $ky, there is the free sat option too.
As soon as C4 is available in Ireland (whether on sat or terrestrial), expect NTL's revenues to dip sharply.

If I were them (& I'm not in any way connected), I'd be courting customers not antagonising them.


*See the Terrestrial forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054986437&page=16#post52611571

datk

Just sent them an email to complain about the deteroriation of their overall service. I've complained in the past about the dates on bills, when they arrive and when payment is due. They reckons it's my postal service. I requested info from a company on Monday evening - it arrived today with my bill dated 28th December. Nothing to do with Christmas, the bill always arrives at least 7 days after the date on it.

I also complained about the service. I rang technical support in November - they talked me through a few things which didn't work and said they'd pass it on to the technies who would ring me back. I'm still waiting......

No ITV and Channel 4 are available on sky I think I'll change over, just have to look for a new broadband supplier.

rgfuller

There is a message on their service+account telephone number (1800321321) saying that decembers bills (21st+28th dec) were sent out late due to the holidays and an extension to payment due date would apply. Also that no-one would be charged without receiving a warning letter in advance.

trout

it may be that christmas/holidays post delayed this bill ... but my memory is the NTL bills are always delivered within 3-4 days of the due date

the more i think about the late charge, i don't really have a problem with it, so long as you get fair notice

what really bothers me is the additional €2 for not paying by direct debit ... particularly when my experiences with NTL to date (he he) don't inspire me with enough confidence to give them power to draw down money from my bank account ... at least when i pay online, i am in control of how much and when money flows from me to NTL

i think it's time to look for an alternative source of cable in the D5 region;)