NTL penalising customers that don't spend enough money!

helios

Holy crap. I just got my NTL bill today, and I was charged a 'Broadband Standalone Charge'. I rang customer support and they told me that it's a charge because I only have broadband with them, and no other services. Granted it's only a small fee, but WTF?

MrVestek

That's been the standard practise for a while now...

Cabaal

This charge was introduced because at pnme point you could only get NTL Broadband if you got their TV service, those that didn't want their TV service now just pay the small fee.

In relation to you not being aware of it, you should have read the T&C's before hand.

colly10

It's on their website when ye go to sign up, it's not even small print.

helios

I've been with them for over 2 years and I never got word of this...

MrVestek

Did you recently cancel your tv package?

helios

Nearly 8 months ago

MrVestek

Well there ya go then that's why you haven't noticed it on the bill before. To be honest they were probably supposed to charge you that before now but NTL/UPC aren't exactly well known for their competance.

JDxtra

Just think of it being a lot cheaper than paying line rental to Eircom / BT / Perlico etc (~€25).

Phlann

How do they justify that?

MrVestek

Phlann wrote: »

How do they justify that?

Providing a cable line to the house when there are no television services would justify it in itself I'd have imagined. They don't provide the line itself as a courtesy, the line price would have been covered in the basic analogue channel package but since the eu no longer has that then they're charged a nominal fee for having a line installed.

dogpile

We have 2 xtra tv points in the house and pay roughly the same, seems fair enough! you wouldn't expect Sky multiroom for free..


re their Broadband, if you have an extra point in a bedroom could they run it from there? and does it work with an old anologue box they installed??

lambchops

dogpile wrote: »

re their Broadband, if you have an extra point in a bedroom could they run it from there? and does it work with an old anologue box they installed??

They can install the cable modem anywhere you have one of their TV points in the house. There's no real difference in a digital and analogue TV point, it's more to do with how the signal is sent rather than the cable it's sent on when it comes down to it.

Only thing you might want to take into account is if you want to get their phone service as well, the phone plugs into the modem, so that has some issues on where you might install it.

dogpile

lambchops wrote: »

They can install the cable modem anywhere you have one of their TV points in the house. There's no real difference in a digital and analogue TV point, it's more to do with how the signal is sent rather than the cable it's sent on when it comes down to it.

Only thing you might want to take into account is if you want to get their phone service as well, the phone plugs into the modem, so that has some issues on where you might install it.

Cheers,

not interested in the phone service tho.

RoyalMarine

my ex had ntl installed for a long time. broadband and tv package.

she rang up 1 day to cancel the tv package. she was well out of the 1 year contract cos she got sky installed.

they told her they wont cancel it unless she cancel's both packages. she wanted to keep the broadband and have sky. they said no. they dont give broadband to customer's who are on sky digital.

they cancelled it. i rang them the other week to get broadband installed for her, and even said, you charge a standalone rate for broadband member's who dont take the tv package. give me that.

the operator on the phone said "sorry we cant provide broadband to customer's who wont accept either the tv or the phone package" i took a screen shot with the words on the website highlighted and e-mailed it on to them. i got a blunt "sorry, we cant" response.

im currently waiting for a call back for almost 2 weeks from one of the managers/supervisor's as im furious over this.

AntiVirus

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

my ex had ntl installed for a long time. broadband and tv package.

she rang up 1 day to cancel the tv package. she was well out of the 1 year contract cos she got sky installed.

they told her they wont cancel it unless she cancel's both packages. she wanted to keep the broadband and have sky. they said no. they dont give broadband to customer's who are on sky digital.

they cancelled it. i rang them the other week to get broadband installed for her, and even said, you charge a standalone rate for broadband member's who dont take the tv package. give me that.

the operator on the phone said "sorry we cant provide broadband to customer's who wont accept either the tv or the phone package" i took a screen shot with the words on the website highlighted and e-mailed it on to them. i got a blunt "sorry, we cant" response.

im currently waiting for a call back for almost 2 weeks from one of the managers/supervisor's as im furious over this.

They were offering it to you cheaper than paying the cable line rental of 6 euros extra a month. The phone is only 4 euros a month! :pac:

Automan

Rang them today to cancel my extra tv point as I never use it which cost me 6:99 Euros per bill (was 2 euros per bill back when I got it) and they want to charge me 10 Euros for the pleasure????? The girl I was talking to told me that if you want to downgrade any package you will be charged 10 euros for each downgrade of each package.
So if I wanted to downgrade my BB, Digital package and get ride of the extra connection it would cost 30 euros WTF.
They realy are taking the P*** out of there customers.
Am waiting on a Sup call back now.

paulm17781

Automan wrote: »

Am waiting on a Sup call back now.

Keep waiting, you'll never get it.

It's a cheeky charge alright but sadly probably legal. Look at it this way, for canceling the point, you make the money back in 2 months.

They really do know how to annoy customers, I'm yet to find any company with such an excellent customer contempt department.