NTL:home - TV, Telephone & Broadband Internet

I think that I have about had it with Virgin.

I have had around 8 call outs in the last 6 weeks, mainly due to freezing screen, slow remote reaction, stalling channels.

They have replaced every piece of equipment during that time.

They also did some work inside the network box in the street.

Nothing improved. On Saturday it was dreadful and I have not been able to access any Video-on-Demand services. They said it needed for specialist engineers to investigate and they would call me within 72 hours. No one called me back.

I phoned on Monday and again they said the engineers would want to speak with me... so I been waiting. Today I phoned again and now apparently they are having a major problem throughout my area and it could be offline until 18th June! Such madness!

I am planning to let this all continue and am logging everything.

In the next 72 hours I intend making an appeal direct to Branson via a YouTube broadcast.

They continue to fail to deliver any real level of service.

The engineers that visit are unmotivated and don't seem happy in their work.

I always make them a coffee and chat with them. They seem frustrated and all confirm that the Network itself is knackered and old and out of date.

Personally I cannot see Virgin making it. On paper it all seems so wonderful but in reality it is dreadful.

Is there any formal body we can band together to take action against them? They are not providing the service they promise us. Surely there must be some way we can stop them signing up new customers?

I will post my YouTube link on here once I have broadcast it.

I hope to show the Screen Freezing, the error messages - if I get an engineer maybe a short clip of him/her pretending to fix the service.

Anyone interesting in joining me take action against them please get in touch.

This review is based on Virgin Media (previously NTL).

I joined virgin net as a broadband customer in June 06, mainly due to their 'non 12 month non contract'. i.e you didn't have to sign up for a 12 month period. When NTL announced it was merging and creating a whole new company called Virgin Media I was delighted. From some of my reviews you can see I have a love hate relationship with the Virgin group of companies. Some I love, some I absolutely detest. I duly called the number on the leaflet sent to me by the lovely Mr Branson and inquired about changing my virgin net broadband account over to a 3 for £30 package (TV, BB and phone). Within 20 seconds of phoning I was speaking to a live person which shocked the life out of me. The gentleman I spoke to was very helpful, said it wouldn't be a problem to set up a package and confirmed I wouldn't be liable for the £50 release fee that virgin net charges for its non 12 month non contract as I was staying within the Virgin group of companies. He suggested I cancel my BT line, giving the 14 days notice they require and then call back and someone would set up my new package for me. He explained the procedures and waiting times for installation and was totally on the ball. Therefore I called BT cancelled my line, giving the notice required and called Virgin Media back.

Thats when the fun started.

I called the same number and again within a few seconds I was speaking to a young girl. I explained the situation and she said she would have to transfer me to another dept. (Didn't sound like that there was much up top if you catch my drift so I wasn't too unhappy about being transferred). I was put on hold for about 10 mins until I get to someone in Sales. Thats where it got too complicated for the the computer systems again. They had my flat number down at the right house number (i.e flat 5, no 21 somewhere road) with my virgin net account but with a post code which stated I wasn't in a cabled area. My neighbour however in flat 4 was cabled (I was talking to the NTL installation man in the summer while he set the damm thing up), but her address was down simply as 21 somewhere road but with no flat number and with a different post code. Well this blew this little man's mind and he told me to call another number and leave a message and someone would physically go out on the road, visit the flats and sort out the flat/house numbers. So I'm waiting, and waiting and still have not heard anything. To date, I have virgin.net broadband at my flat at my house number and with one postcode and not able to be cabled. My neighbour apparently in the same block of 5 flats, has a different postcode, is in a cabled area and owns the entire building according to Virgin Media. BTW my suggestion to just send me a set top box so I can feed off my neighbours cable as we, according to Virgin Media, were in the same house and not different flats, didn't go down very well. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

Unfortunately for me i am stuck with them. As in my area I can get sky because of the type of building i live in and unfortunately can't get freeview because of the aerial.

I dread to call to report a fault or to query an issue on my bill as each time i speak to them i get ever so fraustrated with their service. Only one time will can i say i spoke to someone who was so understanding and nice however he too didn't live up to his promises of call back. Charging you £4 for non direct debit handling charges i would say is extortion as most if not all other companies charge £2 which is reasonable.

In general they are one of the worst companies to do business with in my view, they have a customer charter but do not live up to this, they need a whole new revamp of the people that works for them and their customer service policy.

Soon we're switching from NTL:home - TV, Telephone & Broadband Internet, I've had enough!

1)Picture freezes for a couple of seconds every day on a daily basis.

2)On-screen TV guide is frequently either wrong or not working.

3)Set-top box needs to be switched off + on at the plug to unfreeze it about once a week.

I have had NTL for a few years now and as with other users had a nightmare getting it installed correctly and had to have them back several times. The installers are not allowed to drill through ceilings but can drill through walls and I had to: 1. Insist they bring the cable around to side of house and drill through wall rather than drape cable across my wood floor and risk killing me in a trip accident. 2. Insist they take the cable up the front of house and drill through wall to cable to broadband point in bedroom rather than drape from set top box downstairs, through a doorway (so cannot close door), up the stairs and through another doorway...etc. As long as you are prepared for insisting on a sensible installation then don't bother.

Once installed made numerous calls as had constant error messages and tv box froze. In the end a manager came round to fix it! This was not before I almost went insane with NTL customer service. They even blocked my number when I called (when you tell you are asked to tap in your phone number and I believe as I kept complaining they blocked my calls cause when I tapped in a slightly different number I was put through!).

Tip: When you call go to "www.saynoto0870.com" and get the latest freephone 0800 number, otherwise you pay 5p per minute for the 0845 number and 10p per min for the 0870 number. Also have a look at www.ntlhell.co.uk as there is some gd info on "how to's" like how to cancel your contract (if you write, there is a letter to copy, the best telephone numbers, and if you call, get the person's name and employee number as proof of call, etc.).

I am moving in a few weeks and am now trying to cancel my own contract. I would have cancelled long ago but I just couldn't face the hassle of it, so now I am being forced to. I can only ring to cancel Mon-Fri 9am to 5pm. As I am at work these hours and cannot hold for an hour at a time I am getting my mum to do it. I feel very guilty for doing this!! I will give an update on my experience as it progresses - my 2 biggest worries are not having the equipment collected before I move and continuing to be billed after I have moved.

So what will I have when I move? My mum has had Sky for years and although she has had her problems I can honestly say it does not come close to NTL aggravation! I have used her Sky system myself when staying there and I love it. NTL just doesn't compare!

In short: if you value your time and sanity, then do not go the NTL route.

Where do I begin?

My wife and I had been thinking of having a landline installed into our home and having an Internet service as well. Previously we had relied on having a mobile phone each but needed to get one because of work etc.

WOW!

We couldn't believe our eyes when we stumbled on an advertisement for TV, Phoneline AND broadband Internet service for just £15.00 per month with NTL.

My wife contacted the number that evening and within 5 minutes installation had been arranged. I phoned in work and booked a days holiday for the installation date. 'Charlie' came along as promised at the set time and merrily began to set up the installation, he was friendly, chatty and efficient.

... AND THAT'S WERE THE GOOD COMMENTS END!

Everything was in place and 'Charlie' said that he would have to go to the outside box on Y..... Street to finalise the setup. 10 minutes later he had returned with a puzzled look on his face. Apparently there was no cable in the outside box...... and things just snowballed and got worse and worse from here on.

First of all NTL had no cable to complete the job and would have to buy some in? WHAT? A cable and wireless company having no cables -strange!

I was told that NTL would come back the following day, so I booked yet another days holiday. That morning I phoned to confirm that they were coming (just in case) - NO! The excuse was the supervisor should not have told us that without first confirming it with the installation team. Another phone call using my mobile which by now had clocked up £20.00 in calls as the automated service keeps asking you for your landline number, HELLO - you haven't switched our phone on yet!!!!! Then you get passed from pillar to post until someone decides they can help - then they pass you onto someone you have already spoken to. By this time we had decided to tell NTL to forget it and to come and collect their equipment which they agreed to do.

Next, I get a text on my mobile to say that installation would be carried out definitely on the following Monday morning, so cautiously (and mostly out of curiosity) I agreed. I booked another days holiday from work! Many thanks to my boss for being so understanding!

Monday morning came..... and went... and I make another phone call (£8.50) and was told they would be there at 1.00 pm.

As promised (huh!) NTL turned up at just after 1.00 (2 of them this time) and started to dig the garden up to do something called a re-pull. They pushed cable into the hole they had made then set about looking for its exit point. 4 o'clock came and they still hadn't found the end of the cable. By this time I couldn't help laughing at the puzzled faces as they scratched their heads and walked up and down the streets looking for it - honestly, it was a joke!

Finally they found the cable, connected it, phoned me on the now connected landline to check it was working....... and left?

I now had to figure out how to use the newly installed digital box and more annoyingly, had to set up the broadband Internet myself. By the way, the channels you get on TV are exactly the same as you get with a freeview box which you can pick up for about £15.00 at the supermarket.

This is my experience of having the £15.00 TV, Broadband and Phone offer from NTL. It cost me 3 days off work, about £40.00 in phone calls, endless hassle off the kids for having no TV for over 3 days, a mess in the garden and then...........

(SIGH)

I get another text on my mobile to say that installation will definitely be carried out tomorrow. I didn't tell them..... well would you......?

This morning I have received a bill for £30.00! I will have to phone NTL about my bill...... or maybe not?

In my opinion, do not use NTL, they only want to know when they are selling you the packages, after that.... FORGET IT!

I had the NTL:home TV packages. The picture quality was very poor. The screen kept freezing. Weekends tended to be very bad in service (most often things went wrong). The pay to view films would suddenly freeze, and leave us with NO film to watch and a bill for it!!

We moved to Sky, and we are much much happier now.

I was with NTL cable broadband for 2 years, and I received an absolute dire service. The broadband speed was more like dial-up, and I was unable to access their email. Customer care was non-existent, and they seemed to blame me for the broadband speed, when it was clearly them that had server problems. I moved, and there was no way I was taking it with me, and they even had problems understanding this, and still billed me for a service that I was no longer connected to.

You get what you pay for. A cheap price, but you get cheap service.

I have been using NTL for several years but spend fair amount of time phoning them to sort out monthly bills. I have never requested an upgrade in any service yet they just seem to add extras without actually providing anything.

I had NTL Broadband installed, but no user-name or number was given to me. I tried to cancel my subscription because of this service, and so I called the helpline. I got through to an adviser who was obviously not based in the UK, as he could not understand a word I was saying. I wanted to cancel my subscription, but since I had no user-name, I had to give him my name and address. After fifteen minutes of trying to spell my surname, I mistakenly thought he had finally got it. I was charged month after month thereafter, because the adviser assured me my subscription would be cancelled and it wasn't. I refused to pay, and I was threatened with legal action to make me pay. Letters to the customer service department went unanswered.

It is now sorted out after six months and many letters.