TV Drive/On Demand/Customer Service problem

[TurtlePoo]

I live in the Scunthorpe area and had my TV Drive installed last Wednesday. When ordering the box I confirmed with the salesperson that I would be able to use the on demand service as this was my main reason for choosing ntl over Sky+

When the engineer installed the box, he said that it may take up to 24 hours for the on demand service to start working.

When on demand was still not working over 24 hours later (Thursday), we called ntl only to be told that the box hadn't been registered for the service, that this had now been done and that it will start working within the next 24 hours.

Two days later (Saturday) and the service was still not working so another call was made. This time, the ntl Customer unservice representitive said that there was a known problem with on demand in the area, that they were working on it but that the fault had been placed on the 'back burner' as it was not considered important. They argued that I don't really need on demand as I could record whatever I wanted with my new box and watch it 'on demand' anyway. Not good if you want to purchase a film or sport event.

The next day (Sunday) we called again having discovered that a friend in our area does have a working on demand service allbeit through an old Pace box. This time we were told that a fix would be downloaded to our box at 4:30pm and that the service would start working shortly afterwards. If it wasn't working by 4:50pm we were to unplug our box from the mains for 10 minutes and then plug it back in. This, they said, would get it working but if not we should ring straight back. Of course, by the time we had tried this and realised we had been lied to again, we were unable to get through to anybody who could mend TV Drives (after all, it was 5:15pm on a Sunday)

When we rang the next day (Monday) we were told that as the software fix had not fixed the problem our fault had been escallated to a priority 1. Can you imagine how excited I felt when I was told that an engineer would call us personally on the telephone in the next 24 hours to resolve our fault? Can you imagine how unsurprised I was when nobody did? And to think I moved over from Sky for this!!!

Anyway, if anyone from ntl (who is capable of reading) happens upon this please sort our on demand service out. Look us up on your ever-growing fault log, our postcode is DN17 2HG and the message we get is:

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Attention
On Demand is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

If the problem persists, call Customer Care on 0845 454 0000. Calls cost up to 5p/min + 6p connection from an ntl phone.
Charges may vary for other networks. Quote 1051/502

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Note the subtle way of making money from the customer's misfortune.

Of course, if anybody has any comments regarding this post please feel free to add them. It could provide some entertainment as there's nothing on the telly I want to watch.

Regards,

TurtlePoo

[Bob]

You can avoid paying for your call by dialling 151 from your NTL landline

[TurtlePoo]

Originally Posted by Bob

You can avoid paying for your call by dialling 151 from your NTL landline

Thanks for this, I could also avoid paying for my calls by cancelling my direct debit!

[quadplay]

Hi

There's currently a configuration problem with the new VoD servers which are required for the TVDrive. New configurations have been created and are now being rolled out as quickly as possible (there's a thread about VoD now working on TVDrive in Coventry which shows it's been rolled out there!)

The TVDrive boxes currently access different VoD servers to the standard STBs, which explains why your friend can access the service but you can't.

[Stephen]

What Quad said

I've had my TV Drive since October and still only have a small selection of VOD due to the new servers.

[TurtlePoo]

Originally Posted by quadplay

Hi

There's currently a configuration problem with the new VoD servers which are required for the TVDrive. New configurations have been created and are now being rolled out as quickly as possible (there's a thread about VoD now working on TVDrive in Coventry which shows it's been rolled out there!)

The TVDrive boxes currently access different VoD servers to the standard STBs, which explains why your friend can access the service but you can't.

Hmmm.... I wish the salesperson had told me about this at the time then I would have waited. Additionally, it would be nice if ntl had been honest about this when I rang to ask why the service was unavailable. This looks like a classic case of 'breach of contract', I can feel a letter to the Directors coming on!!

Thanks anyway, at least I now know that I'm wasting my time trying.

Is there a cancellation clause in ntl's contract? I haven't yet got around to looking.

[TurtlePoo]

Update:

I moaned to NTL a few times more and got a different excuse each time. Anyway, after an engineer's visit last Thursday (when I was told that it was a problem with the software on my box that would be resolved on the 14th Feb when the Virgin Media roll out apparently arrives) my VOD suddenly started working overnight on Friday... A good result!!

[TurtlePoo]

Yippee... it finally works on the TVDrive PVR. An almost complete selection too..

[Rob]

Glad it's fixed for you, but there is a limit on how many threads we need covering VOD type issues on the TV drive

I've merged the two threads.