Transferring to NTL Freedom when moving house

[FelixL]

Hello all,

I've currently got NTL Broadband, Phone and Digital TV services, and am about 8 months into my contract. I'm moving house to an area without NTL cable soon, and foolishly believed the salesperson when he told me that if we moved to non-NTL area we'd be able to cancel our contract without charge.
I've read some posts here about similar situations, but didn't find an answer to the following question:

If I transfer to an NTL Freedom package at my new address, is it standard NTL policy to require that I sign a new 12-month contract?
I've called customer services a number of times in the last few days and seem to get a different answer every time...
Thanks!

[paulyoung666]

hi and to the site , i would hope that all you will be tied into is the rest of your existing 12 month contract , i may be wrong though , i also hope you enjoy your stay here

[Chris W]

You will be required to sign a 12 month contact with ntl:freedom.

ntl can cancel your existing contract before the 12months initial period is over- but this is done at their discretion. Moving house is **sometimes** something that can trigger this.

However, if you are going for ADSL i would not recommend freedom- you can find plenty of providers who offer similar prices and do not charge 75ppm for technical support

[FelixL]

Thanks for your replies!

I'm in a bit of a dilemna now. I really don't want to sign a new 12 month contract with NTL Freedom, as NTL customer services has probably reduced my life expectancy by about 5 years
My broadband didnt work for 6 weeks as a customer service rep "accidently de-activated it" and it took 10 hours' worth of calls to re-activate, I've been repeatedly biled incorrectly, my phone line was faulty and 5 consecutive engineers didn't turn up to appointments, etc etc.
I've stupidly left it extremely late (based on more customer service "information") - I'm moving this tuesday, and don't think there's any chance I'll get a response to a letter by then.
Does anyone know of anyone I can contact to sort this out quickly? If not, does anyone have any advice? Should I sign the new 12-month contract with NTL Freedom and then try and get out of it afterwards (I'm presuming that once I've signed the new contract I stand little chance of cancelling it without charge...)
Any help much appreciated!

[bob_builder]

I would recommend first downgrading all your services to the minimum packages (basepack TV + telephone at £19.50 per month and £17.99 broadband). I would then try to see if NTL will let you cancel because you are moving out of a NTL area. If not then the worse they can charge you would be 4x(£17.99+£19.50) to finish the contract.

If you move to Freedom you will start a new 12 month contract (and rightly so since NTL have to give you a new ADSL modem, set you up and provision your service on a new line). If you then decide to cancel you would have to pay out up to 12 months of Freedom (£24.99 per month).

[FelixL]

Thanks Bob. From what I can gather from other threads here and from what NTL customer services say, I stand little chance of cancelling the remainder of the contract on the grounds that I'm moving to a non-NTL area. There doesn't seem to be a clause on this in the t&c, and it seems as if they've changed their 'unwritten policy' for this kind of scenario since the creation of NTL Freedom.

What are my chances of termination the contract without charge on the grounds of 1. poor service and 2. the false information (namely that I could cancel if I moved to a non-NTL area) provided verbally by the salesperson?

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by FelixL

What are my chances of termination the contract without charge on the grounds of 1. poor service and 2. the false information (namely that I could cancel if I moved to a non-NTL area) provided verbally by the salesperson?

I am sure you could write to NTL and claim the above. How much use it will be is anybody's guess. You might be lucky and get NTL to waive the rest of the contract, you may find they will meet you half-way and you would only have to pay half the cost. However, whatever outcome it makes sense to limit the maximum damages by downgrading beforehand.

Technically, the salesperson did not provide false information as that was the policy at the time. However, as you say, NTL have now changed this "unwritten" policy but since it is not in your contract you cannot hold NTL to it. You may, however, persuade NTL to be lenient in light of this fact.

[FelixL]

Cheers.

I'm probably going to reluctantly sign up with NTL freedom, as they have broadband at £16.99 pm, so I could effectively get 8-odd months of broadband for the cost of seeing out my old contract.
I suppose there's a chance NTL might cancel my old contract in response to a letter, but I don't feel like taking the risk... unless anyone here knows of people who've been succesful in this kind of situation...