"Discount" From NTL Problem

[Leigh in Leeds]

New head-banger-against-the-wall here - if anyone can provide any assistance with how I can go about this, I'd be obliged.
I've been an NTL customer since Dec 96, when we moved into new house - TV, phone and internet - originally via TV box, then separate Broadband modem as soon as available.
As a bit of background, we were supposed to get a refund of all Broadband Internet rental charges (9 months worth) after a big, big problem getting it to work initially, but despite every engineer who came out to us telling us this was possible, and they would mark their call sheet records to show this should be done, ntl eventually refused to do this, despite having offered a three months' refund (£34.99 x 3) by email - email was from some lady in Scotland, who then disappeared off the face of the ntl-earth.
Even after this, I put on a brave face and stuck with them.Back in August 2005, I rang to get the Prem Plus football service added for the new season. The young lady I spoke to then was very helpful, as the general staff tend to be, in my experience. She added PremPlus, then went on to say as we had been customers for so long, we could have a discount - free Sky Sports for a year - "WOW!" I thought.
She also put us onto a new Talk plan for the phone, which better suited our use of it - we don't use the landline very much, as all household mobiles have calls included to a certain level.It was too late to get the discount organised until September, she told me, sure enough, September's bill arrived and a discount was there - £13.50 deducted.

Then October's bill came - no discount. I called and was told there was a note on our record to say we did not qualify for this discount, as out telephone Talk plan was not at the right level. The chap I was speaking to agreed that customers should be contacted to be told something like this, but it was not NTL policy(!)I eventually managed to get a Manchester address off him to write to in order to complain, which I did asking for a swift response in line with their published service standards.
No reply received of course.
I am mightily peeved at this and am inclined to switch all to BT and get Sky Plus - but if there is any assistance available from here, I would look to investigate this first. The fact I get no response to a complaint is bad enough, but to renege on a promise, without even telling me, I find morally abhorrent.

[sunder.aswani]

I am waiting for refund of charges since last month. They could have adjusted, and not charged me in this months bill, but they have not. only way is find another supplier, cancel direct debit and switch over.

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:45 ----------

I am waiting refund showing my account in credit, to goto my bank for nearly a month.

Best to contact one of the mods on this forum via PM, they have someone inside NTL who can sort things out quickly for you both.
Good luck!

[Rob]

Leigh in Leeds to Cable Forum

Do you still have the emails that confirmed the original discount? If so I don't see how ntl could refuse to honour that agreement. However, simple lapse of time might make it a bit difficult to realistically pursue. When did that offer occur?

The phone call plan and Sky Sports package bit is a bit more confusing. It does seem very poor practice that if a discount was agreed it can be revoked without specific notice, other than the bill itself. Maybe though you aren't using the phone as much as ntl expected you to for the call plan, so the computer isn't applying the discount Do you have any records of the conversation, or who you spoke with that said you would get this discount?

[Leigh in Leeds]

Quite amazingly, the emails from the "refund" exchange were all sent via the ntlworld email address. Within a week of them flatly denying any refund, all the emails in that account disappeared.

We did have trouble with that email address at first too, as it was receiving emails from loads of online companies addressed to some female of dubious credit down south, Lord only knows what the reason for that was. I've never used the ntlworld email address since, as - perhpas being an old cynic - I reckoned there was something fishy about the way all the emails in an inbox could be deleted just like that.

The girl who moved us onto the new phone package moved us onto it BECAUSE we don't use the landline much - she didn't tell us we needed to use it at any level and frankly I don't think she knew that was the case, or she wouldn't have done it. I've no idea who I spoke to, as I only rang in the first place to get PremPlus switche don, and she kindly offered to make our lot with NTL better, by rewarding us for being long time customers.

Needless to say, I do not feel rewarded at all!