Road works preventing installation?

[brettjbuckley]

I moved house last weekend and NTL were scheduled to reconnect my services on the Saturday afternoon. This date was booked weeks in advance and I even phoned twice earlier in the week to double check that it was booked. It was - between 1pm and 5pm.

Saturday afternoon arrived...and went. No installation engineers - no phone calls. It was a waste of time waiting in for them.

Customer services were of course closed until Monday morning. I phoned them from a friend's house. The best that they could suggest was that a note had been placed on my account suggesting that "further construction was necessary before installation could commence". Something to do with roadworks was mentioned.

There are no roadworks anywhere near my new house!! And anyway - cannot the engineers report back to the office and inform the customer? I thought this was a communications company???

I am reserving my fury for the right moment.

Brett.

[Neil]

Sounds like ntl BS to me I'm afraid-if there was an 'issue', why did no one contact you to inform you? :rolleyes:

1) Did you get the names of the people you spoke to?

2) Do any of your neighbours have ntl services?

[paulyoung666]

@ brettjbuckley , ok so it could be ntl b/s , but ............ , the roadworks might miles away and still cause problems , i agree with neil though , you should definitely been contacted :mad:

[Mr_Burns]

What part of the country are you in? Depending on what exactly the problem is, it might not have been possible to rectify it on the day of install. ntl, by law, has to give notice to the local authority if they need to dig the pavement/road up before any excavation takes place. The construction problem may have only come to light when the install crew came to pull the cable to your house. Did the previous occupants have ntl installed?

However, that doesn't excuse the fact that noone told you that they weren't coming. It would be interesting to find out what time they put the install down - were you the last job of the day and were the local football team playing at home that afternoon? ;)

[wheeliebin]

I moved house last weekend and NTL were scheduled to reconnect my services on the Saturday afternoon. This date was booked weeks in advance and I even phoned twice earlier in the week to double check that it was booked. It was - between 1pm and 5pm.

Saturday afternoon arrived...and went. No installation engineers - no phone calls. It was a waste of time waiting in for them.

Customer services were of course closed until Monday morning. I phoned them from a friend's house. The best that they could suggest was that a note had been placed on my account suggesting that "further construction was necessary before installation could commence". Something to do with roadworks was mentioned.

There are no roadworks anywhere near my new house!! And anyway - cannot the engineers report back to the office and inform the customer? I thought this was a communications company???

I am reserving my fury for the right moment.

Brett.


Sounds to me like a possible blocked/missing duct problem outside of your property. But as for not knocking on to your house and telling you :mad:

Poor show!

[brettjbuckley]

The latest in the saga is that the "roadworks" were apparently completed on Wendesday of this week. The girl who I was speaking with on Monday morning suggested that she was "personally looking into the problem" and would phone to keep me informed when the roadworks were completed and arrange another installation date. The other girl I spoke to on Tuesday was unable to offer any further help and couldn't contact the transfers department, instead sending them an email.

No phone call came.

I phoned on Thursday evening and spoke to a helpful chap called David who told me that a letter had been sent on the Wednesday and that the roadworks had apparently been completed the same day. He did his best to arrange an alternative date. Unfortunately, the earliest they can now manage is the 16th, due to the Easter rush.

So despite booking the house move 1 month in advance, I still suffer a 2-week services blackout and two helpdesk ladies who are unable to communicate with other departments correctly or even get back to me in person. However - "David" has proven extremely courteous and helpful and I shall mention his full name positively when my letter of complaint goes in.

To be continued...!

Incidentally, it is worth noting that on that Saturday afernoon it WAS the Grand National and it was also raining VERY heavily in my area. Not hard to imagine the rest if you're cynical enough. :)

[chickendippers]

Haha, the day you get a call from someone at ntl: CS will be the day hell freezes over. We've been told that we'll be phoned back loads but never have, I think it's a ploy to get you off the line.