…and we’re back.
I haven’t posted in a while and I do apologize. I’ve been busy, between my job, other small projects and moving to a new flat I couldn’t find the time to write something meaningful on this space.
As I said I recently moved to a new flat, lovely, small but homely (nice and cozy is a real cliche that I wanted to avoid).
Anyway, back to the story. Cable. At my previous flat I had had a cable internet connection with Telewest. Good 4MBit cable, fast, never had a problem in 1 year, never had to call the support.
When I found this new flat and decided to move I called up Telewest and explained my situation, since according to their website the service was available also in the area I was moving to I asked for my internet connection to be moved to the new address rather than just deactivated.
No problem, they checked their system and confirmed that the service was indeed available in the area I was moving to. However, it wasn’t managed by Telewest but by NTL. Telewest’s partner (I believe NTL recently acquired Telewest). So, Telewest’s operator put me through to an NTL’s one who took my details and told me that my address wasn’t currently in their database and that they’d add it.
Telewest later confirmed that my internet connection would be deactivated Saturday morning since I was moving out on Sunday. The connection was, as promised, deactivated Saturday morning and up to this point all was going very well. My kudos to Telewest for the excellent and fast service.
The following Tuesday, having received no call from NTL, I decided to call them up. I managed to get through the automatic voice interface (a feat that I don’t oft manage) and get in the queue for the movers. The usual automatic voice informed me that they were experiencing a high number of calls and that I’d have had to wait for up to 20 minutes.
20 minutes! They must have just one operator handling all the calls. False, they have 13.
This is just an educated guess, and please let me explain how I came to this conclusion. After roughly 14 minutes on the phone listening to the music (I’d say awful music, but that’d be unfair. All phone-queueing-background-music become annoying after you’ve waited for a quarter of an hour) a girl with a strong scottish accent replied. I explained my situation, she asked for my details and told me that she couldn’t find anything on the system and that she’d put me through to the correct department.
Long story short, I spoke with 12 different operators, each and every one of them asked me for the same details (they should really find a way to hand account numbers and addresses over between the various departments). Finally the 12th dwarf, Foolick, decided that he definitely wasn’t part of the right department to help me and put me through to another operator. The same girl I talked to at the beginning.
So you see, 13 operators, I’d hate to think that I missed somebody in there.
That was definitely enough for one day. 35 minutes on the phone and nobody in there was able to give me any information regarding my line.
I decided to wait. Wednesday will be a better day I thought.
And indeed on wednesday I had to explain my situation and give my details to only three people before I eventually found somebody with more than half a brain. Great Success, as Borat would say.
Well, this person told me that I had to wait for the address to be added to their database and that the operation could take even a week. That answer did not satisfy me but it was enough to calm me down so I didn’t press the matter.
Today one week’s gone. Still no call. I called them up again, at the first try after 12 minutes in the movers queue I had to give up, my brain was starting to tell me to eat the mobile and kick in the crotch the first person that wandered in my office.
I decided that the only way to calm myself down was to discharge all my rage in a complaint email to NTL. I found the contact address on the website and sent a vitriol email.
Guess what, I received a reply in less than ten minutes which I quote here.
“Hi,
Thank you for your email.
This is an automated acknowledgement to inform you that your email has
been sent to the relevant ntl department…”
No way!!! Not again!!!!!
“…Due to the large volume of emails we receive, we cannot guarantee to reply
personally to each one.”
This seems to be their favorite defense.
Well, five minutes later I received another one:
“Dear Customer.
Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately, I am unable to process your enquiry in this department. Please contact Ntl Home Customer Services by dialling 0845 454 0000. Alternatively, please call one of the following numbers for support:…”
At which point I started screaming whilst rage was spuming out of my mouth.
I waited for roughly an hour and then I called up again. This time the second person I talked to (notice that it’s getting better) told me that she couldn’t find anything about me or my address in their database and that probably the building wasn’t serviceable. She also humbly apologized for the delay and all the inconvenience and told me that she would’ve called me up later during the afternoon with some more details.
Well, I’m here writing, no phone call yet. I give up. No internet connection for me.
Oh I also forgot to mention that during all my phone calls at random intervals the queueing music stopped to give space to a recorded voice informing me that NTL is changing and that they’re making their service even better.
How can they make it better! it’s already spectacular!
So I had given up, I thought it was over with NTL. But when I arrived at home this evening I found something interesting in the mail. To top it all up NTL sent me a flyer telling me that I should get a cable connection.
Bottom-line, let me rephrase the punch-line of their Ad: Cable, you should, IF YOU CAN!
Take it easy.
P.S. If you’re wondering how I posted this on the blog having no internet connection the answer is… The neighbor does and also has an unprotected wireless network 
