NTL:home - TV, Telephone & Broadband Internet Review

Overall Rating

Haven't had the chance to find out yet. One customer service operator who was quite good

Pushed from pillar to post by other so called customer service operators (get the hint - its called 'service' for a reason)

This review is based on Virgin Media (previously NTL).
I joined virgin net as a broadband customer in June 06, mainly due to their 'non 12 month non contract'. i.e you didn't have to sign up for a 12 month period. When NTL announced it was merging and creating a whole new company called Virgin Media I was delighted. From some of my reviews you can see I have a love hate relationship with the Virgin group of companies. Some I love, some I absolutely detest. I duly called the number on the leaflet sent to me by the lovely Mr Branson and inquired about changing my virgin net broadband account over to a 3 for £30 package (TV, BB and phone). Within 20 seconds of phoning I was speaking to a live person which shocked the life out of me. The gentleman I spoke to was very helpful, said it wouldn't be a problem to set up a package and confirmed I wouldn't be liable for the £50 release fee that virgin net charges for its non 12 month non contract as I was staying within the Virgin group of companies. He suggested I cancel my BT line, giving the 14 days notice they require and then call back and someone would set up my new package for me. He explained the procedures and waiting times for installation and was totally on the ball. Therefore I called BT cancelled my line, giving the notice required and called Virgin Media back.
Thats when the fun started.
I called the same number and again within a few seconds I was speaking to a young girl. I explained the situation and she said she would have to transfer me to another dept. (Didn't sound like that there was much up top if you catch my drift so I wasn't too unhappy about being transferred). I was put on hold for about 10 mins until I get to someone in Sales. Thats where it got too complicated for the the computer systems again. They had my flat number down at the right house number (i.e flat 5, no 21 somewhere road) with my virgin net account but with a post code which stated I wasn't in a cabled area. My neighbour however in flat 4 was cabled (I was talking to the NTL installation man in the summer while he set the damm thing up), but her address was down simply as 21 somewhere road but with no flat number and with a different post code. Well this blew this little man's mind and he told me to call another number and leave a message and someone would physically go out on the road, visit the flats and sort out the flat/house numbers. So I'm waiting, and waiting and still have not heard anything. To date, I have virgin.net broadband at my flat at my house number and with one postcode and not able to be cabled. My neighbour apparently in the same block of 5 flats, has a different postcode, is in a cabled area and owns the entire building according to Virgin Media. BTW my suggestion to just send me a set top box so I can feed off my neighbours cable as we, according to Virgin Media, were in the same house and not different flats, didn't go down very well. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.