NTL Customer Service

Background: I do PC repairs, upgrades, new builds and general problem solving in and around a small town in South-East England. Most of my clients are private individuals, a few (very) small businesses.

One Friday afternoon I was in London, seeing a friend off at Euston. I get a call from a new client - he's just had NTL cable installed but can't get on the 'net. He does have TV and phone, no internet though. He really needs me to come straight away. OK, I say, I'll stop by his place on my way back from London.

Got there, get to his computer. They've rigged a network connection between the computer in the bedroom and the cable modem in the living room (not an unusual setup.) What is unusual is that he has 2 operating systems installed on his computer - both Windows XP. He says that NTL customer service told him to reinstall XP, because his XP was corrupt and that's why he couldn't go on the internet.

/right.

Apparently they talked him through tweaking a series of settings and when that didn't work they decided XP was corrupt. They also talked him through the reinstallation process and that's how he ended up with two identical OS on his computer. He was also pretty upset that he lost some stuff that was pretty important to him. No, they didn't tell him to back up before reinstalling.

//ok, so maybe he didn't quite understand what and how exactly they were telling him to do...

I spend the rest of the evening backing up his old files (they were still there, he just didn't know how to find them), formatting the hard drive and doing a completely fresh install. At the end of it, still no connection. I tell them I'll come back the next morning with my laptop and a network cable and see if that connects.

Next day, I set up my laptop with my network cable. No connection. But, the cable modem also has the option of connecting through USB. Try USB, still no connection - although, this time I can see the modem and its IP address assigned by NTL. Time to call NTL.

After holding for what seems like en eternity, the call is answered by "Maria", who has (I think) a Polish accent. I explain the problem to her. She proceeds to talk me through a series of steps, most of which I'd already done. From previous experience with various so-called customer support services, I figure, they've got a script, they've got to go through it, so be it. Any comments of mine are - as expected - ignored. I get the feeling she doesn't even understand what I'm talking about. Maybe she doesn't understand my accent.

At the end of the process we're right where we started - that is, no internet connection.

Here I've got to recap the situation - we had a new cable installation; two separate computers could not connect to the internet through it; one of them running XP, the other Win98 (ok, so it's an old laptop); we do have TV, we do have phone, but no internet.

So, at this stage "Maria" tells me I've got to reinstall Windows. It's corrupt.

I tell "Maria" that I had accessed the internet via the same laptop, at my home that morning. Through my network. It doesn't matter, she says, you were probably accessing a normal internet page, we need you to access a secure NTL site to validate your sign-in as a new customer, and if you can't, that means your Windows installation is corrupt. There's a file in Windows that is used only when you acees a secure SSL site, and it must be corrupt. You need to reinstall Windows. I tell her I did actually access a secure site that morning, my bank. Ah, she says, but the NTL SSL site is a special site, which needs that file. You need to reinstall Windows.

I try to reason with her. Look, I say, we've got two separate computers, one running XP, one running W98. It doesn't make sense that both have the same corruption, especially since one of them functioned perfectly well just a few hours before. It must be the modem, please send your engineer to reconfigure the cable modem - or replace it if need be. "Maria" repeats that I have to reinstall Windows.

At this point I ask to speak to a supervisor. She won't put me through. I argue. After a few long minutes of back and forth arguments, she finally relents and puts me through to a supervisor.

The supervisor's obviously been told I'm a difficult customer and is very curt. He takes me through the same steps I've been through with our "Maria". I tell him we've done that and ask whether we can skip it and move to diagnostics from his side. He loses his temper and shouts at me. I ask him whether he's irritable that morning and would he like to pass me to someone less stressed. He calms down and decides to skip the rest of the steps - after I reiterate that two separate computers on two separate network cables can not access the internet and it can't be both have developed the same fault. Yes, he says, on the face of it, looks like you have a point there.

To cut the rest of the story short, he checked the modem settings from his side, found where the configuration done by the NTL engineer the previous day was wrong and reset it. We then had internet connection through the USB cable, but not through the network cable. He promised to send an engineer on Monday to check and fix the network connection.

The final end to the story: on Monday afternoon the client called to tell me that the engineer had come and replaced the faulty network cable he had installed the previous Friday and they finally could access the internet through their computer.

So, the NTL engineer installed a cable modem and configured it incorrectly; installed a faulty network cable; did not check either connection; and NTL customer service steadfastly maintained the customer's Windows files were corrupt and that they had to reinstall Windows. I wonder, had I not insisted on speaking to a supervisor and held my ground with him as well - I wonder how many times NTL would've made these people reinstall Windows before they decided to check their own cable installation. I also wonder how many other people had similar experiences with them - and others, because this is a problem that's not confined to this ISP only.