UTV Internet are incompetent. I moved house a few months back. I already had a broadband connection setup in the new house so I wanted to close my Clicksilver account with my old provider, UTV Internet. I had also moved my landline rental to UTV Internet as I got free evening calls to Ireland and the UK from them.
After a couple of weeks, I rang UTV Internet and when I finally got through I was told – “No problem, all you have to do is send an email to admin@u.tv and they’ll take care of the rest.”
Cool, I sent that email on February 15th.
Last night (15 May) I received an email advising me that “Details of your April 2006 charges and telephony usage are now available” – no way!
I logged into my account online (hoping I would be unable to as my account had been closed these last three months) only to be presented with the following account statement.
Wtf? €78.56 for April? And a similar statement for March? I requested by phone and by email that this account be closed in February, you muppets. I followed the procedures you asked me to, so I could close the account.
I hate to think UTV Internet are purposefully making it difficult for people to close their accounts in order that they can gouge an extra few hundred Euro from them, so I have to think it is simply incompetence on their part.
God, I hope it is that they are simply incompetent and not that they are behaving criminally.
Anyone else had similar issues with UTV internet?
Edited to fix a couple of typos
I haven’t had any difficulties with UTV Internet, but I had a remarkably similar experience with Esatclear some years ago. I filled in the form which they sent me to transfer my account to a new address. Instead, they created a new account for me and charged me for both. I didn’t realise what was happening until I got forwarded post from the old address, at which stage the direct debit had gone through.
I had to argue with the customer support line to get them to close the account without waiting another month and their customer service department ignored correspondance about it.
I would guess that these organisations are deliberately not well connected up internally as there is no incentive for them to do. If they have a direct debit mandate, they can take money first and answer questions later.
The German telecom market got deregulated a couple of years ago, and since then a lot of new TelCo’s appeared. Though there has been quite a lot of concentration lately, the remaining companies are still in fierce competition.
The bi-weekly leading German IT magazine heise.de has a column called “Vorsicht, Kunde!” which roughly translates to “Beware, customer!” or “Customer alert!” where they report of outstanding BAD service. Almost every other issue deals with nightmarish customer experience with one of the German TelCo’s. What you report here would actually be not worth even mentioning in this section, since it is too normal, not outrageous enough.
Towards the end of each article, they confront the press liasion of each company with what has happened. In every single case it was “a sad exception – many apologies – a glitch in the system – a rep not yet trained etc.” and of course NOT comparable with their usual outstanding service. However the sheer number of those incidents, and the “I experienced the same” letters to the editor the following week, speak a clear language. Heise.de came to the conclusion that at least it’s drastic mis-management on the side of the TelCo’s, or else that these incidents are probably even tolerated. Commenters on the various posts regarding these issues even specualted that it might even be on purpose.
If you want to explain and excuse it, you can do so by the fierce competition the TelCo’s are exposed to. Probably they haven’t learned yet that good customer service can make a whole of a differnece.
guys you should be thankful that you did not get involved with NTL, took me 8 months to sort the mess they made out of me moving house and transferring the account.
One of the main problems is continuity, each time I rang I was advised that a different department would be dealing, the department I needed depended on the stage we were at with regard to a solution to the the problem. e.g. house moves to acounts to disputes to customer relations, in a never ending circle! Each tranfer to a new department meant another 20 to 30 minute wait in a call handling queue.
I lost the will to live in the end and paid a £40 penalty to close the account completely – by this stage it was £40 well spent.
Hi,
I am with UTVi for a few months now, but had moved house last week. I called eircom to have my line transferred, but was told that UTVi had taken over my line(had been trying since November last year). I had not been aware of this as UTVi never send me any mail to inform me. I called UTVi to arrange my line transfer, but was told to send a mail. They responded with “I do not know what to make of this”. Then I got a shock, I saw my credid card account for May, they had deducted €260 from my card and I have no idea for what.
Now, are they acting criminally or what? I am still trying to sort this one out!
Ed
Am just having same problem with UTV at present. Moved house last May and looked to cancel subscription as new house was not broadband ready. I made the mistake of writing to them(on paper) as they suggested so now have no paper trail. I too noticed the emailed bills kept coming so eventually got them to stop. Now though I have letter from a debt collector for these extra months. UTV dont want to know about it. As far as they are concerned its down to the debt collector do do their dirty work. Be very carefull cancelling with UTV. Use registered post and email. Best avoid them altogether.
Ironically, after my difficulties with Esatclear, UTV also messed me around when I moved very recently. They basically ignored an email request to cancel the account and close the line, continued to bill and left the line open for use by the new tenants of the house I had left. Fortunately, it was clear from the email trail that they were in the wrong, so they haven’t actually taken any money from me.
Just to give another experience on this.
I moved house last month and asked UTV to change my Clicksilver service to the new address. Though I had to wait 1 month for the transfer to be completed, it seems they have done the job all right. I still have to wait to see if they are going to charge me for the transfer, in theory they won’t, because my new house already had the line up and running.
The customer service was reasonably good. It is not a very quick process as I mentioned, so if you are planning to move house apply for the transfer at least 1 month in advance.
Let’s see what happens with the bill!
cheers
Adrian
UTV Internet are the worst service I have ever experienced. Their staff are so robotic it’s alarming. They are incapable of civil conversation save pointing out the rules and defending their incompetence. I’ve gone as high as the CEO who has been ignorant enough to ignore my letters and simple requests.
I will be notifying the Dept of Trade and Industry and feel it’s important we all do as they are hoping to get a countrywide contract here heaven help us if they do.
Darra.
UTV are a joke took them 31 days to setup 3mb dsl with them and
after more hastle than you can imagine I end up with a 800kb down access 128 up access. STEER WELL CLEAR I cant even change provider
as I’m contracted to them for a year of this shit service. The average call to tech support of which I’ve made many, seems to take 25 mins to even get to talk to some chap who cant sort out your problem. The usual answer is I’ll get a manager to ring you back
within 24 hours (they never do). IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY DON’T
AND I REPEAT DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT CALLING THEM
Moved house in February 11th! They took 30 to move my line and reduced it to a 2Mbit line for some reason! As of now (June) I’m still trying to get them to get it back to a 3 mbit! Most nights you’d be lucky to get a 1mbit! Crap service! Goons should be shut down!
I HATE UTV .!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I LAG SO BAD I DO NOT GO ON XBOX LIVE UTV R SO BAD ……….BT NEXT TIME ……..
ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GO 2 BT