We've got mail:A Dublin reader got in touch with us "in desperation" after what can only be described as an immensely frustrating NTL experience.

"I really don't know who else can help me and I'm at the very end of my tether," she writes.

At the beginning of December, NTL cut off her cable supply because of arrears owing on the account. She accepts that the money was owed but points out that a number of days before the account was disconnected, the arrears had been cleared.

On December 4th she rang to arrange for the service to be reconnected and was told that NTL couldn't get anyone out to reconnect it until December 7th between 9am and 1pm. "My house mate took the morning off work to wait for them." In vain as it turns out, as NTL stood her up. "I called that afternoon," our reader writes, "and was told that we would be reconnected on Tuesday, December 11th and that a manager would call me back. Nobody called me back." Having been left waiting once before, she called them 24 hours before the scheduled visit to check that they would still be calling only to be told that it would now be Wednesday, December 12th.

"So yet again, my housemate took the morning off work and yet again, nobody came. She made three phone calls and each time, when she asked to speak to a manager, she was cut off in the process. The very same thing happened to me on two occasions - I was cut off when they were 'transferring' me. And that's after being on hold for approximately 30 minutes on each call," she writes.

On December 13th she made contact with NTL again and was told that a site visit was not possible until December 18th and that a supervisor would call her back. They didn't. "Please help us. I don't know what else to do," she write. Well, we did. We contacted NTL's parent company UPC and within 24 hours our reader's service was reconnected. It also turned out that nobody had to be in the house for the reconnection - contrary to what all NTL "customer service agents" had been telling our reader for weeks.

We asked the company (and not for the first time over recent months), what had gone wrong and why so many appointments were not kept and if it had a policy in place when it came to standards of customer support.

We also inquired why, when our reader repeatedly called she was on each occasion told that someone would need to be at home for the NTL engineer to perform the reconnection, when that appears not to have been the case.

The spokeswoman said the reason the company insisted on someone being home when they call out to reconnect was "to make sure the service is up and running" and "to ensure the full service has been restored and if any additional cabling is required we are on site to carry out this task if necessary". She also said that having investigated the circumstances of what went wrong on this occasion "we found that the contractor had an incorrect number for the address/customer. This is what caused the error and customer was made aware with an apology. The details on the account have been updated accordingly."

Open and shut case

Andrew Dunne had cause to e-mail a complaint over a can opener to Tesco recently and was both amused and disconcerted by the response he received.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact Tesco Ireland," the automated response went. "Your e-mail will be processed as soon as possible. While it is not possible to respond to all e-mails directly, please be assured that your comments will be forwarded to the relevant department within our organisation." Are Tesco Ireland so inundated with customer complaints that it's "not possible to respond to all e-mails directly", he asks.

Dial a movie, pay a song

Laura Egar was "shocked" recently when she learned that the telephone booking system for Movies@Dundrum operated using a premium rate 1520 telephone number. She says she found it hard to believe that the company would be profiting from its booking line and says she also found it hard to find any information about the actual charges associated with these numbers.

Calls to such numbers are 15 cent per minute which does not compare favourably with a normal off-peak local calls which cost about 2 cent per minute and under 5 cent per minute at peak times. Sadly, the use of 1520 booking numbers is growing increasingly common and is by no means unique to this particular cinema chain. Most of the major cinemas operate such systems, particularly in Dublin. While it can take as long as five minutes to make your way through the tortuous automated bookings menu, there is one way to circumvent the charges. Many of the big cinemas now take online bookings - which removes the need to make any call.

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