NTL

Sometime around October last year, NTL decided to start charging an additional fee for the privilege of paying them by cheque. That rather annoyed me - I invariably forget to keep track of direct debits - but I acquiesced and set up the thing. They failed to draw the debit in November, and then decided to charge a £10 late payment fee when I didn't psychically realise this and send them a cheque anyway. I called them and cleared that up, and then didn't receive any further communications from them in December or January, so assumed everything was OK... until a couple of days ago, when I received a bill for all three months and a nasty letter threatening to cut off my service. Oh, and another late charge.

Was it wrong of me to assume that since they hadn't said anything, things were working properly? :

I called them again and got the second late charge cleared, and sent them a cheque for the rest of the amount - as well as restarting the direct debit - but yesterday my cable modem died and hasn't come back. So after today's lectures I shall be back on the phone to them. If it wasn't for the fact that they've been so nice about free speed upgrades in the past, I'd be close to shouting point by now...

This is a very whingy post, mostly because I have anxiety issues about telephone calls and this situation is forcing me to make lots of them. While technically I'm sure this is good for me, it's still a pain in the gluteus.