update from Mr Leightley on 15 August 2003:
"Have just received a call from the Chief Executive's secretary - all outstanding amounts have been refunded and Wescot Debt Collection have been called off. Just a shame this couldn't have been resolved sooner without having to take this kind of action. My thanks however to clik2complaints for escalating this towards a resolution" Kevin Leightley
==================================

We also received an email from Head of PR at Telewest saying:
"Thank you for your message regarding Mr Kevin Leightley and for bringing the matter to our attention. We have investigated the situation and are contacting Mr Leightley to resolve the situation with him. While I would very much like it to be known that we have responded to your enquiry, I regret that we will not be paying the administration fee to post our reply. We believe the best way to resolve any discrepancies is directly with our customers"
==================================

We (clik2complaints Team) also believe the best way is for companies to respond promptly and fairly to their customer complaints. Regrettably, often this is not the case and consumers are left having to escalate the process in the public domain. We are proud of our role in this process.

This service is funded by freewill donations from consumers who support and use this website and from Right of Reply admin fee receipts.
Editor .. 16 August 2003
-----------------------------------------------

It New Year Eve, Telewest Digital Television is not working again! I have tried 20 times phoning their so called help line but it just says all the lines are busy and cuts you off. This is not a first, loss of service is mild compared to some of the issues l have had, transferring services back to my name after my tenants left took 4 months and over 30 phone calls as well as letters from both myself and the previous tennant.

Noone listens and it is impossible to get help when needed. They also tried to charge me for a cable box which they collected when l rented out the property to my tennants, Westcott Collections were involved and the saga went on for months. I tried to explain that l had no use for their cable box particularly as l was with NTL. This is the worst service you could ever experience, when there is a problem as a customer you are just not able to get to speak with anyone. If l ran my business like this l would have been bankrupt within days.

Telewest are very quick to chase payment or cut off services, but when they fail you they take absolutely no responsibility and we still get charged for days when there is a loss of service. How did l just know this would happen on the eve of a bank holiday,because you can count on Telewest to let you down.
Tania Salman ... 1 January 2004
-------------------------------------------------------------
Moved address and due the long delay in being able to transfer cable services, Telewest agreed to cancel my cable TV/Phone account. Telewest were obviously aware of my new address at the time. Telewest cancelled all Direct Debits relating to the account without warning me, leaving me under the impression that as the account was settled via DD that any outstanding amounts had been paid. After a couple of months I received a letter at my new address from a Debt Collection agency (Wescot) claiming an oustanding balance of 35.03.

I stated that I knew nothing of this, but was happy to pay the outstanding balance upon receipt of a statement or final bill showing where the amount was from. I also spoke to Telewest requesting this, yet they claim that numerous reminders were sent. Where to? My old address, yet they have my new
address!! OK, can you send a copy to my new address then please. "Yes".

Except apparently this, and 2 further copies were still sent to my old address. Further down the line, and numerous calls to Telewest, they still cannot and will not send this final invoice to my new address. Wescot are still threatening court action and neither company will provide a copy of a final invoice, a very simple request.

After further calls to Wescot, I have been made aware that Telewest are actually refusing to make a copy available to me, under the justification that they can't have a copy themselves!! This "default" has obviously been shown against my credit file, yet I have always offered to pay the oustanding amount if I can JUST HAVE A COPY OF MY FINAL INVOICE.

A letter to Telewest's accounts dept has failed to provoke a response, and I just keep advising Wescot that I will not pay unless I can be given a copy of my final invoice as proof of the oustanding amount. I would be most grateful if you could help in any way. Telewest just refuse to accept their role in this whole pathetic state of affairs. Alan Docherty ... 19 January 2004
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I have just experienced something similar with Telewest and their insufferably incompetent billing department (not to mention generally shoddy service - why oh why can't I have Sky back?). I paid a £135 bill by credit card back in May. I was told the payment did not go through. I used a second card. Subsequently both payments apperaed to have gone through. I was told by Telewest it would take at least 6 weeks to request a refund so I informed Telewest I would cancel one payment with Visa instead which Visa did immediately.

Now, many months later, I am surprised to find that my pay per view facility has been suspended because Telewest have, quite randomly, refunded the second £135 without telling me and put my account over it's credit limit. After an hour on the phone with various Telewest customer services representatives I was left FUMING - though this is entirely their fault, I was told they would not unblock the service which I will inevitably pay for and that even if I did pay the amount immediately (which I had not seen a bill for and, given their track record, had no intention of paying until I saw the credit on my card statement!) the service would not resume immediately or even, for that matter, on the same day.

I am in the fortunate position of being a freelance consumer journalist and I am in the process of preparing a vitriolic piece of editorial on Telewest and their customer 'support' for a magazine with a readership in excess of 150,000 which will appear in the next few weeks and which I will be forwarding to all the relevant management and PR representatives at Telewest. I would switch back to Sky immediately where I had NO problems with either service or billing, but I am held ransom by the fact that the live work complex I live in is entirely serviced by Telewest. Mark C.O'Flaherty.......03 September 2003
------------------------------------------------
I have been without a telephone service since 28th August. An engineer has been booked to come and fix the problem, but on both occasions they didn't show up. We now have to wait until Saturday 20th September before another engineer is due to call.

My complaints are,

1 The length of time it has taken so far, but still no working telephone
2 Having to continually call Telewest to resolve issue. Telewest don't call if the engineer is cancelled\ resheduled.
3 Telewest don't have a free phone number, so have to pay for call (moble/call box) while waiting to get through.
4 There is a fault in the phone system, but if you call our home number it just rings, so people think we are out, ignoring the phone, unconsious or worse....... Andrew Holt ... 15 September 2003
---------------------------------------------------
Telewest, my nightmare! Why can't they provide the service you paid for?

A week after connecting back to Telewest Blue Yonder dial-up, I experience it all again. You know that it is Telewest problem when you can call your 'Pay as you go' ISP but not Telewest an nothing has change since you last manage to log on. As per what a good consumer would do, I log on to the Blue Yonder dial-up status webpage to see if the server is down. Yes, it's up and running. So I downloaded the instant support tool and of course, it did not provide any support.

Called 150 and all I had is recorded message. Called again and spoke to one of the Customer Assistant, who told me that there is nothing wrong with my phone line and there is noting wrong with the services. I have only one option if I want to dial in to Blue Yonder, call the 50p a minute helpdesk. Did I call? Of course not, why should I, when I know that all that will happen is me paying 50p per minute. I am better of using my other 1p a minute ISP and after all, I paid 13 per month for this service and it should really come with free phone support.

If I am not restricted by the fact that I can only use Blue Yonder monthly dial-up service, I would have use another ISP from the beginning.
Will call up Telewest today to cancel the whole package and switch over to BT, hopefully that will end my nightmare. Isaac ong ... 20 October 2003
---------------------------------------------------
Telewest are horrendous. On their website they have an email address for customer services but never reply when you send them an email. Their ebilling system is unreal. I recently paid a bill using a switch card, it has come out of my account but they are still showing it as unpaid. I have contacted them on numerous occasions but nothing is done. I also had a special deal on surf unlimited as I had moved to BT but came back for the offer, they now tell me this has been cancelled, no reason given. They are also offering free digital tv to new customers for a year, this is not available to existing, loyal customers. For some reason I have not received a bill for 6 months, I was cut off once not knowing because they had not informed me by mail. When it comes to Telewest be afraid be very very afraid! Phillip Wright ... 3 November 2003
---------------------------------------------------
Once one of their reps came to our house. After agreeing to have their television and,telephone service and, providing sufficient proof of my identity, they refused to connect me.Thats because, a previous tennant owed them money and, they did not believe who, I was.Strangely enough though, they still waste money sending me countless letters in the mail offering me their services.Obviously, in the case of other Telewest customers the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing! David Kowal .... 14 November 2003
--------------------------------------------------
Hoping to use service 21.30 hours 31/12/03. no joy please cancel contract. pathetic. supply what you advertise. direct debit will be cancelled.
David Stokes ... 31 December 2003