[octatonic]

Ok I've sent this email to Neil Berkett.
Hopefully I get a response.

Neil,

I am contacting you as a last resort to try to get something done about my broadband connection.

For the last few months I have had terrible broadband performance.
I pay for an 'up to 50Mb' connection.
By my reckoning this should be a faster connection than the 20Mb or 30Mb connections that are cheaper.
I realise that I am unlikely to get the full 50Mb at all times but lately (esp the last month) I have been getting speeds that are very much sub-par and indeed slower than both a 3G iPhone and even dialup.
I get , on average, less than 1Mb/s.

I have struggled to get a sensible response from Virgin Media staff and engineers who have acknowledged that there is a utilisation issue but they have wasted my time by trying pointless attempts to placate me by sending out engineers when they know full well that their attempts would be fruitless.
The general response from Virgin staff has been 'nothing we can do about it for a month or so' albeit couched in polite language.
This simply isn't acceptable.

In the last month I have had two engineers out to my house.
The first was due to come out on the 26th of September but did not turn up.
I waited in the entire day and lost a days pay, that I cannot afford to lose.

No explanation has been given for this other than an 'operator error'.
The next scheduled call out was on 28th.
He turned up that day but just put a 10db attenuator on my modem.
Frankly, I could have done that myself.
Again I missed a days work and pay.
This did nothing to address my speed issue as I knew it would not, and I stated that to the engineer.
His response was 'yes, probably not but I have to do it before I can do anything else'.

Another call out was booked to move my connection of my neighbours junction box and onto my own.
This did not occur until the 19th of October as an engineer was not available.
I was told that this would fix my issue.
It didn't as I knew it would not.

The engineer did however break my landline.
I am still waiting for an engineer to turn up to fix it.
They are supposed to be turning up tomorrow.
I need to wait in, again losing a days pay.

I was also told that there was a utilisation issue that was going to be fixed by the 25th of October.
Speaking to engineers last week they informed me that this date has been pushed back until either the 9th, 7th, 19th or 25th of November, depending on who I spoke to.
I have no faith that this date (whatever it is) will be adhered to and I am currently up a certain creek with out the necessary instrument.

So far I still have extremely slow broadband, I am out 3 days in lost wages that I cannot afford AND I have a broken landline.
This is very much a summary of what has happened- I have neglected to document in this email the number of calls to Virgin in the last month but believe me I have been calling ever few days and been passed from pillar to post.
When I tried to complain on Friday I was told that the technical support people would need to pass me to the customer service people.
Customer service needed to pass me to customer relations and the customer relations person couldn't log my complaint because it was a technical issue and then passed me back to technical support.

I am completely frustrated and annoyed with Virgin's recent incompetence and unwillingness to assist me.
I realise that things do not always go to plan but frankly, I have had too many of these instances in the last month and I must insist on Virgin doing better.

I would very much like a personal response from yourself or someone who can get something done rather than just give me a load of excuses and mistakes.

Regards,

[name, address and account number deleted]