[ruby0167]

I've been with Virgin and its many predessors for over 10 years for my tv and phone and about 7 or 8 for internet access. While not all of them were smooth going there was a period of about 2 years where I got to know every single Telewest TV engineer, how they liked their coffee and what biscuits they prefered. Sadly they never got to know what exactly was wrong with my TV (turn the signal up, turn it down, add this on the back, take this away - see you next Tuesday love). But that said I stuck with them because on the whole the customer service team were friendly, tried their best to sort things out and were understanding when it all got a bit much for me. I did have one rude technician, but after one phone call and an apology I never saw him again.
So things weren't perfect - life rarely is, but I honestly felt that on the whole they were trying and things worked out for the most part.
Then Virgin took over, and it was as if things were turned on their head. I got a mountain of junk mail through the door, all of it claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread and yet was sadly all carbs and no filling. A whole lotta talking but short on facts. And that really sums up my experience with Virgin. I've had 3 normal virgin boxes, I'm currently on my fourth V+ box, which is desperately balancing on its last leg and ready to fall This being any minute. Far from enriching my TV experience, it has served to be the stropy teenager sitting in the corner (making far too much noise) and in full control of the remote. The box doesn't respond when you push the buttons after 11pm, and yes I have changed the batteries, again and again and again. It only records when it feels like it (no recording clashes apparent, plenty of space on the hard drive), and when it does decide to record it will chop the begining or end of the programme off, or it will record the last few minutes and then carry on to record the programme after (or vice versa with the programme before), I've set the "extend recordings" to maximum, minimum and every combination in between. The box freezes, the picture freezes, the box resets itself at will - usually when recording something you've been looking forward to for a while. Oh and my box is numerically illiterate, delete a 45 minute programme and it will add 3 hours to space left on hard disk, then again sometimes it will subtract it!
This being my 4th V+ box with such problems I am sure the problem is not as "isolated" as the virgin support team want me to believe. And why exactly does it take "up to" 5 days to format my box? Why can't they do it then and there, especially when it would mean that I am not left waiting beyond that?

I have found the customer services department to be "nice but dim", friendly, apologetic on the whole, but about as much use as a chocolate teapot. The department that deals with you when you are threatening to leave are again polite and friendly, they do try to get things sorted, get very cross when things don't go to plan, but sadly you can never get through to the same person (even when you have their full name, department and extension), so you are forever going round and round in circles. The technical department are appauling. I am yet to speak to someone without a thick indian accent. Now i want to make this clear, i am not racist, but I object to spending so much time on the phone just trying to deciper what the other person is saying, feeling embarassed and stupid for not understanding them, and desperately trying not to sound angry when being patronised for fear of being interpretted as racist. This is made even for frustrating when said technician interupts you before you have said more than three words of explanation of what the problem is - sorry I made the call, I picked up the handset, dialled the number and therefore initated the dialogue, so i believe it only fair to have a fair chance to explan the need for said dialogue. Not good. Then you get some bogus, long, drawnout and confused technical explanation, when i explain that I have a first class honours in computing and am more than capable of understanding the basic concept of a network, suddenly the tone goes from appathy to anger, or is it panic that they have been caught out? I always make a point of being polite and patient with people who work in call centres, it's not their fault, they didn;t cause the problems and until I call aren't aware i have a problem. But some people really push this to the limit. Sadly most of Virgin's BB technical department have become expert at this.
I just want things fixed, I want Vrigin to be honest with me, have the decency to contact me when they change things (and not hide it in the small print of a huge amount of junk mail) and make every effort to fix it when things go wrong. When did it all get so complicated? I ask for x, y and z, you supply them to me and i will pay you an agreed price. Why do we need to go round and round? I'm sure my problem would have been sorted out months ago if people would stop the spin and be honest. That I could take, I could understand and work with.