More Virgin Media Idiocy

Long-standing readers of this blog will know that I have a long-standing hatred of Virgin Media, having been repeatedly let down and inconvenienced by the Frankenstein's Monster of entertainment and communication providers (see this, this and this post for starters). You'll be glad to discover that absolutely nothing has changed - the fuck-ups continue.

Our broadband access went down on Friday night and, having tested the wireless router and modem, restarting laptops and all the usual solutions, it stayed down. OK, network problem maybe? Whatever the problem, it was still down on Saturday. I had work that needed to be done, so I had to tramp into the freezing Saatchi offices in London. Once there, I found the Broadband helpline number (25p a minute!) on the Virgin Media website and the 'technical expert' couldn't help (after £2 of prevarication).

Eventually my offices were too cold to continue working, so I went home. My wife was beginning to suffer from Internet withdrawal , so she rang the helpline again. After £3 worth of 'help' she was told that we'd been cut off because our account was in arrears. In actual fact, we're in massive credit because the idiots charged me twice for 6 months.

I now ring their normal customer helpline and discover that, even though I've rung and complained about umpteen times ever since we moved house, they still haven't closed the broadband account for our old address. Which was why they'd been charging me twice. They'd stopped the direct debit but their system now showed me as defaulting on payment.

Arrrggghhhh!

A very nice woman in the call centre appeared to have sorted it out and reconnected us. Then the broadband went down again yesterday. Utterly maddening - and, of course, as a consumer, I have no way of getting recompense for their continually dire performance.

Virgin Media Proves Good Copy Isn't Good Customer Service

Having discussed copywriters on Friday, I feel the need to talk about the art of copywriting today.

You may have noticed the launch of Virgin Media (the communications equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, with an array of sub-standard corpses stitched together into a shambling, incoherent hulk) in the press and in those ads featuring Uma Thurman. From a professional standpoint, I was interested to read and listen to the ads as I’ve always admired Virgin’s tone of voice. It’s always admirably human, cheeky and clear.

I happened to be an NTL customer before it was subsumed by Virgin media, so received a lot more literature telling me how well looked after I’d be and how this was a fresh start and so on. Again, lovely copywriting – lots of chutzpah.

Then I moved house and needed to reconnect my broadband and upgraded to get cable telly too. Virgin Media sent a load of information in advance of the reconnection, including essential pin-codes and account numbers. The engineer came on Friday to install it all and arrived when they said he would. Then I came home to make everything work. There were instruction booklets dropped off and, again, the copy had admirable clarity. Goodness me, it looked like connecting my Mac to broadband would be remarkably simple.

Of course it wasn’t. The copy was nicely written, but it was ALL LIES. They’d missed out several crucial steps in the set-up. I had to ring their support line to get the address of a web page on which I needed to register my details to complete the connection process. It would have helped if this crucial piece of information had been available in the instructions. As it was, I spent 30 minutes on my mobile phone trying to get through to an autistic man in an Indian call centre (I hate to think how much that cost me).

All pin numbers and account numbers Virgin had sent me and told me that I’d need to set up broadband? None of them were used – the pin number I actually needed wasn’t in any of the literature – I had to get it off the man on the phone.

OK, so after 2 hours of brain-mangling the broadband was working. I sat down to relax in front of the telly. I then discovered that all the channels I thought I’d signed up for were locked. I rang the support line again. This time it was shut down for the night. Then I tried again this morning. I rang 8 times and was disconnected before I spoke to a human being.

Utterly, utterly infuriating. I’ve just gone from NT-Hell to Virgin Vexation. I have now sworn to buy a ground-to-air rocket launcher from any passing Iraqi insurgent and shoot Richard Branson out of the sky as he begins his next ridiculous round the world balloon trip. As the bearded buffoon spins to his flaming death, I’ll be waving all the great literature I’ve received from his company and reflecting on the power of good copy.