Wednesday 8th July

At 08:20 I rang Virgin Media and was pleasantly surprised to reach Glasgow call center; which on a previous occasion I felt I have received both good technical support and excellent customer service.

I Spoke to a Lady called Janice, I told her about all the problems I have been having for the past 3 years and also that I am not experiencing the problem at the moment. After checking that I had the computer plugged directly into the cable modem she performed a Balancing Signal, then sent a number of test packets to my modem to see if there any lost packets which there wasn't. Janice then cross referenced my support calls to internal fault database which most were linked to service fault which have all been fixed. This took about 20 minutes during which Janice kept me informed exactly what she was doing which gave me assurance that I was not being fobbed off.

This time all they can do for me is send me a new modem which I should receive within 3 working days. But Janice game me some precious advice for reporting the next faults

1) UK call centers are open up to 10:00 so if I reach an Indian call center and I don't wish to talk to them I can hang up and try dial again until I get through to an UK call center.

2) Always ask for an incident reference number, even the Indian call center can provide one

3) If the incident was not resolved to my satisfaction tell the call operator I want to raise a CCCS and also request that they ring me back with the CCCS reference number (they can't provide this straight away). The CCCS will be responded to within 3 working days.

4) I can instigate a Interruption of Service Request which will involve Virgin Media looking through all my case notes and whee they are at fault provide a refund.

PS

I apologize for anybody reading these notes as they are intended for personal use only, but I thought I would at the same time learn how to blog :)

Tuesday 7th July

After spending quality time with my family bowling I decided to check to see if the Internet connection was working and was pleasantly surprised, at 7:00 PM I sent 1000 ping packets to my works website (extremely reliable as I manage it) and lost just 2 packets, a 0.2% packet loss is something I can live with. I started playing Warhammer Online and everything appears OK except for a few occasions in scenarios where it lagged but that could have been just the game. At 08:30 during a skirmish battle between fellow guildies, randoms and Jenna's (really good player)army I started getting severe lag. I ran a ping test and was getting 15% packets loss, I persisted playing for a while to see if the problem would rectify itself which it didn't. I felt really bad about letting my colleagues down by not participating but it was pointless continuing to to play when for most part of the battle I would be a sitting duck. I apologized and everyone was very sympathetic to my problem and wished me luck tomorrow when I would battle with Virgin Media

Virgin Media Blues

I have had a problem with Virgin media for the last 3 years, must be some sort of record, the problem is exasperated due to the Indian call centre either can’t or won’t check my problem history before diving straight into the standard troubleshooting script, and end by either saying it’s a problem in the area or a fault with the modem the first one is closer to the truth but now I know the Indian call never had access to the information and was simply fobbing me off.
Two months ago while off work I reported the problem and luckily managed to get to talk to someone (who I will refer to as Kim) who knew exactly what the fault was but could not tell me how long it would take to fix it but said it would be worth while ringing back in July for an update. Apparently there is an intermittent fault with some cables in the road but they can’t fix it until they gain planning permission to dig up the road. I asked why the Indian call centre couldn’t have told me about this but unfortunately she didn’t know.
Today I have decided to create a blog on the issue in the hopes that eventually I will have logged enough information to pressure Virgin Media into fixing my problems.
Tonight at 7:15 I rang virgin media, got routed to India and went through the same painful exercise, during the diagnostics process I asked the call operator to check my notes several times which I am sure he didn’t and after 30 minutes got my case escalated so a supervisor, she neither wouldn’t check my history and after 5 minutes talking to her technical department concluded it must be a fault with my modem because it was old. It was obvious she still hadn’t checked my history and I politely refused to accept the reason until she had found something within the system relating to faults previously recorded by Kim, she said that this will take some time and she will ring me back.