People warned me about Virgin
People warned me about Virgin before I joined.
"They're terrible". "Awful service". "Terrible customer support".
I believed it and actually had a clause put into my flat rental contract that I could have work done to get a BT line put in (it only has cable currently).
However, I decided to go with Virgin in the hope that I would get something of the 50Mbps. A lovely thought for a geek like me.
-It took ~2 months go get an install - For a pre-existing installation! (i.e. they just had to plug it in - they refused to just send me the box).
-We are plagued with speed issues and have had several engineer visits. Which have resulted in this loop:
10 Home engineer says: "It's a building problem. You need to have a network engineer sent out. We'll arrange that for you".
20 More poor service resulting in a call to customer support asking when the network engineer is coming only to be told that a home visit must be arranged first before a network engineer can be sent out.
30 GOTO 10.
We have had ~10 engineer visits/cancelled visits (various excuses) over the last year of our service and have had to take several days off. During which time my connection drops roughly once a day and doesn't reconnect until I reboot my router. I have spoken to managers multiple times. I have asked for manager call-backs many times (only to have nothing happen). I have been told to do the most stupid things by support staff (e.g. "turn off your firewall"). I dread to think how many hours I have spent listening to terrible phone support music.
We are now back in the loop above following a particularly bad level of service over the last few weeks and it's the final straw. I am giving up and will now get the BT line installed. I never had this problem with ADSL from any of the ISPs I used to use.
Still it'll be a shame to lose that painfully slow on-demand service through the Tivo (which also drops it's cable connection and occasionally just locks up) and my phone service (where I can sometimes barely hear someone on the other end of the line). Occasionally I even get a full 50mbs download too....before the router loses it's connection again.
Virgin - You fail completely at being an ISP.
Everyone else - Do not make the same mistake as I did and think "how bad can they be?".
But anyway. Well done Virgin for signing up so many people. Great job you're doing! *slaps back*