My Misadventures with Virgin Media...

So, earlier this month, I signed the lease on my new flat in Maryhill. Even though I still have my flat in student halls through mid-September, I had to double up on the leases because I didn't want to lose the other place.

Back on July 29, I started the process of getting my internet hooked up with Virgin. Figuring Richard Branson's a good way to go. They have lovely planes; I had high hopes for their internet.

A month later, guess who's still not online at the new flat? If you guess THIS GIRL, you'd be right.

FIRST: the guy never showed for the appointment when he said he would; I wasted an entire afternoon waiting for him. Not only did he never show, but he never called to either A) cancel or B) apologize.

Then, a week later, a second guy came to take a look and tell me what was needed for installation. We set up an appointment for a week later to have an engineer come do the installation. I was excited. I was finally going to get internet in the new place and have it up and running.

Fast-forward a week to last Thursday. The engineer comes out and spends two hours installing the line. We test it out, the modem doesn't work. He goes back down to his truck and gets another modem. THAT modem doesn't work. He tells me they have to fix something in the office, and to wait four hours, but then it should be fine.

Fast-forward four hours: still no internet. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with Virgin, for the girl to tell me at the end I just have to wait four more hours.

Fast-forward to Sunday: STILL NO INTERNET. I call Virgin again. Am on the phone this time for almost an hour. Tech person tells me I have to now wait 24 hours, and that they'll call me to tell me it's fixed then.

Fast-forward to Monday, 24-hours later: no phonecall. Still no internet. I call Virgin again. The tech guy tells me that yep, there's a big problem with my account (on their end; it's nothing I did wrong), and that he's "putting a rush" on the order to fix it. And that the soonest it will be working is in seven days.

SEVEN DAYS. And apparently not an hour before then.

And that's the "rush." Seven days and then "if it's not working then, call us back."

I am livid. Beyond livid. Are there hamsters running on wheels powering the internet at Virgin? What kind of problem takes seven takes do fix, when all I need is connectivity? I'm not an IT geek, but I know enough about computers to know that SEVEN DAYS seems beyond ridiculous. And what if it wasn't a rush? Would I be looking at a month?

It's not like my internet broke. It NEVER WORKED. This is some of the worst customer service I've ever seen; I'm a new customer. You'd think they'd want to get it right for me from the get-go. They should be busting their hump to make sure that as a new customer, I'm happy with the company. Instead, my first impressions of Virgin is that they don't care about their customers, they seem to operate on a pass-the-buck system when things go wrong (I kept getting transferred and referred and told my account was being "passed on to someone higher," yet it's never FIXED), and that they're slow and incompetent.

This does not bode well for the rest of my time with them. What happens once I have service and the internet breaks? Are there going to be frequent outages, with them just telling me to suck it up for a month while they take their time fixing it?

We are now approaching a month since I contacted Virgin about getting internet set up. A MONTH. And I still don't have access in my flat. I have their modem, and all the lights are lit up and give the illusion of internet, but there's no actual CONNECTIVITY. We past the point of ridiculousness two weeks ago. This is now unimaginable. A month. To get internet. And it will pass the point of a month and I still won't be online, since the EARLIEST I've been told I'll be connected is September 1.

...which is cutting it close. Term starts in September. I cannot be without internet once term starts; it's not an option. And I 100% don't believe Virgin when they tell me it'll be fixed in seven days (because actually, they didn't. They prepared me for it to NOT be fixed in seven days, to be ready to call back then when it's still not working).

Right now, I'm soured to the whole Virgin empire: planes, record shops, gyms, mobile phones, you name it. I'm really glad I didn't book a flight home on VS. I don't care if they have some of the best IFE of any airline I could fly between LHR-IAD. I don't want to give this company another penny of my money.