Virgin beyond the pale

Yes, that's right folks. In spite of numerous rants both online and on the telephone, complaints wherever I can get them heard...I'm still waiting for a phone connection. It's been over a month since the first technician told us what the problem is. Since then, another four techies have come and confirmed the opinion of the first. It's looking like he was the most competant of the lot, so far. For one thing, he found the flat without needing three phone calls, unlike this morning's effort.

I've yelled. I've been sarcastic. I've been calm. I've been logical. I've even tried irrational on for size. I've also been yelled at, laughed at and generally treated like an idiot.

But in the all of this, I have learned several things. I have discovered that, much to my shock, there is no higher authority to take such complaints to. Virgin Media are not overseen by the telecommunications ombudsman. The Office of Communications claim that they do not deal with individual complaints. My local MP is powerless against the giants. I don't even know if there is a minister with this as part of their portfolio. I do know that there are a whole lot of disgruntled customers out there. It's time that there was someone to step up to the plate and deal with this. Telephones are a crucial part of modern life, and doing without one even for as long as we have is, quite simply, unacceptable. If it wasn't so bloody annoying, it would be interesting to see just how long they can string us along. Without Virgin, we have no phone line at all. BT promise they could send an engineer out to install a line within 7 days. So why can Virgin not match this?

I'm getting too tired to try and fathom the whys and wherefores of this now. I'm over it, and I'm also making a name for my flatmate (no matter how I try to explain that the account is in her name, not mine, that I am NOT her, they keep calling me by her name) among the occasionally lovely but often enough rude people in the customer service call centres of Virgin. I'm not unsympathetic to them - it must be soul destroying to work in an evironment where all you deal with all day every day are problems created by someone else. But for pity's sake, just get someone to solve the issue. It would make everybody's life more pleasant.