Dear Richard Branson (again),

You're having a laugh aren't you? It was only 6 weeks ago that I wrote to you about the very poor service I had, and here I am having to write to you, yet again.

The new box your engineer fit 6 weeks ago after the death of my old one, is behaving like my bank manager when I plead for an extention to my over-draft - it does not respond. It stopped talking to Boy and me last week. After we spent many happy hours unplugging cables and fanning the hot box and could not even coax a 'hello' out of it, I rang your jolly customer service line. This time I was prepared for the runaround of your call-centre staff who, to be fair, were much nicer than Rollo. I saved my breath about the 4 hour service slots and was surprised when I was offered a Saturday slot, such a shame I'm now working Saturdays. Never mind. I agreed I'd wait in on Monday (i.e. today) between 8 and 12. And jolly fun I had waiting as well.

I rang your lovely people in Mumbai at 11.50, to ask about the probability of the engineer turning up in the next 10 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I was told he'd been cancelled because the fault in my postcode was fixed. You would be so proud of me Richard. I did not swear, shout or scream. I explained to the very nice man at the other end of the world that I was switching on my television and my box and if there was no service he would immediately transfer me to his manager. Bless him. He did eventually put me through to his manager.

Your manager really thought I would give a flying fuck that he had been having similar calls from customers all day. Guess what? I told him exactly what I thought of Virgin Media and how unhappy I was to be paying for this kind of crap. Given my level of unhappiness, he did agree not to charge me for the days I do not have a tv, and he will pay me £10 for the engineer's no show. But quite frankly, it's little compensation for the crap service I've had since you decided to expand your empire into telecommunications.

It turns out that the engineers may or may not go to a call-out if a customer requests a particular time within a 4 hour slot. The call centre can only flag requests, they can't enforce it. So, one part of your organisation doesn't really communicate well with the other. But I suppose that shouldn't come as any real surprise to me, since you can't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Because I work for a living, the next available time when I will be home is next Monday, and no, I'm not prepared to go to my employers and ask for time off to get my damned telly fixed. Tell me something Richard, given that most people work 9 to 5, and that commutes can take anywhere between 10 minutes and 2 hours, it's not very realistic for you to expect your customers to be home between 8am and 7pm, with 4 hours to spare at either end. As a single parent, whose family lives in Trinidad, it's a bit difficult to ask them to pop round and sit in for me.

Rest assured Richard, the next time I have reason to call your customer service centre it will be to have your dodgy equipment removed, because I have better things to do with my time.

Yours,

Roses