HAHAHA @ payment throttling. Excellent concept. I shall enact it next time at the grocery store, to offset the price of the imported vaccum stored fruit that overripens in one evening, and the fresh beef that has all the flavor of a rice cake.

HAHAHA @ payment throttling. Excellent concept. I shall enact it next time at the grocery store, to offset the price of the imported vaccum stored fruit that overripens in one evening, and the fresh beef that has all the flavor of a rice cake.

Yep, I know exactly what you mean there. It's a disgrace. Another thing too - when you next buy bacon, just make sure it's DRY CURED. Mrs Riv got some bacon the other day and it was foul. It looked ok but when she put it under the grill it shrank to the size of a pea and tasted awful. That's because any meat can have 10% water added to it to bulk it up and that's before the producers even have to state that water is added at all. So if you see a meat product that has water stipulated as an ingredient then you know that it is way more than 10%. See this link if you want to be put off food for good.

http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/latest_watermeat_apr05.htm

Anyway, I got some dry cured smoked back bacon and hallelujah!! Bacon like it used to be. Yumm

Hmm, I think we're a bit off topic now, 

@Riv had a good ol chinwag with a very nice scouse fellow at the tech help call centre today. im not being traffic managed which is what i was accusing them of. turns out far worse than that! the cable im on has been over subscribed(high TX load as they like to call it) since February. the fault according to their system was due to be fixed in 3 days.

I'm not surprised at the oversubscription thing. They just want to rake in the cash and worry about how to cope with demand later - very much like the car phone warehouse jerks. Fixed in three days? Hehe, yeah right.

Yeah I've been on that roundabout more times than I'd like to recall. I've had the refunds too. The trouble is its a lot of time and trouble to do it. Of course its that way deliberately so that most people won't bother. I like the terminology too - First line, second line etc etc. What do they think it is - Rorke's feckin' Drift? Just get me to the guy who's pulling all the strings of the idiots reading off the standard answer sheets on the front lines. They should know by now that I'm going to end up there anyway. I'd be interested to know how you get on with their CEO .

funneyist thing is i phoned day before and got through to India, nice fellow told me there was problem in my area and would be fixed by 9am...
told scouser that, hes nearly swallowed his tongue laughing, yes 9am February 1st not October 1st.

 rofl rofl rofl Wonderful isn't it? Customer service? Should be Customer Fob off. They are just there to act as front line defence (might as well use their terminology) to try to get rid of any complainants as quickly as possible before it starts costing them refunds.

All that's without even mentioning the 20+ minutes of recorded phone options telling you how wonderful they are and press button #1 for the billing department or #9 for fish and chips etc.

Oh, btw - that movie rip and burn I started last night worked just fine. It was one of my Das Boot disks.

Hmm, all that's made me hungry. I'm off for a nice dry cured bacon butty

hi time little update for you, the letter didnt work as i got no reply. but i found an email address for a head bloke in Manchesters office complaints department. Neil.Berkett@virginmedia.co.uk i sent this message to him...
From: Lee Hudson
To: Berkett, Neil
Sent: Sat Oct 11 14:32:07 2008
Subject: Complaint

Dear Mr Berkett,
                       i wish to complain about a lack of service from virgin media. i have been a loyal customer for many years. i have my TV phone and internet with your company.
my problem is the XL internet service. i have phoned technical help on many occasions to complain of very slow speeds(less than 1mb download speeds).
 i recently spoke to a very helpful and knowlagable man on your technical help line. he found that there is a fault with the perticular cable line that i am on. here are the details of the fault:
ref: F000642026 high TX load
UBR01 sheffield, cable 5/0
if you look up that fault code you will see it has been a problem since febuary and was supposed to be fixed in 3 days!
after speaking with second line the man called me back and told me there is no resolution date for this fault because, "it would cost a large amount of money to but the hardware needed to fix the problem".
he sugested i write to customer concern and ask for the problem to be fixed and a resolution date. i have done so be recieved no reply. so i now pass the complaint to your good self.
i would like this problem to be fixed ASAP. i am paying for 20mb sevice and not getting it. i have asked for a refund but i am told refunds cant be made until the problem is resolved! THERE IS NO RESOLUTION DATE!
catch 22!?
i look forwards to to your reply.

Mr L Hudson & Mrs K Hudson
 got a reply and phone call within the hour!!!!

Hi Lee
 
Thank you for your e-mail to Neil Berkett regarding the problem you experienced with your Broadband speed.
 
I have tried to contact you by telephone and left a message.
 
Please call me on the number below and I would discuss this with you.
 
I will be in the office until 5 pm.
 
I will be in the office next week ( Monday to Thursday) between 9-5 pm.
 
Kind regards. Ratna.
 

Ratna Bagchi
Chief Executive's Office
Virgin Media
0845 234 0752 extn 6178

well after speaking with her and giving her a week to investigate, got back to her today and upshot is i get last month free and free till january and ongoing till they fix the problem. there tech heads cant fix it till next year laughs out loud so i get free fone tv and internet till they do, which i suspect they wont because they need to spend so much cash on new equipment.
my racing games and warcraft game works fine with the speed im getting and if i need to download owt big speeds fast enough on weekday mornings.
so im 1 happy bunny.
that email address seems to be the special handshake reqired to get some action. go get em

Good stuff, Lee... I'm gonna call and see what I can get, and I'm not even on Virgin!