So, my dial-up line became unusable due to noise about a week ago - didn't even get dial-tone sometimes. Yesterday engineer turned up whilst I was out, unannounced (was booked for today) and I am now totally disconnected (he's cut the cables in the outside box).

I have a date of 22nd MAY for the next available slot for the required engineer - I guess there's a problem either in the line from my house to the street cab, or in the cab itself. No one in VM can talk any sense to me about the problem, all they say is that "it's a problem in the box outside your house" (which, as we all know , is nothing but a cover for the joints).

If I ask to talk to an engineer, I get passed from pillar to post, to credit control (who are both surprised and apologetic - but still can't put me in touch with anyone who can talk any sense).

If this is what VMs service is going to be like (ie a joke), it's back to BT and Sky for me. Not that that seems to bother Virgin.

Disgraceful!

If you're talking about a non-cable Virgin line, perhaps the problem is simply that, in non-cabled areas, Virgin, like all the companies which now 'provide' BT lines, have to use Openreach for all such repairs?

I don't think they do in my case. The POTS line runs in the same overall sheath as the cable feed (I also have cable TV and ex-Blueyonder broadband) - it's the original Telewest POTS service, on physically seperate infrastructure to BT's

I also have a (now dead) BT overhead line and master socket, which is what OpenReach would be responsible for, and which they are coming to check and reconnect next Thursday.

And now to give credit where it's due:

I happened to spot a VM engineer visiting my nextdoor neighbour and asked if he was coming to me too - he wasn't. But I told him the story and he was not impressed, so he took a look and diagnosed the fault properly, which was a broken wire in a street chamber that had flooded. So he fixed it and all works fine - "a simple job"

He concluded that the guy that came yesterday did SFA to try to trace the problem and is going to follow it up internally.

So full marks to at least one VM engineer who understands what Customer Service is about!