Virgin Media is far and away the world's worst customer service company. It is not surprising that the company is up for sale again. Anyone mad enough to buy them can expect the worst. Whatever due diligence they have done on the company will not prepare them for what they find on the ground. My own experience was an install from hell.

I should have known what to expect when the VIrgin Media account generated and networld email address.

My partners name was spelled differently on different letters / contract etc. not the best start given the fact that email is not that flexible. The Install letter did not arrive until several days after the engineer called. I therefore did not have a PIN number. The install engineer was plain rude and gave me the wrong PIN number after using his laptop to receive it from HQ.

The serial number was wrong. It turned out the there was an error in the Customer Service manual!

I signed up for 4 Meg but was entered up as 2 Meg on their database. I was not given the £10 installation discount for joining online - they had me down as ordering by telephone. I was advised to ring support in 'India" and after a long time waiting they told me to ring 'England' who then told me to call 'India' ... India did not have access to all my details and so we had a completely impossible conversation. They asked me for my password. Two had been given by the Virgin Media sign up did not work. Later, much later, it transpired that he should have asked for a 'security word' - in-fact I had given that in desperation even though it was not a 'Password' but they would not accept it. It later transpired (from a supervisor) that the staff I had been talking too did not know about a 'security word' for security reasons!

I was continually refused access to a Manager / Supervisor. During one of the many calls it was revealed they I had been put down as £25 per month when it should have been £17.

I was then told that 'the best solution would be to go back online and go through the registration process again!' I was told I would get two bills, TV and telephone and just a Telephone. I had not ordered TV! In fact it the became clear that the £25 charge was for TV. So I 'may receive a £25 bill and a £25 credit'.

At the end of all this I just kept insisting on a manager and finally, after god knows how many hours, I got one. Santosh was OK, he was doing his best to sort through all these mistakes. He was able to increase me to 4 meg pretty much immediately offered and I demanded better, compensation. He finally agreed to upgrade me to 20Meg for a £25 per month. I was told that he would not be able to do this himself and that it could take up to 24 hours but promised to call me back after 24 hours to check it had been done. I was impressed that, somewhere, there was someone at Virgin Media that understood that the customer is still king, I trusted him. I thanked him and we had a laugh.

Some two hours later my 4 Meg died, I assumed that it was part of the 20 Meg upgrade. Sadly 24 hours later it was still dead. Santosh did not ring. Several days later I have nothing. I have a dead cable modem, a 4 port router I purchased to use with the service, and high blood pressure

It has cost me a small fortune in phone calls and a redundant cable modem but I have had enough, I can't take any more of this. The only problem is how do I get out of it?

Virgin Media are the biggest bullshitters on the planet. DOING BUSINESS WITH VIRGIN MEDIA can seriously damage your health.