My first foray into the cable world of broadband will be my last, until someone buys out Virgin.

I moved into a cable property on 18th August 2009. Having paid for installation up front for Virigin 50MB broadband, I was given an installation date of 17th Sept. I thought that this was bloody terrible, frankly, but was told that they were oversubscribed. So I waited for 17th Sept.

On 17th Sept, I waited in all day. At the end of the day, I phoned to see where my engineer was. I was told that I needed to have the cable installed up to the house as well as the technician for the broadband and so they'd changed the installation date. Without telling me. When I mentioned this, they claimed to have tried to leave a message on my mobile number. This was an outright lie. Anyone with a mobile knows that if you are not able to answer the call for any reason, it goes to voice mail. This is one of life's few guarantees. No vm = no Virgin contact.

So the new date was 30th Sept.

I confirmed on 29th Sept. that they were coming. They were.

At 1pm on 30th, a van pulled up and 2 very kind and professional gentlemen laid the cable up to the house and tested the cable. They did a fantastic job and confirmed that everything was ready for my technician. As they weren't connected services, they didn't know when the technician would be coming, but said that everything was ready for him when he turned up.

At 6pm, I phoned Virgin. No technician had been booked. I pointed out that this was the second time I had been screwed over by them. They apologised and then gave me a new installation date of 21st October.

The 21st of October. Over 2 months after I'd signed up, and THREE WEEKS after their latest screwup.

I told them to just send me the cable modem and I'd install it myself. Nope. Can't do that. Needs a technician to perform a 5 minute task. A 5 minute task which would have to wait 3 weeks.

I cancelled the service. My standard 6MB broadband arrives in 3 days' time. It isn't 50MB, but more importantly, I'll have broadband this side of Christmas.

I have been very unhappy with Virgin Broadband, they have been very hard to contact even via their premium rate number. When I do finally get through I just seem to get through to complaints and they put me to any other department to get rid of me. I would never use quick start package again, came late and for me never worked after 4 hours on the phone to them. In my experience the supposed 6 meg runs at best at 1.5 meg...

Dear Sir/ Madam
I am a customer of virgin broadband.I took $60 home phone plan with broadband with Virgin broadband in Last February'08. First 2 months the service of phone line was OK but broadband was. problematic but manageable. last 4 months I am noticing that my phone line service is becoming worst and worst by day to day .very often Line is disconnecting with in middle of conversation. To connect with Internet is another drama. Hardly I can log on to Internet as the modem is unable to connect me to the internet. While sending this mail I have reset the modem atleast 7 times. I send couple of emails regarding this to Virgin Broadband and so far no reply. I try to call their hot line but unable to talk to a customer service officer even after waiting long time on phone.
I really need your help to solve this phone and internet problem.
My Phone no is 02-87344429.
I am stick with 24 months contact with virgin broadband.
Can u pls help me so that if they can't improve their service I can be out of contact with them without paying any fine.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Kind Regards
Khan Rabbi

I signed up to broadband over the phone,i was led to believe i was getting 3 for £30 and would be billed monthly for all 3 services, 3 months on and virgin took £34 from my account, they set up a direct debit without my permission. I called to complain and was told, we email customers instead of sending out a bill, i received no email as they did not have my email or ask for it. As soon as my contract is up i will be leaving virgin and would never advise anyone to go with them.