LUKE MARSDEN: my nightmares with broadband and customer service

​It feels like most of Wigan this week experienced internet problems, mainly relating to the “ever-reliable” Virgin media.

I made the big decision to dump Sky last year, because it felt like I was still on dial-up internet speeds.

And I’d heard nothing but great things about how fibre-optic cable broadband would change my life. This week it did: it caused me waves of anger.

Is it too much to ask these days to pay for a service and for it to continue? I was without internet for over 26 hours, which for some may be bliss, but I did that in 2008 for nearly three months and am not keen on a repeat.

I work from home most of the time so I need internet for my job. I must’ve sounded and looked like a Dalek as I did video Teams calls via tethering my mobile data (at my own expense).

I had zero communication from Virgin and I had to seek out the info as to why my broadband was down. I even had to inform my 82-year-old neighbour of the issue. Why am I doing the job of my provider? Should I have donned a high-vis jacket and fixed the cables too?

Virgin claim they kept me up to date. Maybe in the fantasy land in which they live, where customers are 100 per cent happy all the time, that is true. But the reality is, when I phoned to complain I was made out to be the issue and should be grateful that “it will be fixed sometime soon”.

Imagine if I pre-booked a cinema ticket, went to watch the film, the cinema didn’t show it but I couldn’t claim a refund. Is that my fault?

Similar to the fibre cables across Wigan, customer service in this country is decaying and has been for quite some time.

I recently returned from NYC and you can say a lot about obnoxious American customer service, but at least the customer is always right!