My cable TV went down a few days ago. Just totally kaput, for no discernible reason. The digi-box wouldn't respond to anything I did -- even if you turned it on and off again, IT Crowd fans. The only semblance of life was a little green LED inside that persistently flashed away.
So, I had to call Virgin Media Customer Services. Gulp. As you can imagine, I already expected the worst... and I wasn't let down. After scouring their website for something as simple as a "Help Me!" phone number, the one I eventually found just put me through to some guy who didn't have any customer record of me whatsoever. He then confirmed I was actually a cable TV customer (as opposed to what, analogue?), so gave me another number...
That new number led to an automated attendant who spoke slower than the last ice age, but eventually I got through to someone real... with an Indian voice. Now, I'm not in the slightest bit racist, but it's always annoyed me when you get put through to an Indian call centre. A little part of me died when I heard her voice. She was a nice enough person, but second-language help isn't what I wanted to deal with...
The Indian Lady immediately insisted on calling me Mrs Owen, even when my desperate effort to talk deeper kicked in. I've never been mistaken for a woman on the phone before, so perhaps she just didn't understand the difference between Mr and Mrs in the English language. Who knows. But that didn't bode well for my call...
After making me do everything I'd been doing for the past hour myself (take the smart card out, turn the power off, put the card back in, turn the power on, blah-blah...), we were getting nowhere. I also got the distinct impression she didn't believe me whenever I said the power light was permanently red and there were no error codes on the LCD display.
Well, after 15 minutes that seemed more like 30, she finally gave in and suggested a technician come out to have a look for himself. Yes, finally! She said she could get me one for tomorrow (Friday) between 4 and 7. That would fit in with working hours! Excellent! But, sadly, in the time it took to suggest that time, another telephonist beat her to it and the slot was taken. Damn! So... she booked Saturday between 8 and 12 instead. No lie-in for me, then...
The technician turned up this morning and saw immediately that my Samsung-made digi-box was knackered. Unfortunately, he didn't have any replacements of that latest model, but he has plenty of old, crappy Pace-made ones. He inferred they are more reliable, but... yeah. I didn't mention I had one 18 months ago... but it reheated, broke, and necessitated the need for my shiny Samsung one...
He got everything up-and-running after about 20 minutes and went on his merry way. But he forgot to mention that my existing PIN number wouldn't work now, so I had to ring Virgin again to get them to default it to "0000". Fortunately, this time I got through to someone English who you could converse with properly. Small mercies...
The PIN change went very smoothly, and now my TV's back on and working. But I don't like these dull Pace boxes. They're big, black, bulky and not very sexy. And the EPG system is deathly slow on them. Gah!
How long until it overheats like my first one? I have a fiver on May 2008...
