Virgin Media. No broadband. No TV. The engineer was booked for between 8am and noon on Saturday. If I missed the slot Virgin were going to charge me a £10 penalty. For a bank holiday there were other things I would rather be doing but the frustration of being without, erm... really not good.

At 9:30am the phone rings. It's customer service, the engineer has called in sick. No one else is available. This is taking the piss. Called in sick on a bank holiday? Guess what he's been up to. I have no choice but to reschedule.

Given Virgin Media were going to charge me a tenner, shouldn't I be entitled to do the same as they missed their slot? Maybe this would provide an incentive for the company to start providing a proper level of customer service. What a prick of an engineer. What do you think I should do?

The 2nd of May and the Express Delivery package Amazon shipped on the 16th April still hasn't been delivered. It seems to be lost in Cork by UPS, even though their tracking screen still shows the package being scanned in every morning. 

Looking at the long list of dates - UPS may as well wave a red rag in front of me. Unbelievably, I even sent them a Google map and they still couldn't deliver. I sent Amazon the same map. They replied to me with a very automated response, and then seem to have done nothing at all. A week passed and despite their claim to be "building Earth's most customer-centric company" I hear nothing at all. They don't seem to have picked up the phone to give UPS a kick in the rectum or to let me know what's going on. 

Having had enough I cancel the order and take the opportunity to make a complaint to Amazon. Mohanraj, at Customer Service, advises me the delivery "reflects negatively upon Amazon.co.uk and the feedback that you have provided will be used in reviewing the service provided by UPS. I have forwarded your comments to relevant department and they will investigate the issue."

Translation: nothing will happen and I certainly don't expect to hear any outcome. Interestingly, no reference is made to Amazon's own customer service failings and in not following up with UPS after my earlier enquiries, nor updating me at any stage.

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I'm sure I have a weak regulator to thank for shafting the consumer and limiting my choice in the area so I have to endure three trips to Tesco in the week, one to the supermarket, one to the Tesco convenience shop and one to the Tesco petrol station.

All three had their own dissatisfied tale to tell about Tesco Customer Service.....

1. At the supermarket the groceries were being scanned as if it were the new speed event in the 2012 Olympics. As I struggled, near defeat, with separating plastic bags and trying to pack, the cashier was finished and was now busy texting on her mobile phone, completely oblivious to me.

2. At the partly flooded convenience shop I bought a chicken ceaser wrap. The cashier seemed to clear a bonus of £2 from the transaction. I handed him £4, and watched as he registered £2 cash received on the till. What happened to the other £2?

3. At the petrol station - I wrote about this earlier - a queue even though there are free pumps. What are the staff doing? From the corner of my eye I observe a manager emerge from the nearby supermarket. He takes a closer look, albeit at long distance, at the queue and scuttles back inside the supermarket. What do the staff do? Nothing!

I think the petrol stations are designed to work without supervision. When I finally make it inside to pay the two chuckling cashiers decide to swap tills while us customers wait.

Going to Tesco gets you in such a bad mood! Grrrrrrr......

Eating out should be a treat.

At Cafe Rouge, about five minutes from Brighton's seafront, early on Saturday evening, people were being turned away because there were no tables.

They were lucky.

This would have been anything but a treat.

The service at Cafe Rouge was so bad I think it is the first restaurant I ever walked out of without leaving a tip.

We waited an hour for the Salade de al mer, a main course which, unbelievably, was smaller than the side salad. Is it a main course, or have we been mugged and served a starter portion?

There is no one to ask. We can̢۪t even order another drink as there is no service. Not once did anyone visit the table to see how things were.

Having waited twenty minutes for a coffee I complained about the children̢۪s meal. There was no banana. The waiter didn̢۪t seem to understand.

I cancelled the coffee. Just bring me the bill, I hissed.

People were still being turned away. Not because the place was so busy, but because the service was so abysmal.

Outside I look back, take out my camera and photograph the facade. I make a mental note: never return, dissuade anyone from going.

This morning I bought my newspapers and had a good browse, whilst I was doing so I came across a full page ad for PC World. Contained in the ad was a 8GB flash drive, reduced from Ɔ104.99 to Ɔ44.99, I said thats good value I'll get that.

I called my wife and asked if she could call to PC World today and pick up something for me, "no bother" she said. I said if you have any trouble call me.

She called me from the shop and said that they were'nt on the shelfs, I suggested ask an assistant, what was I thinking?, here is something like the conversation that took place,

Wife; Sorry I'm looking for the 8Gb Removable memory drive that was advertised todays newspaper.

Asst; Are they on the shelf?

Wife; No thats why I'm asking for help, they were advertised this morning on the newspaper.

Asst; Ok I'll check, I'll come back to you.....

Fifteen minutes later he arrives,

Asst; They c'ant find them in the warehouse either, and you're sure they were on todays newspaper?

Wife ; yes why else would I be here asking so specifically.

Asst; We must have them so, maybe if we go to the and enter the code you'll be able to pay for it and then they'll have find it then as we can't sell stuff we d'ont have stock of.

My wife was totally confused but went along with the idea, she was there for 30mins anyway, at that someone came along waving the product they found them in the warehouse, apparently they were in an "unopened box".

Anyway my wife paid for the stick and left it only took 40 mins to complete the transaction.

Well done PC World and you are wondering why profits are down, look around its not that difficult to see why, if you advertise it should increase "footfall" its what you do who dictates the rest, that advice is free.

Mr A gestured to the Garfunkel's across the road and suggested we "just go in there". Even though it was quiet, the staff left us waiting to be seated for an unnecessarily long period of time. 

When it was obvious we weren't going to leave, the waitress approached. From her expression she'd clearly drawn the short straw. She had to endure the inconvenience of the customers. 

The attitude in the kitchen can't have been any better. I had to take a photograph of Mr A's lasagne. It was so palpably burnt - incredible that this could be delivered out of a kitchen in Piccadilly Circus and be unashamedly charged at £8.95.

When I arrived at Disney's Newport Bay Club it was lunch time. Having checked in and made it to the room  I was tempted by the club sandwich on the room service menu. What arrived was so awful I had to ask for a refund and was only able to take a single bite. The sandwich, at Ɔ11.50, was halved rather than quartered. The bread, which was brown wasn't toasted. It was, however, hard and dry to the touch, as if the slices had been left out in the kitchen overnight. It was made with processed ham rather than chicken or turkey. 

Disney magic clearly didn't extend to the kitchens of the Newport Bay Club and the room service menu. The chef didn't clap his hands over this dreary bad ham sandwich  and utter a triumphant incantation - a puff of smoke ("Eh Voila!") - a club sandwich....

The traditional club sandwich is quartered, usually double-deckered and held together with toothpicks. The bread is toasted, crusts removed and the ingredients include bacon, chicken or turkey, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise, not what they serve at the Newport Bay. Needless to say, I didn't order room service again.

Oh..... and I almost forgot, the sandwich came with a cold pot of tea.

Normally you can leave a pushchair at the aircraft steps. At the Air France check in desk at Charles de Gaulle the clerk looked down at the pushchair and shook his head. Not tonight, evidently. 

As the three year old was fast asleep, and there was still almost an hour before boarding, this seemed quite monstrous and I queried why the pushchair had to be checked in now. This certainly wasn't the case when we flew out, we left it at the aircraft steps. 

Visibly annoyed at us he looked about for someone else to confirm the check in. He came around to our side and walked across the floor, had a brief conversation with another AF clerk and returned. The pushchair had to be checked in. 

I lifted E out, still sound asleep, and struggled to fold the pushchair with one hand and one leg while the check in clerk watched, un-amused. He then produced a large plastic bag and started to pack the pushchair into it, advising us it had to be taken to Area 8. It couldn't be checked in at Area 10 with the rest of the luggage. 

Go to Area 8? Whatever about having to check the pushchair in, you would at least think we could have pushed it to Area 8, with E asleep, rather than trying to walk a high wire, balancing a sleeping child, a folded up pushchair and the hand baggage. What customer service!

A day later I hear about poor Jean-Jacques Jauffret, a French scriptwriter who was called "enormous!" by the check in clerk. Imagine, they actually came around from behind the check in desk and very publicly  measured his waist. Incredible!

As I get the overland and Jubliee line to Canary Wharf my car is ordinarily curled up asleep on the driveway.  Last week, in a hurry to get to Gatwick, I jump in, turn the ignition. Nothing happens. A moment of panic. No jump leads. AA home start cancelled several years earlier. I get out, push open the front door, sift through the cumulative letter box junk. Eureka. A business card for a taxi company. I can't press the digits on the keypad fast enough. Finally...
  "I need a car to Gatwick please"
  "What time do you need it for?"
  "Now", I blurt out.

The weekend passes, back in the train reading Mr China ("The incredible story of a Wall Street banker who went to China with four hundred million dollars and learned the hard way that China doesn't play by Western rules"). One night, after work, still in the office, gazing out of the 23rd floor I remember, and call the AA from my mobile. 

A recorded voice advises me I am in a queue. I may be holding for five minutes. Did I want to call back at another time? I hold. I hold for ten minutes. The same AA adverts replay and replay and replay, without interruption, before someone finally speaks.

I quote my membership number and enquire,
 "My car needs a restart at home. I don't have the home start option on my membership. I wonder if it's possible to add it, and have a a call out at some stage tomorrow?"

"You can add home start and that will be valid up until your renewal next year", he responded, quoting me the full price, even though my renewal would be two weeks earlier (i.e. pay the full price for fifty weeks rather than fifty two - 3.8% bonus for the AA) He continues confidently "You would have to pay a surcharge for your call out tomorrow. The total price including your membership upgrade would be £89".

I hesitated. Home start is £44. The surcharge is £45. I paid the home start sub. for many years, never using it. Cancelled it in the end as it just seemed a waste of money. Somehow I actually feel as if I am being ripped off, not just because of the two weeks but the fact it just didn't seem right after being a customer for eight years.

"I'll leave it" I answered, already thinking  about the RAC for next year.
 "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
 "No thanks."

In the morning I go to Maplins and buy a portable car charger for just under £40. If I had planned better I could have bought one on the internet for £20.

Despite leaving my contact number with British Gas with a request to call me back once they had investigated what may have occurred I instead receive a letter this morning from Revenue Assurance, their debt collection agency. I am not really surprised, in fact, when I first spoke about this in May I ended the blog with "To be continued....".

The debt collection agency are looking to recover a debt of £743.67 from a dormant company which has never traded and which doesn't even have a bank account. The company was incorporated in July of last year which is clear to anyone who looks up the records at Companies House.

The billing period for the amount they are trying to recover is from November 2004 to October 2006. If the company was incorporated late July of 2006 how on earth could it have been using a gas supply at an office in Cambridge since November 2004?

The annoying thing about the letter I receive is that it doesn't have a contact name. It's signed off  "Recoveries Team", above which is stamped, some standard signature which gives an initial rather than a name. In fact, it appears to signed by an A Frankenstein.

I call the number on the letter and after I quote the account number am told the person I need to speak to is on the phone. I leave my details. Now I am beginning to fume. 

A quick Google on British Gas Billing and the results returned include headlines such as, British Gas swamped by billing complaints, My British Gas nightmare: Customer Service Hell, British Gas: awful on every level, British Gas sets complaints record, Surge in British Gas Complaints, British Gas Complaints Soar, Billing Chaos at British Gas seemingly ad infinitum.

In fact, the Times, this morning, breaks another story reporting that back in February British Gas cancelled the direct debits of  45,000 of its customers, just weeks after Phil Bentley, MD of British Gas, promised to cut complaints caused by a new £400 million billing system. 

Photo: British Gas gets a £400 million makeover.

To be continued ......

I had a look on that internet thing everyone seems to be talking about, for a cheap flight from Cork to London. Amazingly, I was quoted £1,361.64 for the return flight, and instead of taking an hour as it should, the flight is scheduled to last over six hours on the return, and almost five hours outbound. Book cheap flights with Opodo my arse!

This morning I received a bill for £743.67 from British Gas Business advising me the account is to be passed to a Debt Collection Agency if I don't pay.

Customer Services, when I ring them, inform me the billing period is from November 2004 to October 2006 at an address in Cambridge. When I say I only registered the company in July 2006 and it is a non trading entity I am met by silence, and then "but we have your address".

Of course you do, you just got it from Companies House, but the debt is for a different company. Can you tell me the company number of the company who opened the account with you in 2004?

It seems to be not possible. Customer Services have to regroup and pass it to another department.

To be continued....

When you go into the B&Q at Fratton Way, Portsmouth you have two choices. You can pick a trolley up at the entrance or, if you are only looking for a few things, you can go inside and end up trying to carry everything in your arms, because for some bizarre reason there are no shopping baskets

Once you've passed through the one way security gate it's too late to go back and grab a trolley. You have to go to the exit at the other end of the warehouse and then back around to the entrance again. You don't really believe your eyes. There must be baskets. You look left and right, and repeat the process a few times, beginning to feel more than a bit stupid. There must be baskets. There are lots of orange B&Q  buckets, but there are no shopping baskets. When you turn towards the cash registers there are still none, not even an empty basket tidy. There are none of those either. B&Q at Portsmouth just don't offer shopping baskets.

As I went up the central aisle for the fourth time looking for nails, my arms awkwardly cradling three tubes of flexible polyfilla, two paint rollers, one tube of wood paint, one UPV cleaner and one pipe tidy I wondered why on earth there weren't baskets, why they didn't have a map somewhere and why, instead of having a fancy coffee shop they couldn't just concentrate on the basics of customer service first, like having a shopping basket..

Michael O'Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, once called British Airways "expensive bastards". Having recently spent almost £300 for a one hour flight from London Gatwick to Cork I would have to agree. Except it wasn't with BA I booked the ticket, this was Ryanair. Despite booking the ticket seven weeks ahead of the flight date this is the ridiculous price I had to pay over Christmas for the short haul flight.

The Boss of the low-cost airline has also been quoted to say, "No, we shouldn't give you a bloody cup of coffee. We only charge 19 euros for the ticket."  However, even if you pay close to £300 you still have to pay for your own coffee (incidentally, the average price for a BA flight is £178).

Low cost airlines are superb, as long as they remain low-cost, but if you have to pay above average prices for no frills then you don't ever get a sense of customer loyalty. Since Go was absorbed into Easyjet and Barbara Cassani its CEO left the low-cost airline industry any sense of customer service vanished with her. It certainly doesn't exist in Ryanair. 

Well its the 12th of December and NTL have repaired my service.Please no clapping as I know that there are many of you out there still waiting to have your telephone call  answered and I'd say that there is quite a considerable amount of you out there waiting as I did for someone to Call.

It has to be the worst customer service experiences of my life, and while listening to "Newstalk106" this morning it would appear that there are thousands of NTL'ers out there suffering in the same way. To be fair to Brenda Power on Newstalk she did ask NTL to provide someone to field questions from NTL's customers but true to form NTL declined.No surprise there then, it is not only do they allow its customers to be waiting for hours on end on the telephone, they do not have the basic manners to allow people to express their opinions on the service that they get good money for in a monthly basis.

The only way that NTL will listen is for people not to pay for the shoddy service that they are peddling, I appreciate that its difficult for people to do this as TV has become a mainstay of our lives.People could for example stop paying by direct debit and pay for what they receive and not what they think they will receive (your NTL bill is prepaid) to do this either contact your bank or go online, if available, and simply cancel the direct debit,you can then pay for what you received and if you have a problem deduct the amount(pro rata) and email NTL detailing the deductions that you have made, ensuring that you keep a softcopy and a hardcopy on a file to show anyone in the future.A record of your telephone calls should also be kept for reference. I can almost say without a doubt that any email that will be sent to NTL will never see the light of day, and the onus is on them not you, to show that you informed them of your actions. Alternatively you could go to the trouble of paying them a visit as one gentleman did to get results but I think that time may be a constraint.

Finally to all you out there who cannot get through the freephone number here are two more to use 01 245 8600 now I have to say I did not get through on this and when it rang the person on the otherside simply hungup or rejected the call.What I also did was to ring the above number and simply by adding 1 instead of the 0, I got through to a voice mail, at least you might get answered.

 The other number I have is 061 272190 this is a private number of NTL and is nearly always answered but before 5pm.

Whatever happened to picking up the phone and talking to customers?

I received two letters from Direct Line. When they came through the letter box I didn't even open them. I assumed they were just part of the continuing junk mail I was receiving from Direct Line and I put them on the "junk mountain" for shredding later. 

A few weeks on,  when I finally get around to opening them for shredding, I glance at the contents. The first letter advises that, because I haven't sent them evidence of my No Claims Discount, they were removing the discount from my premium resulting in an additional premium of £471.45. 

Obviously I hadn't answered the letter, so the next letter notifies me they are cancelling my insurance on, what would now be Tuesday. I wondered why Direct Line couldn't have just got the details directly from my previous insurer, to which Customer Service replied, the no claims discount was my responsibility.

Wouldn't be good if companies actually started to take some responsibility for their customers? Couldn't someone have picked up the phone, and talked to me, we had to do this in the end anyway?

I've already decided to not renew my insurance with Direct Line. I wanted to cancel it there and then but they quoted me over £200 as a cancellation charge.

Well, I would love to be here telling you all that NTL have gone the extra mile to fix my problem of not having any TV service but that would be wishful thinking on my behalf. I would like to be here telling you that they have done their best to help me but again wishful thinking.

I am now so fed up of this that I have stopped calling the "numnuts" who are employed by NTL as they are all singing from the same crib sheet.

I did finally get through to someone and to be fair he empathised with my situation, I just know that by talking to him the the word empathised is not from his normal vocabulary but is written down on a big piece of paper next to his screen. He informed me that he had sent my technical request through and they will be here on the 12th of December. In the meantime its two channel land with a set of "rabbits ears" picking up grainy dark reception. I did invest €17 on a new set from "Matalan" which was Channel 5 ready, so thats why Channel 5 have no viewers.

It never ceases to amaze me that business seems hell bent on destroying itself than actually listening to its customers and working out the amount of money that they will gleen from its customers. I pay approx €65 per month or €780p.a. should I be a customer for 10years that would be €7,800, these cowboys dont give a shite as the management probably would'nt know shit from cake. Should they lose 1,000 customers over this 10 year period that translates to €7,800,000, €7.8m based on 1,000, what they are going to lose?, as I have a feeling that 1,000 is a little light, is anyones guess.

To further compound my angst the IVR, thats the smarmy voice that comes over your phone when you are in a queue, must be the worst I have ever heard. At one stage it told me that "due to the fact that NTL's products are proving so popular that they recieved more calls than expected" listen NTL those calls are from customers who are pissed off not new ones. Additionally on playing "Vivaldi", for heavens sake leave the thing play not give us 30 sec bursts and then start again.

I have decided not to get mad anymore with them as I am only making myself ill, but it does raise the question who wins?.

Don't you just love it when you buy a product and, having struggled to get it out of the packaging, you find it's incomplete. There's a part missing. You can't use it or you can't assemble it.

I was surprised to find this happen with a software installation disc.  A copy of TAS Books Basic, purchased from Amazon,  contained no serial number card. You can't install the software without the serial number, or maybe you can, but there's not much point as you won't be able to use it for long.

When I call the TAS customer care team an automated voice asks me to choose an option. Being fairly typical of automated phone filter systems, or offshore call centres, there is no natural option for my query.

When I do speak to someone the solution is to fax my invoice from Amazon, plus a letter containing details of who the software will be registered to, off to the anonymous Customer Care team.

Customer Care? I might agree if someone had actually apologised for the inconvenience, had said this very rarely occurs, perhaps thanked me for buying the product, and, more importantly, were actually able to sort it out over the phone. Afterall, the company promises their customers to "deliver services so good that you, our customers, recommend it to your friends and colleagues".

This is another call where I'm advised it may be recorded for training purposes.

Now I need to decide. I can either take the time out to fax the details off or I can return the software and get something else from a different supplier. The latter is my preferred option. I don't actually feel valued as a new customer, and if I settle for the product I'm basically saying "ok" to low standards. Why do we do this in the UK? We can be eating the most horrific meal and when the waiter asks us if everything is ok, we respond with "mmmm, delicious, thank you."

I defer the decision to make a coffee.

It begins like a trumpet call. The Goodman Masson website announces, "You may have noticed some new and exciting developments at Goodman Masson" and continues with, "Over the past six months we have been asking a lot of questions. We've asked our clients, candidates and ourselves how we can improve Goodman Masson. "

You would expect, following the intro, that this agency would be deadly serious about customer service.

How is it possible then, that after apparently spending six months on marketing activity, that the best they can seemingly come up with "as a result of all this hard work" (terrible hard work talking to customers) is to ignore candidates when they apply for advertised jobs? You would think someone, during that time, might have conceived  the idea of an auto responder saying, at the very least, "thanks for sending us your cv".

Unless of course, the result and conclusion of their research was a new customer service method. They've already implemented it here: Ignore your customers, they're terrible hard work.