off-it.org

Its all about me!

Virgin Media sucks. Try and get another ISP if you can.

This is how Virgin Media treat their customers. Its just easier if you find yourself another broadband provider.

Started calling tech support at 8pm on Tuesday(16th of October) evening. Spoke to a guy for quite some time (until 8:33pm) about my grievances with the cable Internet.

After checking the signal page of the modem (By logging in through 192.168.100.0) i was informed that my modem couldn’t be contacted by tech support at Virgin Media.(Big surprise! I already knew it wasn’t working. Which is why i contacted them!)Then i was informed of a problem in my area that magically appeared and was told it could take up to 2 days for it to be fixed.

I asked why it has taken the past six months to get anyone to try and sort out my Internet. As its been up and down for that long (Connectivity problems). Only to be told that the previous tech support staff i had spoken to had misinformed me. To which i stated i would like to make a complaint against every member of tech support staff i had previously spoken to in my six months worth of calls.

I was told that a member of staff higher up. A manager or supervisor would call me back within the next 15 minutes. I waited for 37 minutes before calling back as a manager hadn’t called me back.

I then had to go through all my problems again with a guy named Ashish on extension 13089. Who said that a manager would call me back within the next 30 minutes. (Something which i was told 45 minutes earlier!)

Told Ashish that i would be calling back up at 10pm if i haven’t received a call from them. He told me not to bother and wait until the morning. But i have already waited all evening to have my problems sorted out by a manager. He assured me that a manager would call me back within 30 minutes. So by 10 pm i should of heard from a supervisor/manager.

Ashish then proceeded to cut me off as the call lasted for longer than 20 minutes.(Its not a free phone number so they have a limit.

10:10pm

No call from manager/supervisor. Looks like i was lied to yet again.

Call back to tech support at 10:11pm

Called 10:11pm. went through config setup yet again.

The guy i spoke to said he would book a technician to come see the equipment. But still no manager to actually manage. Placed on hold for the umpteenth time.

I was placed on hold and then hung up on!!! This would be the second time that the company had hung up on me this evening.(What a great way to treat the customers)

Called straight back but the line wouldn’t connect. When it did finally connect i was connected to a young lady by the name of Sarah.

Yet again i was assured a manager would ring me. I wasn’t sure of this so i asked how i could be so sure that a manager would actually get around to ringing me. (I had already waited for over 2 hours from the original call to speak with a manager.)

Sarah went on to assure me that a manager would speak to me this evening. But after waiting for 2 hours and 15 minutes i was doubtful. The managers name that i was told would be calling was named Arun Mani.

10:45pm. Waiting for managers phone call.

11:21pm

Manager finally calls. His name was Abhishiek. Somehow he managed to reboot my modem from the tech support office. I was then placed on hold whilst he went to find out who had informed me of maintenance or problems in my area.

After a while Abhishiek returned to me and let me know he couldn’t find the name of the person who had given me that information. He did however lodge complaints against the guy who hung up on me as well as others.(Or at least he said he did.)

Then once again the Internet went off whilst i was on hold with Abhishiek. I was asked to give the physical address to my machine so they could then monitor it from their tech support end.

He then went to speak with his senior technician. Who claims the modem has only been rebooted once since 2006. Which seems odd considering i have rebooted it several times. And so have the tech support (A remote reboot) So either they are lying. Or the modem isn’t sending back the correct data. Either way. As a customer should i not be entitled to a technician coming round and looking over things? Its been an on going problem now for well over six months.

So what was the outcome? Well after 3 hours of calls to tech support, twice been told i would get called back by a manager and didn’t, and lots of rebooting of modems and computer. I am online. For now. I won’t be holding my breath for it to last. Nor will i be staying with Virgin Media for any longer than necessary.

Do yourselves a favour. Get a competent ISP to run your internet through. Or grab yourself a dial up connection.

86 FREE PHP scripts

If your wanting to get your hands on some cool FREE PHP scripts. Then check out this site. If you bother to read whats written before hitting the download button. (I know the download button just calls to be pressed!) Then you’ll notice that he doesn’t offer any support for the scripts.

Although for FREE you can hardly complain. He’s just collected them from around the net over his time surfing and bought some with resell rights. Which means he’s allowed to give them away. (He does say it on his site. But as previously stated. You may not read that part :p )

A selection of the scripts on offer are :

1) PHP Link Listing Script:
2) PHP MySQL Yahoo Style Link Directory/Search Engine:

3) PHP MySQL Website Stats Business:
4) Automated Form Submission Prevention Script
5) A Sophisticated PHP Ecommerce Site
6) The Well Known osCommerce PHP Shopping Cart!
7) Your Own FTP Program Written In PHP:22) A PHP Script For Building A Web Ring:
23) A PayPal Store Shopping Cart:
24) PHP Form To Email Script SECURE!:
25) A Online MultiPlayer Chess Script

26) A Super Easy Administration Program
27) A Sharable Web-Based Address Book Script
28) A News Publishing Script
29) A “Users Online” Script
30) Awesome File Transfer Script
31) Affiliate Banner Rotation Script 77) Complete PHP Bug Tracking Script [NEW!]
78) Document Management System [NEW!]
79) Banner Management and Tracking System [NEW!]
80) Web Form Generator Script [NEW!]
81) Directory Indexer Written in PHP [NEW!]
82) Web-based Reservation System [NEW!]
83) PHP Online Project Management Script [NEW!]

84) Web-based Chat script [NEW!]

85) PHP hit counter [NEW!]

86) Geo IP (User Statistics)[NEW!]

87)Free PHP Slogan Generator[NEW!]

So for more info and the download links, check out Jahmoney.com

Telesales strike again

If your like me and fed up of telesales and recorded messages ringing you. Then you can understand how frustrating it is when your waiting for an actual phone call form someone you really know.

Today is one of those days that they just wish they never called.

Heres how it goes.

I was sat here minding my own business waiting for the phone to ring. Alas it rang. ‘Yayyy’ i thought. But no. It was an auto recorded message. We get lots of these messages but i actually listened to this one as it pissed me off.

It was something to do with mortgage arrears and mortgage troubles. After the automatic voice stopped jabbering on. It informed me if pressed 2 on my phonepad i would be able to get help with my troubles! “Wow i thought. An end to my troubles?“  So i promptly pressed 2.

I was greeted by a guys voice who asked if i wanted help with my mortgage troubles. I replied “Hello, i got an automatic message saying you could help me with my troubles. I am interested.”  The guy must of been drooling when i said i wanted his help because he wasted no time in repeating his first question. “So do you have troubles with your mortgage Sir?” the voice repeated. “No mate, i have troubles with automatic messages wasting my time all day long and i want to be removed from your database.”

He stopped being of use then and hung up.

Unfortunately for me i didn’t get the companies name (The guy just didn’t want to tell me it!)

Now i dunno where these companies are getting our number from. But we get at least 3 calls a day from such companies. Do we have mortgage troubles? No we live in a rented flat. Are we the home owners? No.

So why do they keep on calling? And why wouldn’t the last guy remove me from his database?

Bad business practises, all i want is for my name and number to be removed from a  spam list.