And the runners up are...

Moving house is always fraught with difficulties. And, being either the sort of person to whom difficulties happen more regularly than other people, or else being the sort of person who whinges about them more, I knew I was in for a doozy of a time with probably several suppliers. I was not wrong.

I promised you a winner for Worst Customer Service Award, and this will be officially presented in a later Plog. But, first, let's take a good look at the runners up.

In third place... SKY

Once we had exchanged contracts on our new house, I called Sky, asking them how much their home move service was, as we'd always been happy with their Sky Plus service (even if their customer service on occasion had been lacking). I was told that it was £60. This seemed a lot, when Virgin Media would install pretty much the same thing for a lot less. So we decided to cancel Sky. I called back to cancel the service, and was told I had already paid this month's bill (£30). Bizarrely, and I'm sure entirely against their corporate policy, the call was taken by someone astonishingly helpful. This man in the retentions team told me that they could normally move home for half price, but as I was an excellent customer, they would waive the fee completely. I clarified this, asking if it was true I'd have to pay nothing at all. He confirmed. I said, "Well, I can't ask for more than that." I asked about transferring the broadband, and he said he'd put me through to the broadband team... At which point I was accidentally cut off.

A bit frustrating, but I called back, and got through to a different person. I explained what had happened, and the offer that had been made to me. She said that, no, I had been offered half-price installation at £30. I explained the conversation again that I had had three minutes ago with her colleague. She accused me of not telling the truth. She put me on hold for ten minutes, then repeated herself. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She put me on hold for another ten minutes, and her supervisor reiterated what she had told me. The original offer did not stand. Angry as a boiled bee, I cancelled the service.

I intended to take out Sky again in TheBloke (TM)'s name and went onto their website to use the "refer a friend" service to get Mr and Mrs Nunn a free HD box. Their site kicked me out fourteen times in a row. It was at this point I registered with Virgin Media.

This, in retrospect, may have been a mistake. This brings us to:


Second place: VIRGIN ON THE RIDICULOUS

First impressions of Virgin Media were very good. I used their whizzy website tool to design the package of phone, TV and internet we wanted. It did a little calculation and told us we could have free HD. The cost was comparable to Sky. Brilliantly, it even told me when an engineer could come and install it - in two days' time! This was perfect. I eagerly clicked "purchase".

A day later, I got an email asking me to call Virgin to confirm my activation. This is where the trouble started. I was on hold for 20 minutes with (for some reason, excessively loud) hold music playing in my ear. I finally spoke to someone, who told me that actually they wouldn't be able to install it for a week because I wanted to keep my old phone number. This wasn't their fault, it was BT's service level agreement. I understood this, and we agreed they would install it on 1 October.

The next day I received another email from Virgin, confirming installation on 7 October - nearly two weeks after the first date they said they could install it. I called again, a bit narked. Especially as I had to spend another 20 minutes on hold, being shouted at chavvily by Girls Aloud, loudly. The operator explained to me (finally) that they didn't have any engineers in my area and it was a busy time with the students going back to university. I told him that that wasn't my fault - and actually I was off work when we'd originally agreed for it to be installed, but couldn't be around for the second date. I said I needed to think about it but was likely to cancel the Virgin package.

This, Ploggers, is the time when I used Twitter to vent my frustration about Virgin Media. Brilliantly (and it really was brilliant), someone from Virgin contacted me via Twitter in minutes, asking if they could help, and gave me an email address. I explained the problem to my new saviour (Billy) who promised to do what he could. And he did. Within a day, he'd set up an appointment for everything to be installed on 2 October. What an innovative use of Twitter. I was a happy bunny.

Until the installer arrived. During the course of the visit he:

- Couldn't test the phone line as he forgot to bring a spare phone with him (and ours was a digital one that wasn't charged)
- Forgot his cement (no, I'm not sure what the cement was for either) and had to go back to the depot
- Managed not to leave me an HD cable, resulting in lengthy further correspondence with Billy and leaving me to the joys of the Royal Mail strike
- Realised that after all the guff about BT needing to transfer the number over, they'd actually forgotten to complete this work and it would be another three days before we could make or receive phone calls.

He then looked at me shyly and said, "Can I ask why you VIP are?" (he was a bit Polish).

I said, "Sorry?"

"It say on job sheet that you are VIP customer. You get express installation."

So it turns out that moaning has actually made me a celebrity. Which would have been brilliant, except his installation wasn't exactly express; he was at the house for five hours (including his return trip back to the depot for cement). And he accidentally installed the wrong level of broadband. And no phone. And didn't leave an HD cable.

Then I was supposed to phone and activate my service. I held for twenty minutes again whilst Lily Allen bawled in my ear before giving up. Twice. I emailed Billy again and sorted it out that way. Without Billy I may well have committed homicide by now.

I ironed out the last of the kinks just yesterday when we got HD working for the first time. It looks exactly like normal-D. What a lot of fuss over nothing.

AND in first place... Stay tuned for your next exciting update. Which organisation has won the coveted first place?