Eventually after 6-7 hours on the phone speaking to various people I finally got someone who was able to fix the issue in 30 minutes. This confirms to me it had nothing to do with my "gadgets" but was a Virgin server or connection problem. Now I'm told on another forum that although I pay for broadband, Virgin don't take responsibility for ensuring emails are working properly, "these things happen" kind of thing. And there is no financial redress for all that time without emails, just the advice [that as Virgin emails are obviously not reliable], to make sure I have important documents on another email like googlemail. I would have thought the entire point of my communication was to see if there was any way that callers like myself could avoid being passed around the houses, asked my personal details dozens of times on the same call, and faced with people who want to help but are entirely unqualified to do so. The relief after 6-7 hours to finally encounter someone who can actually restore your emails is overwhelming. I even had changed appointments in those emails which had I not been able to access in time, would have had serious repercussions. And all this with no apology, no reason given why my emails went down, no answer to my complaint, and no way to track my complaint.
The customer service system needs a serious overhall to prevent the frustration and stress that I and I'm sure many like me are faced when they encounter that dreaded "Forbidden" message across all their devices. If I say to someone "this is the 3rd time I've rung and I've been on the phone 5 hours already" that call needs escalating to someone competent immediately.
What possibly shocked me the most was encountering a very determined lady on the virgin helpline who refused to speak to me until I had agreed to sign up to gadget rescue for £20 then commit to £5 a month, and if I cancelled immediately, a fine of £20. I was completely blackmailed into doing this before she would speak to me, but in spite of that she didn't solve my problem and nor did the next, very hostile man I spoke to, who eventually gave up and said it would take 5 days and someone would ring me. After that after a few days of no communiation I went on to the webchat and finally someone who knew what they were doing got my emails back. So thank you to that person. And to no one else at Virgin !
