Rant: Fault reporting and being 'first'...

This happens about once a quarter, with Virgin Media, my fibre-based ISP. I'll put the conversation down as it normally happens, for entertainment purposes, if nothing else(!):

"Hello, my broadband is down!"

"Sorry about that sir, but we've no reports of issues in your area."

"I appreciate that, but it's only just gone down, I strongly suspect that I'm the first."

"No sir, my system is showing no issues."

"I'm phoning you to REPORT an issue!"

"No problem, sir, I can book you a technician to come out and fix your equipment.... next week."

"But my equipment is fine, this looks like an issue on your network in the surrounding streets. Maybe someone has the cabinet open at the moment?"

"No, sir, there are no faults in your area. I've booked you a technician."

"But you're about to get deluged by all the other people in the area with reports of problems. It's just that I was first."

"The technician will be with you next Tuesday, sir."

"But you'll get reports of problems, whoever's messing with the network will fix it and then I won't need the technician!"

"Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?"

[Sigh] "No. Goodbye."

An hour later the broadband comes back on and I get a text from Virgin Media telling me that the fault was a network fault in my area and that the technician visit has been cancelled.

Rinse and repeat. Every few months. Why isn't there something in place at call centres to recognise that the caller might be the first of many. Especially if they sound like they know what they are talking about?

Maybe I should have thrown in some juicy nuggets along the lines of "Your DHCP server isn't serving up DNS queries!"

Oh well! Comments?