Virgin Trains bosses must be rueing the invention of email this month after foolishly using the medium to invite precious customers to a golfing day. How irresponsible.

Unfortunately for the firms' PR machine, rather than just asking the elite 75 members of its first class traveller club Virgin invited a lot of plebs, AKA the other poor saps that use its un-premium seats and service… Eurgh… Just imagine.

Not usually known for over estimating capacities, well, apart from on some of its trains, Virgin had managed to email 76,000 customers to the Grove Golf Resort Hotel, Herts, a course with a capacity much much lower than that figure.

Of course the mistake was soon realised and Virgin sent out a second email apologising for the mistake and offering recipients the chance to win a day at the course.

Sneak thought the firm handled this all very well and sent them off a congratulatory email. Except he didn’t.

He is however, offering Virgin's customer service team the chance to win a congratulatory email. Which, he is sure, will be a rare bonus for them.

13 May 2008