There was an hour long phone in today (Tuesday 15th April 2008) on You & Yours at 12pm on BBC Radio 4 about issues customers had with poor customer service in the UK.  A long section of this was devoted to calls about bad experiences when telephoning customer service centres and the abusive techniques typically used by many of them to handle calls.

I tried to call the phone in program (an 0870 number with no geographic alternative :o >:() and got through to a researcher who said they might call me back about it and I then also emailed the program but despite that no views complaining about the misuse of 084/7 numbers by call centres and that itself being bad customer service were allowed on air (either from myself or anyone else).

My suspicion is that You & Yours has received instructions from senior BBC management to never discuss the 084/7 call cost issue again.

I sent the following email to express my dissatisfaction with my views not being allowed on air.


Quote:

-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      You & Yours "Customer Service" Phone-In - SayNoTo0870 Campaign View Blocked Date:      Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:31:25 +0100 To:      peter.white@bbc.co.uk, liz.barclay@bbc.co.uk CC:      katy.johnstone@bbc.co.uk, mark.damazer@bbc.co.uk, mark.thompson@bbc.co.uk, mark.byford@bbc.co.uk, tim.davie@bbc.co.uk, zarin.patel@bbc.co.uk, zzCaroline.zzThomson@bbc.co.uk, david.jordan@bbc.co.uk, john.tate@bbc.co.uk, kerstin.mogull@bbc.co.uk, paul.schlesinger@bbc.co.uk, michael.stock@bbc.co.uk, trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk, michael.lyons@bbc.co.uk, patricia.hodgson@bbc.co.uk, chitra.bharucha@bbc.co.uk, jeremy.peat@bbc.co.uk, winifred.robinson@bbc.co.uk, john.waite@bbc.co.uk, sheila.mcclennon@bbc.co.uk, will.yates@bbc.co.uk, melanie.abbott@bbc.co.uk, eddie.mair@bbc.co.uk Dear Mr White and Ms Barclay, I tried both to phone your so called "phone-in" program about 12.35pm today (Wednesday 15th April) and sent the below email to you as well but my comments about customer's being abused with excessive 084/7 call charges numbers by many UK call centres have not been let on air. Are you now under strict instructions from senior BBC management to not discuss the 084/7 issue at all on your program?  I note that you have not mentioned this issue again for a very long time indeed, despite Ofcom going back on their previous commitments about making 0870 numbers priced on the same basis as 01/02 calls on 1st February 2008. I suspect that producers and presenters on your program have now been told never to mention this issue again on your show by the BBC's senior management (due to its own extensive and widespread cynical use and abuse of these numbers)? Of course you also still even absurdly use an abusive 0870 covert premium rate (see the dictionary definition of the word premium) phone number for calls to the phone in line on your supposedly pro consumer show.  Clearly this appears to be yet another example of the modern trend for rotten customer service by a large and faceless organisation that does not appear to listen to or at least take action in response to the views expressed by its customers! I look forward to your comments. -------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Call Centres - Hidden Extra 084/7 Calling Cost & Ofcom Not Listening To The Consumer's Unhappiness About This Date:      Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:46:57 +0100 To:      youandyours@bbc.co.uk The biggest problem of all most consumers have with call centres and that you have not yet yet mentioned on today's phone in program is the fact that these call centres use non standard priced numbers beginning 087 and 084 that are excluded from bundled call packages such as BT Option 3. An unlimited calls package for calls of up to 60 minutes at any time, like BT Option 3, can now be had for as little as £5 per month but customers then find that huge numbers of customer service centres use numbers starting 084 and 087 where these so called unlimited call packages do not cover the cost of these calls to these numbers.  To add insult to injury if you complain about the cost of these 084/7 calls to call centre staff they always seemed to be trained to lie to customers that their 084 or 087 number is only "a local rate call" or only a "national rate call", even though the Advertising Standards Authority has issued several guidances that it is illegal to make such claims in advertising and even though making such claims is also an offence under Part 3 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 regarding giving misleading price indications to consumers. With regards to the regulators Ofcom has consistently proven utterly useless with respect to consumer concerns about being ripped off over 084/7 numbers and despite over 1,000 consumers having complained about the extra cost of calling these numbers in response to one of its consultation exercises over 3 years ago it has still done nothing to resolve the problem.  Ofcom had promised to make 0870 calls the same price as normal 01/02 calls on 1st February this year but they have now gone back on that promise due to lobbying by burglar alarm companies who are ripping off customers by using 0870 numbers to make burglar alarm calls. As an active member of  the www.saynoto0870.com campaign I can say that Ofcom do not seem to be in any way on the side of the UK citizen consumer but instead only on the side of the telecoms companies. Regards,

Could you not have "bent the truth" slightly so that you could get on the air, and then revealed your true point once there? May as well make use of the same lying techniques that they use against us :).

Well as far as I am concerned they definitely didn't want to hear about anti 084/7 because they had a number of very bland calls that were the same along the lines of "but they never take any notice of what I say because my question wasn't in their script".  They should definitely have been able to also have the "but they use these ripoff covert premium rate numbers and keep me on hold for ages racking up my phone bill before I then finally speak to a clueless imbecile who doesn't understand my problem".

You ignore the fact that they always operate these supposedly live phone ins on a 15 or 20 second delay to stop the cranks and nutters so they can always cut you off without you getting your point across blaming poor line quality etc, etc if you deviate from the agreed question.

Well, I suspect you are right about them probably cutting you off once they realised what the true purpose of your call was. It does appear that the BBC has taken a "IgnoreAnythingAgainst0870" policy  ::).

Not to mention an 0871 line used by Question Time and prominently mentioned by David Dimbelby for anyone who wants to be in the audience for the upcoming shows.  They don't even give a rate per minute as far as I can recall and say something like "your telecoms provider's standard rate per minute to call these numbers" :o >:(