****in' Call Centres

[Alpha]

Don't you just hate them?

I booked a flight with Jetstar (Australian-owned budget airline company servicing the Asia-Pacific region) a few months back. In the days leading up to the flight, I had to change one of the names of the passengers, as one of our group was no longer coming and we roped someone else in in their place. I checked if there was a simple way to do this online (given, you know, it's the 21st century now), and there isn't. In fact it said that I had to call their call centre AND face a NZ$40 (US$32.50) charge. Overlooking the fact that this $40 was actually of greater value than the flight itself, I accepted it as the only way a budget airline makes money (they're also really particular about carry-on bag size/weight limits). So my friend-who-was-taking-my-other-friend's-ticket rang up the call centre and asked to change it. They told him that the person who made the booking had to call to change it. So I did. They told me that the person whose ticket it was had to call. So she called, but then she wasn't allowed to use my credit card, so the guy had to ring me, ask if she was allowed to use it, ring my friend back, and change the name/charge my credit card.

All three of us were told that the charge for a name change was $40. When the man asked if my friend was allowed to use my credit card, he told me it was for a $40 charge. The website says $40. So when I was charged $79, I was kinda bemused. I found this out at the airport, so I went to the Jetstar check-in counter to ask why'd I now been charged $79, which is more than the value of the actual plane tickets for all three of us travelling. The lady looked at me like I was stupid and said it wasn't her business, that I need to ring the call centre to ask why they did it. She may as well have told me to go ask at Air New Zealand why Jetstar had overcharged me, she was that dismissive.

I rang today to ask why, faced a 30 minute wait after a computer couldn't catch my Kiwi accent (it thought I was saying 'K' instead of 'six', until I pronounced it 'sex' like an Australian would), and was then told that the computer system is down so that they can't actually do anything. When I asked the man whether he could tell me why I had been overcharged in the first place he said he couldn't tell me (not that he didn't know).

Call centres are the Devil's handiwork. Please share a story.

[Martin]

I wouldn't say that's necessarily to do with bad call centres, I'd suggest it's got a lot more to do with Jetstar being a pain in the arse. Budget airlines can be good but I would never fly with them period. Bad experiences.


British Telecom. BT. Here's one for you. I have kept my mothers' landline in my name even when I moved as she has some issues with her bank account and by the time it was fixed it just made sense for her to transfer the money to me every month if I was to keep telling her what she owed. I'm on what they call a monthly plan, yet I receive bills quarterly. The flexibility (that I'm supposed to have anyway) is that I can pick and choose what I pay as long as it's at least what they recommend that I pay. Therein lies the problem - they always want much more than necessary. I have two problems with this: the first being that the last time this happened I wasn't paying attention and I ended up being in credit to the tune of a three-figure sum, and two like most normal people I want to pay what I owe and NOTHING MORE. This basic idea is something the folks at BT are unaccustomed to it seems. Let me give you an example.


i have a bill generated for three months. It's at £75. I'm happy paying £26 as it pays the outstanding balance with a little credit. Reasonable? BT disagree. They want £45 a month MINIMUM. Here's where the call centre fun begins. I call them up (usually once every three months as it happens over this) and I'm queued for at least half an hour. I speak to a friendly lady of I'd claim Asian descent, who spends minutes 'looking through my account' to tell me she doesn't have the authorisation to do anything about it. So basically they're holding me to ransom if I don't pay what they want. She changes this tack when I explain I'll cancel thy payment leaving my bank. I am transferred to the call centre management. They claim it's an error of the automated payment calculator that they use, that it will be set to the amount I want and that they promise it is done and that that should be the end of it.


Two weeks pass and I check my account. They take £45. I tell Ofcom. They tell me to get an indemnity claim filled in and basically sue BT for fraud. My mums collecting evidence.

[Heartless Angel]

You know how you're always on hold forever with most call centers? Well, I can tell you why. Friend of mine works in one, spends half his day on the phone with me. Usually telling me about the stupid people he's had to deal with that day. And apparently they play games in his office a lot, so they're doing all kinds of meaningful important things while you're on hold.