During my insurance ordeal on Friday I spoke to a Scot twice infact once in the evening and again the following morning, I just presumed the call centre was in Britain.
Two years ago I had an argument about our water rates being in a different band when we moved house, the old house had a water meter and the cost was far cheaper than what we pay now quarterly, The Indian call centre United Utilities use had no idea that the water rates in England was based on the ratable value of the house.
My Dad died nearly fifteen years ago and was probably one of the first victims of pension fraud brought about when the company he worked for went bust but had already spent the pension fund trying to keep the company afloat, My Dad only received a pittance in compensation compared to the amount he'd paid into the fund for over twenty years.
Indeed its sad and to witness all that was once good crumble around us as Britain slowly loses all connection with established British heritage.
s'funny really, but we get very few cold callers here...
I had some LibDem canvassers cleaning the street earlier this year after dropping some leaflets, the JWs won't even enter the road, and as for the untrustworthy parasites who want me to change the billing for my gas, leccie, water, [add - nausia]... I have a certain special strategy...
Neighbours love it to ickly bits :-)
Mind, did come unstuck once with a pre-emptive strike of "so you think it's alright to ring my doorbell and generally waste me time do you?". T'was a local plain clothes plod asking about an abandoned motor at the other end of the road which had been used in a robbery... (They make them so young these days...)
Yeah, ok fair point Martyn. You get my drift though. At least we can still spell the words of the english language correctly, look at what the yanks have done to it! I suppose the scottish dialects are no worse really than some of the english ones.... cornish, geordie and 'swampy' spring to mind. ;-) Badger.
Just a note on the bank charges Steve - don't pay them...
I had a similar problem recently when I went overdrawn by (IIRC) £208.xx for 24 hours. As I have an overdraft facility of £200 anyway I got a bit pissed at being charged £30 for an unauthorised overdraft AND £28 for an unpaid Direct Debit.
I wrote to Halifax and advised them that they could have the £58 but it would cost them a customer of over 10 years standing (and one who was once considered worthy of a six figure mortgage and almost daily invitations to loans, credit cards etc).
They wrote back cancelling the charges as a goodwill gesture.
About to go through it all again now due to finger trouble with paypal!
remember when the weaselly lib dems promised to ban 4x4s ? one of the beggers asked me if I would support them - at the time I was lying underneath a Trooper so I got up and explained it to him. Derek
It's funny how people (in general, not particular Lee) are getting so excited about "cheap labour" in call centers, yet are more than happy to buy clothing from Asda, Tesco etc which is made by the cheapest labour going, as indeed are a large percentage of budget spares for our Land Rovers (China, India, Turkey). It's also funny how firms like Dyson out-source "to reduce costs", yet don't lower prices. Me? Well, for example, I would have considered a Dyson hoover, but now they are made in Korea I won't touch one as I think of all the poor sods in Malmsbury for who got the company going and then got shat on. I was living in Portsmouth when the Thompson (French) TV tube factory was closed - of the three in the group (France, Germany & UK) the UK one was chosen for closure, despite it being the most efficient, becuase closing the French or German ones would have met with strong "consumer resistance" (i.e boycott) according to a French spokesman (before being told to shut up!). Similarly, 100's of jobs went in Stoke when Michelin moved production to other EU plants - apparently for the same reasons.
Personally, though I don't like the idea of overseas call-centres (I hate call centres period), I'm quite glad they are being out-sourced - I didn't, and still don't, hear the office whalla's supporting our manufacturing industry, so why should we (those who used to work in "industry") care about the office types loosing their jobs now?
Just one of my personal hobby-horses (used to work for Rists in Newcastle making harness and stuff for Rover, RR-Bentley, Ferguson, Toyota, Honda and a few others - about 1500 jobs gone....)
Oh, and just to be really controversial, I won't give money to the Red Cross or RNLI - if they want to buy Japaneese motors (thier choice of course) they can rattle their tins in Japan - after all, the Japs are the ones with jobs now due to their purchasing choice...
I do my banking via the internet again with no office or counter to visit.
When the CIS refused to refund me I phoned my bank (cahoot) to see if THEY would as it wasn't my fault the amount came out on the wrong date, The bank said as they were instructed to take the ammount out on the
27th in their eyes all was correct so refused to refund the 25 quid.
What compounded the problem for me anyway is coming off incapacity benefit in May last year and getting a job because I was sick and tired of being classed the same as someone on the dole not interested in working.
However the job is very poorly paid and backed up by Tax credits from an other English rip-off constitution called the Inland Revenue. Twelve months later and offering no suitable explanation the IR decided to reduce my monthly tax credits by 240 quid expecting me to survive on peanuts. There explanation was you can earn up to ten thousand pounds before it affects your income, I said how am I going to earn that amount working full time with no prospect of overtime and my medical condition still exists, they just kept repeating you can earn up to 10k.
Then my car insurance came due for renewal and it's gone downhill ever since.
It is so easy to get ripped off these days especially by large establishments its almost a matter of course.
So far I've been ripped off by BTinternet, Inland Revenue, CIS, Cahoot and all within six months.
Well, because some of them have Land Rovers and buy bits from you, Richard. Some of them even post to this group! Guess where I work.
The people who work in call centres are British workers just like you. Office, manufacturing, makes no odds. Seems a shame that people like that are losing their jobs just so that customers get a worse service from someone who doesn't speak the langauge or understand British culture.
Bad call centres are bad. Good call centres are good. As with most things.
Surely you mean the "Non-Cooperative Insurance Society" which took only 14 years, of wrangling through lawyers, to eventually pay out on a claim on my property.
Ahem. Elgin, about 8 miles away from me, is actually the home of the deep-fried mars bar. It originated in the little chip shop next door to the Bonnie Earl pub. (a real spit-and-sawdust joint if ever there was one!) The story goes that 2 drunken RAF types staggered in one night and somehow the conversation turned towards what can and can't be deep fried, one of the lads says "I bet you can't deep fry a chocolate bar", to which the owner said "bet I can!" the rest is, as they say, history. Thankfully they've stopped it now and won't do it any more, but it was an interesting novelty while it lasted. Never tasted it myself, don't thin it'd have been all that nice to be honest. As for vegetables hugh, can you deep fry them as well?? Badger.
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