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Post by moonraker on Jun 30, 2020 9:16:06 GMT
Yesterday morning I did some work on my finances, including seeking statements of interest for 2019-20, that entailed ringing up various call centres. In one case my on-line account showed the number for a matured deposit, not the new one; in another I could no longer access my matured account; and in two cases I had trouble entering my password, which later lead me to wonder if my keyboard had switched to American-style, which it's inclined to do from time to time.
Most reassuringly answered very promptly, though with one instant-access account pressing "1" merely took me to back to the main menu of options time and again.
The one exception was National Savings & Investments, which has shortened its opening hours and warns of waits of 30 minutes. Not criticising, just saying, and there's no urgency.
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
Posts: 3,867
Likes: 2,308
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Post by keitha on Jul 1, 2020 8:58:52 GMT
Royal mail service centre is at least 60 minutes.
twice I've rung mid afternoon at bang on 4:30 I got cut off, I'm assuming this clears queue so that they can go home at 5.
I've resorted to sending them a letter, regarding my complaint - I'd reported an item missing, the response was to say I hadn't sent pictures of the damage !
Oh and to add insult to injury when you ring the number on the letter it tells you to dial a different one. Which after 5 minutes going through options etc, asks if you are residential or business and if you answer residential it says hang up and dial another number !
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Post by moonraker on Jul 1, 2020 9:10:12 GMT
I suspect that various organisations are having trouble with their automated responses - and does one get fed up with the same one repeated every few minutes or even at the start of yet another attempt to get through!
Last week I needed a new smartphone (actually my first ever) and rang the two Tesco phone shops in my town to see if they were open. In both cases when I picked the Phone shop option from the menu there was a very long pause before a voice said they were closed. I'd vaguely heard otherwise, so walked down to the nearest (about 40 minutes away) to find it was actually open - and VERY helpful.
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slippery
Member of DD Central
Posts: 83
Likes: 61
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Post by slippery on Jul 1, 2020 17:15:58 GMT
Curry's PC World - I haven't even tried to phone as their website warns of the long waits (I don't have free calls in my phone contract) and I've read terrible Trustpilot reviews of people spending up to 11 hours in total on the phone; getting cut off after being on hold for hours etc etc. I submitted a claim under guarantee via e-mail on 21.3.2020, well aware response could take a while due to business disruption of Covid. Send a reminder every 3-4 weeks, still just auto-responses. They have now removed the e-mail from the "contact us" part of the website & give a snailmail address (which I wrote to a couple of weeks ago). Still nothing, don't know if they will want the faulty device back or if I can dump it. I enclosed my e-mailed response from the manufacturer apologising for the fault but saying I needed to revert to Curry's for a refund or replacement. Don't even know where I am in the queue - at least I get that much info from Ratesetter  |
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Post by brianac on Jul 2, 2020 17:46:37 GMT
I must be the unluckiest man in the country, whenever i ring up a call centre, after getting the usual message about"how important your call is to us" i always seem to get the message about how they are receiving an unusually large number of calls, and there is a queue of calls and that I can hold and wait, or call back later... Of course when I call back later, they are still having an "exceptionally large number of calls" strange that whenever i call they are snowed under? How do they know I'm going to ring?  Brian |
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Post by moonraker on Jul 3, 2020 12:15:09 GMT
A three-year deposit with Paragon matured on Wednesday and I got an email inviting me to log onto my account to check closing statements etc. I left it until yesterday when I couldn't find my user name. So I rang Paragon and immediately got through to a very nice lady who gave me a new user name over the phone and the first four letters of a new ten-letter password. "All to be in lower case?" I queried. "Yes," she said. Within a couple of minutes an email arrived with the final six letters - in upper case.
Never mind, I quickly logged on but could only see details of the new two-year account containing the matured funds. I rang Paragon again and once more was immediately put through to another nice lady, who said there should be a tab for "old accounts". "I've goofed again," I thought but she looked for herself and admitted there now wasn't one. Closing statement promised by snailmail.
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Post by moonraker on Jul 14, 2020 9:04:49 GMT
My recent experiences - which I won't bother to enumerate - have all been positive. I've heard of some horror stories outside the financial sector, such as someone waiting two hours to talk to a company about the wrong car battery having been delivered. I wonder to what extent organisations are seeking to improve inadequate services and to safeguard about further problems that may (or may not) occur this Winter?
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Post by moonraker on Jul 24, 2020 16:34:12 GMT
In contrast to the excellent response times to telephone calls: on Wednesday I emailed Schroders about the tax situation for its ISF Emerging Markets fund. Each year my Hargeaves Lansdowne's consolidated tax certificate lists "income received" from it under "Schedule of Overseas Income" and urges me to show separately "income received" and "overseas tax" (actually £0.00) on my tax return. Each year I always have trouble entering the details in the obvious boxes on my HMRC online return and end up adding a note in an "anything else" box naming the fund and giving the two figures, whereupon I get a message "Based on your answer you are not required to complete the foreign section". Which seems to be a bit too good to be true.
No reply yet.
(Yes, I am fishing here for comments on the fund's status.)
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