This Ordinary Life

I don’t know about you, but I have learned to hate calling customer service numbers. The advent of voice recognition has introduced about 5 minutes of computer-voiced menus at the beginning of every call. I even once heard that American Express made their computer controlled menu system so complicated and lengthy to encourage people to use their website.

But really gets me hot under the collar is the fact that they are earning fat profits off these calls. In the old days, you had free 0800 numbers or a real number to call which if you were lucky was local or you paid long-distance rates. Now everyone uses “National Rate” 0870 and similar numbers. Funny, that 0870 numbers are excluded from every calling plan available in the UK, landline, VOIP and mobile meaning you have to pay for every call. Couple this with the amount of wasted time at the beginning navigating menus only to have the “real” person you end up speaking to oblivious to the menu selections you made (e.g. put in account number, interested in why you overcharged me on my overseas transactions, like the colour blue) asking you everything again and the company you called has a real money-maker on their hands.

Well, you can put an end to this in most cases using a nifty website called www.SayNoTo0870.com. They have the real landline number alternatives for 0800, 0808, 0844, 0845, 0870 and 0871 numbers. I have used it a number of times and saved a packet. If you every come across any landline number alternatives, you can even submit it to the site to be added to their database.

To all you companies looking to make a fast buck off 0870 customer services lines, take as long as you want cus’ we ain’t paying for 0870 any mo'.