Customer service premium lines?

[ChevronB19]

I thought these were banned?

I bought a filing cabinet from Ryman (who were brilliant by the way). Delivery to be via XPD (one of several couriers they use).

4 failed deliveries,constant texts and emails from XPD saying your delivery will be here today (sometimes giving a time prior to the email).

I gave up, and Ryman refunded me 2 weeks ago, 5 weeks after I ordered. No issue with them (Ryman).

Still endless texts and emails from XPD saying it will be delivered on dates X, Y and Z, so I rang their customer service line to tell them it had been cancelled and refunded, only for a robot voice to tell me it would cost 7 pence per minute to call their customer service line (which I thought had been banned?).

Guess what?

Knock on the door today, ‘here’s your delivery’. Told the guy it had been cancelled and refunded, and he said it wasn’t his problem, wouldn’t take it back, and drove off.

Called Ryman customer services, who were brilliant, and admitted that it seemed to be a clusterf*ck of massive proportions, so gave me the filing cabinet for free.

So who do I report XPD to?

[blingybongy]

ChevronB19 said:

I thought these were banned?

I bought a filing cabinet from Ryman (who were brilliant by the way). Delivery to be via XPD (one of several couriers they use).

4 failed deliveries,constant texts and emails from XPD saying your delivery will be here today (sometimes giving a time prior to the email).

I gave up, and Ryman refunded me 2 weeks ago, 5 weeks after I ordered. No issue with them (Ryman).

Still endless texts and emails from XPD saying it will be delivered on dates X, Y and Z, so I rang their customer service line to tell them it had been cancelled and refunded, only for a robot voice to tell me it would cost 7 pence per minute to call their customer service line (which I thought had been banned?).

Guess what?

Knock on the door today, ‘here’s your delivery’. Told the guy it had been cancelled and refunded, and he said it wasn’t his problem, wouldn’t take it back, and drove off.

Called Ryman customer services, who were brilliant, and admitted that it seemed to be a clusterf*ck of massive proportions, so gave me the filing cabinet for free.

So who do I report XPD to?

Think yourself lucky that it wasn't UPS.
They are just incompetent, no other word suffices.
They have never ever got a parcel to my house, which is just a normal address on a normal street.
wkers.

[Countdown]

ChevronB19 said:

I thought these were banned?

I bought a filing cabinet from Ryman (who were brilliant by the way). Delivery to be via XPD (one of several couriers they use).

4 failed deliveries,constant texts and emails from XPD saying your delivery will be here today (sometimes giving a time prior to the email).

I gave up, and Ryman refunded me 2 weeks ago, 5 weeks after I ordered. No issue with them (Ryman).

Still endless texts and emails from XPD saying it will be delivered on dates X, Y and Z, so I rang their customer service line to tell them it had been cancelled and refunded, only for a robot voice to tell me it would cost 7 pence per minute to call their customer service line (which I thought had been banned?).

Guess what?

Knock on the door today, ‘here’s your delivery’. Told the guy it had been cancelled and refunded, and he said it wasn’t his problem, wouldn’t take it back, and drove off.

Called Ryman customer services, who were brilliant, and admitted that it seemed to be a clusterf*ck of massive proportions, so gave me the filing cabinet for free.

So who do I report XPD to?

What makes you think premium rate numbers are banned?

https://www.gov.uk/call-charges

Looks like you got a free cabinet. I'd chalk that up as a "win" and move on

[Drawweight]

I spent about 4 days on the phone to HMRC after my employee was sent a demand for £6.5k in tax refunds that she never got. I was on the phone at 3pm on Xmas eve still trying to get someone to see on their system what was obvious on mine.

Well I eventually got it sorted and my thanks was £73 in call charges.

[martinbiz]

Drawweight said:

I spent about 4 days on the phone to HMRC after my employee was sent a demand for £6.5k in tax refunds that she never got. I was on the phone at 3pm on Xmas eve still trying to get someone to see on their system what was obvious on mine.

Well I eventually got it sorted and my thanks was £73 in call charges.

HMRC don’t use premium rate numbers

[outnumbered]

martinbiz said:

HMRC don’t use premium rate numbers

Quite, although Google is happy to present you with 3rd parties who will connect you to the free HMRC numbers for only a few quid a minute...

[carl_w]

Countdown said:

Looks like you got a free cabinet. I'd chalk that up as a "win" and move on

Or at the very least, a cheap cabinet (assuming say 30 mins on the phone at 7p/min)

[Wackywoo105]

I needed to contact Philips/Signify about a problem with some Hue bulbs and couldn't find a free number, even on saynoto0870.com.

In the end I manged to find an email address.

I'm with Vodafone and can activate a 300min a month premium bundle for ~£2.50pm if required.

I only found that out as the worse culprit was the hospital my mum died from Covid in. They had a TV/phone system that was near the bed that had a premium phone number. When you phoned it immediately answered, so you started getting charged and played a long intro message before it tried to phone the patient. They kept the unit too far form the bed so she couldn't answer. I had to phone the ward, get them to move it closer and phone it again. F$%ckers.

Edited by Wackywoo105 on Monday 14th March 11:23

[Uncle Meat]

You can try
https://www.saynoto0870.com/

to find non-premium numbers.

I know the website looks like something out of the 80s but I did find a few alternative numbers for XDP.

ETA did you mean XPD or XDP?

Edited by Uncle Meat on Monday 14th March 14:53

[Drawweight]

martinbiz said:

Drawweight said:

I spent about 4 days on the phone to HMRC after my employee was sent a demand for £6.5k in tax refunds that she never got. I was on the phone at 3pm on Xmas eve still trying to get someone to see on their system what was obvious on mine.

Well I eventually got it sorted and my thanks was £73 in call charges.

HMRC don’t use premium rate numbers

Actually I’ve just checked the bill and you’re right. However the bill mounts up when you’re on 2 1/2 hours at a time.

[FatboyKim]

Drawweight said:

Actually I’ve just checked the bill and you’re right. However the bill mounts up when you’re on 2 1/2 hours at a time.

Sounds like your problem is with your network and going over your minutes allowances or similar, rather than HMRC using 'premium rate' numbers, because they don't. Otherwise, you've used one of the scam 'call connect' website numbers.

In years gone by, it was a nightmare using a search engine to find a link to HMRC's contact page on their own website. Searching 'HMRC phone number' or something equally as simple and vague would bring up a couple of pages of call connect services which offer to connect you (via a 090 phone number). No different to 118 118, but things have been tidied up now. When calling HMRC, always make sure it's one of the official '03000...' numbers.

+1 for the saynoto0870 website. We had to call Pitney Bowes at work a few times recently (absolutely abhorrent extortion racket, I truly despise them) and it's impossible to find a freephone number. That website brought up a local number for the reception switchboard of their head office in Hatfield, which we called in order to be transferred to the line which would have ordinarily been paid if we called it direct.

Edited by FatboyKim on Tuesday 15th March 14:54

[TimmyMallett]

I thought Ofcom took a very dim view of charging customers for calls to customer services for products already bought? If you have a faulty item, you shouldn't have to pay to call someone on a non geographic number?