| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 22/05/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 10 |
| Copyright: Other |
Letter of the week
Cut the costs for call time
THANK you Travel Weekly for highlighting a problem that is certainly costing me a lot of money.As a cruise counsellor working from home, I am very aware of my phone bills and I wish something could be done about this despicable practice of operators using the premium rate 0870 and 0990 numbers.
I was horrified to read that tour operators can make 1p a minute every time Ihave to telephone one of these numbers.
Why, oh why, do operators bite the hand that feeds them? We sit here hours on end, day after day, selling their products and this is how they repay us.
And when we do manage to get through, we are very often put on hold, costing us more money.
At the end of the day, people like me are footing the bill. It all comes out of my profit. Even as a sole trader, my annual bill is now £5,000.
A few operators do use freephone numbers and I would like to see more companies following suit.
I think this situation is something that ABTA should be keeping a very close eye on.
Jan Windass, Travel Counsellors, Hull