When did firms stop caring?

I HAD an infuriating conversation with a call centre last week.

It’s a yearly occurrence with the same call centre, and this time I’m fairly sure it was even the same person as last year.

Seemingly for no good reason other than to irritate me, my TV, phone and internet provider insists on trying to hike my prices every year.

They “technically” tell me they’re about to do it, buried in some email that’s made so deliberately dull that no-one ever opens it.

Then – and this has happened every year since I started the contract – they up the amount they charge to £100 a month, purely because it’s a whole year since they last tried it on. As soon as I notice I call them up, and the tedious rigmarole begins.

“We’ve applied some great special exclusive discounts just for you sir, on this one special occasion as a loyal and valued beloved customer, and we’ve managed to reduce your annual bill by 17 pence.”

Then I have to go to their website, look at what price they’re advertising to new customers, and tell the person on the other end of the line to put me through to the cancellation department.

After half an hour of nauseating hold music, a person on the cancellation desk miraculously manages to match the price they’re offering new customers so that I don’t cancel, and my bill remains unchanged until next year rolls around.

They’re not the only ones – car insurance companies do the same, hiking my bill every 12 months despite no circumstances changing.

It’s deeply annoying, not only because I have to waste hours of my life every year, but because they try to do it in the first place.

And it’s all very well people saying “you should always be checking whether you should switch” – well, how about companies not trying to bleed us dry in the first place?

Perhaps I’m being misty-eyed, but I swear there was a time when companies looked after loyal customers. Boring people like me, who have time to sit around listening to hold music, are the ones who don’t get ripped off.

But how many older, or vulnerable, people out there don’t notice, or don’t know that they can challenge price hikes, or don’t know how to use switching websites, so end up paying through the nose for months, if not years?

Sure, these companies aren’t actually breaking the law – they’re cleverer than that – and the laws seem to have been designed to protect them rather than us anyway.

But I can’t help thinking that taking care of existing customers might be a better approach.