Just let us speak to a human!

One reader on hold to British Airways for FIVE hours. Another waiting nearly SEVEN hours to speak to Virgin Money. Readers’ howls of frustration that prove we must fine firms that don’t answer in ten minutes

MONEY Mail readers, MPs and consumer champions have come forward in droves to back our campaign to force big businesses to pick up the phone. Last week we called on the Government to introduce a new law that would mean firms are hit with hefty fines if they do not answer their customer service lines within ten minutes.

Since then, we have been inundated with emails and letters from readers expressing their frustration at being left on hold.

Many mobile phone users included screenshots of call times to show how long they had been left waiting to resolve basic complaints when phoning major banks, energy firms and telecoms providers. One caller reported waiting more than five hours to get through to British Airways — and was disconnected twice. Another said over three days, he spent nearly seven hours trying to get through to Virgin Money.

Our own weekly audit once again revealed some firms were disconnecting calls after minutes, claiming the high volume of inquiries meant they could not pick up.

Readers also complained that even when they did get through, they were met with call-centre staff who were rude, distracted and very often working from home.

Some recently bereaved customers added that because of the issues, they had been left struggling to sort out their loved one’s affairs.

That’s why today we are urging our readers to sign our template letter calling for change.

Our demands are simple: we believe that firms should be fined if they leave customers on hold for longer than ten minutes.

Under our proposal, regulators would have the power to dish out fines and firms would be obliged to publish their average call waiting times daily on their websites.

On the right, we have laid out a template letter for you to sign. Please fill it out and then send it back to the Money Mail office.

This will form a core part of our dossier which we will hand to the Government as we call for change.

Already we have won the backing of politicians and influential campaigners. Jacob Young, the Conservative MP for Redcar, says: ‘I want to see more organisations offering people the chance for a call back instead of waiting for hours on end, unable to do anything in the meantime. Being left on hold harms productivity and can cost consumers at a time when finances are tight.’

Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney, and the Lib Dem spokesman for business, says: ‘During this cost-ofliving crisis, countless people have had to phone their bank or ring their energy company for help with their bills. It’s not right that pensioners spend hours on hold before someone answers to help them.

‘Big businesses need to show they care about their customers and drastically cut their waiting times, so that people can actually get the help they deserve.’

Last week, Conservative MP Robert Halfon wrote for Money Mail, promising to raise the issue in Parliament.

He is also gathering support for a backbench debate on the issue. Customer service standards plummeted in the pandemic, as call-centre staff worked from home. But the problem has become all the more frustrating as struggling households face a cost-of-living crisis and rocketing energy bills.

Even worse, many firms are axing free helplines — meaning callers will have to pay to be left on hold.

Adam French, a consumer rights expert at Which?, says: ‘The Mail is absolutely right to highlight the unacceptable call waiting times to which consumers are routinely exposed. This should send a clear message that it’s time for businesses to stop hiding behind automated messages and excuses about Covid.’

Dennis Reed, director of campaign group Silver Voices, which fights on behalf of the over-60s, says: ‘Being left on hold is a very common bugbear for our members.

‘Lots of businesses keep callers on hold while saying they can solve their query online. This is discriminatory, because lots of older people don’t have internet connection. Ten minutes is a reasonable time to wait at busy times. But having to wait for one to two hours is just not acceptable, so we welcome the Mail’s campaign.’

The stories that have flooded our inbox have been distressingly similar. Readers have told us they just want to speak to a human being on the phone. One widow wrote movingly about the difficulties she had faced in trying to organise her late husband’s affairs after he died at the end of January.

‘No one answers the phone, and when they do there is such a lack of thought or care,’ she told us.

Another reader said that it was impossible to get through to companies while working full-time.

She says: ‘It sends me into a panicked state just thinking about all the calls I need to make. It is virtually impossible these days to speak to any larger organisation.’

And one man wrote in to say that when he eventually got through to a call-centre staff member at BT, she informed him that she was at home and making her dinner — so she didn’t have time for his call.

While your stories involved a whole range of businesses, the same names came up again and again.

The worst offenders included energy giants British Gas, EDF, E.ON Next and ScottishPower.

Both Santander and Barclays were named and shamed by our readers, while telecoms giants BT and Virgin Media also fared badly.

We will be monitoring our postbag carefully and intend to publish a full list of the most guilty firms in the coming weeks.