Advertisement

  1. National

Firms urged to cut costly calls

Financial firms have been urged to lower the cost of their high-rate customer and complaint lines after a study for consumer watchdog Which? found 73% are high-rate numbers.

View all 3 updates ›

'No excuse' for financial firms to use high-rate numbers

Consumer watchdog Which? has called on leading financial providers to follow the example of a minority of firms that have dropped costly call numbers.

Barclays and Barclaycard said they will now offer a freephone or basic rate number for all customer help lines.

We applaud Barclays and Barclaycard for breaking from the pack on high rate numbers and want to see other financial firms follow their lead.

It's great news that NatWest and RBS are doing the right thing for their customers by dropping costly calls. The new leaders at RBS have promised to renew the banks' efforts to improve customer service and this is a very welcome start.

With two of the biggest banking groups now leading the way by offering freephone or geographic numbers, we hope this is a tipping point for the banking sector - there's really no excuse for other providers not to follow suit.

– Which? executive director Richard Lloyd

More top news