The holiday website Secret Escapes offers only one number for its customer service and it costs up to 62p a minute to call. I pointed out to the firm that since June 2014 firms must offer a basic rate number for after-sales enquiries, but it insisted it abides by the regulations. The CEO, Alex Saint, told me that it’s my “prerogative” if I disagree.
I’m astonished that a well-known company and its CEO act with such aloofness in the face of the evidence. BW, Hersham, Surrey
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 state that companies must offer a basic rate number for customers who have entered into a contract with them. If the number costs more than the basic rate, customers have the right to claim back the excess cost of the call.
However, package travel contracts are exempt from the rules, which is doubtless why Secret Escapes, a member-only website that offers discounted holidays, reckons it can get away with such a pricey phone line.
But although it specialises in packages, it does offer hotel-only deals, which means it should offer an alternative number charged at geographical rates.
After The Observer pointed this out, Secret Escapes amended the number, though it still wouldn’t admit that it was in breach of the rules. “We are transitioning to freephone numbers for all queries by the end of the year,” a spokesperson says.
It has since changed the number – but to a geographic one charged at basic rates rather than a freephone one.
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