Martin Lewis has issued a “please report” plea after around 20,000 people received the same eight-word message.
The consumer champion who offers financial advice on programmes such as This Morning and Good Morning Britain as well as his own Martin Lewis Money Show took to X to explain his concerns.
He wrote: “Please report ‘sorry we are experiencing unusually high call volumes’ messages. We’ve had 20,000 reports in so far to test if some firms (banks, broadband, mobile, energy, water etc) have this for EVERY call. Pls take 30s to report it.”
He further explained: “The point of this is to see if they play the message consistently both through the day and over weeks. If they do then it is a LIE and may well breach consumer regulations, yet we need timed data to try and tie down who the most likely offenders are.”
According to the Mirror, he highlighted the importance of persistence, adding: “We need to keep track over a few more weeks to nail down the patterns.”
A supporter echoed Lewis’s sentiments, sharing their own frustrating experience: “Having recently having dealt with the admin for my late father I can confirm Gov departments are awful at this.
“They pickup immediately but it’s often 30-60mims before you speak to someone. Calls are often randomly dropped or cut at 17:30. This is why UK has low productivity.”
Another frustrated customer shared their experience with Barclaycard: “Had a really bad experience with @Barclaycard recently, waited over an hour report a lost card only to be cut off when I did get through to someone.”
Another social media commenter said: “HMRC – ‘based on yesterdays wait times you’ve probably got a minimum of 34 minutes to go ..’ (as a pensioner on Pay-as-you-Go voda tariff, that’s a minimum of £15 spent in the queue Before you’ve even started to discuss your case! ) And no, online didn’t permit a convo! so, Byeee”.
While another individual said they were on the phone for 90 minutes to another company. They said: “I had issues with @O2 rang one evening at 4:45, was on hold 1 hour 30 minutes to be told at 6pm that my call would not be answered before they close ans hung up! The department I wanted closed at 8pm! How does that even make any sense! “.
