Broadband Customers Hit By Technical Helpline Costs

Many broadband customers are being hit by high technical support helpline costs according to a new survey by Which? Computing.

The company investigated 45 different technology companies to see how much they charged for a broadband technical call. Out of the 45 companies, 32 of them were found to use high cost telephone numbers for their helplines.

Surprisingly one of the highest charging companies was Tesco Broadband. The editor of Which? Computing, Sarah Kidner stated: “It’s particularly galling to see a huge company like Tesco Broadband using such expensive lines. If other companies can offer a freephone number, so can Tesco. After all, every little helps.”

The investigation found that Tesco Broadband, Roxio, Supanet and Nero had the highest charging broadband helplines. Tesco’s helpline which starts with 090 typically costs £5 for a ten minute phone call from a landline and that’s not including additional connection charges.

However the results of the investigation were not all bad. Six broadband providers were found to use freephone numbers. These included O2, Corel, BT, Sony, UK Online and Waitrose.

Tesco has released a statement in response to the criticism it is now facing. A spokeswoman said: “The cost of calls to Tesco Broadband technical support is something we’ve been looking at and listening to customer feedback on. As a result we’ll continue to provide high quality technical expertise to all our broadband customers but calls will now be charged at a local rate. We’ll be contacting all our customers as soon as possible to let them know about the change in price.”

Overall broadband technical helplines can cost a fortune and often customers have no idea what they are paying. Tesco dropping their rate is definitely a step forward. However, it is still vital that consumers pay more attention to the rates before they sign up for a broadband service or make a call to the technical support team.