A man has shared his shock after he was charged £220 for ringing an airline’s customer service line.
Lewis Richardson, 35, was trying to contact Wizz Air in the hopes of changing his flights for a family holiday to Spain. He then spent over an hour-and-a-half on the phone – unaware he was being charged at a premium rate.
Lewis ended up with a £220 phone bill and still didn’t manage to sort out his trip to Malaga.
Speaking to Hull Live, Lewis says he will be boycotting Wizz Air from now on: “My first and only experience with Wizz has been a total car crash. It’s just been one thing after another, and to top it all off, I’ve been charged £220 for calling their customer service line – and they didn’t even help me.”
Lewis and his family booked a holiday for August last year but were unable to travel on the day they’d planned for personal reasons. The dad-of-two said he spent £975 on flights and after reading Wizz Air’s flight change policy he was confident he could change his booking. Phone records show he was on the phone with the airline’s customer services for a total of 100 minutes – just over an hour and a half.
However, he claims that, after being told contradicting information from separate phone operators, he was eventually informed he would have to book new flights to travel. Lewis then shelled out an additional £450 to secure new seats and flew to Spain on August 6.
Lewis’ phone bill shows five calls to an 09 number, which is listed online as a contact for Wizz Air’s UK call centre. Four calls on August 1 and one on August 3 were charged at a total of £223.06, he added.
A spokesperson for Wizz Air said: “Wizz Air has looked into Mr. Richardson’s claim and found that his compensation was rejected due to an isolated internal error. The customer service team has contacted Mr Richardson and the case has now been resolved. Wizz Air sincerely apologises for the inconvenience caused.”
