Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Sure, but I was talking about my experience.

In my experience, places like India, the Philippines, Thailand etc are known to be rife with bribery, corruption etc. It's perfectly possible, even the norm, for even their police to accept bribes to make criminal offences go away.

I've just been reading an account about a group of lads who were on holiday. One of them sneaked off from the main party and was found having sex with an underage boy. His friends had no idea that he was into such things. Anyway, the boys mother called the police to make a complaint and the offender was put into a local police cell for three days and let out after money was paid to the police and the boys mother. He would have got into much more trouble over here, but money talks in these places where money is tight.

So, what I meant regarding the foreign call centre that Virgin use is that, in such countries, it's probably viewed as acceptable to go back on an agreement and simply try to bat away any complaint as "a mistake". Thankfully it doesn't work like that in the UK. They obviously draw upon their in experiences and culture. I once mentioned that my TV had broken and she thought that I was expecting Virgin to replace it, so I was advised that "I had to go to the market" to buy another one! I didn't bother explaining that I would never buy a television from a market

What we would regard as being ripped off would simply be seen as a successful business transaction by them.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Richard, if it was an offshore call-centre, they work to rules and scripts set up by VM, and there is regular Quality Control checks on these things.

Your last line reflects badly upon you, but not a surprise, given your previous posts on this type of situation.