[Ros]

I am deaf and cannot use a normal telephone, nor do I have access to a text phone. I have sent you written authorisation for my son to speak on the telephone on my behalf and have previously made contact with you via him. However, he is out of the country for a few weeks and is not available for calls at the moment. As far as I can see, although the current Equality Act requires that all institutions *must* legally make "reasonable adjustments" to enable disabled persons to have equal access to their services with able bodied persons, absolutely no provision whatsoever has been provided on your website for a person like myself who is one of literally millions in the UK with a hearing disability. Two contact alternatives only are provided on your website. One is to telephone you, which we have established that I cannot do and the other is to write to a postal address. I am sure you will appreciate that, in terms of time and effort, there is no viable comparison between these two methods of contact. It would appear that, while a person who is able to hear is offered the opportunity for immediate contact and therefore a quick solution to any queries or problems they might have, a person like myself is instead expected to go through the much more prolonged and effort based process of writing a letter, sending it through the post and waiting for a reply which might, or might not provide a solution and might even require a further exchange of letters before the matter is solved. So in effect, what any other person can achieve during a 5 or ten minute phone call could take me weeks, or perhaps even months, to achieve. This can hardly be described as "equal access". Although I realise that I am not supposed to go into detail here, my problems concern the fact that it appears that my bank account has been debited twice in this month for my Tesco Home Insurance policy, once for last year’s policy and once for this. Since I am newly widowed and on a very tight budget, having lost half the household income, this is of serious significance to me and I need it have it remedied as quickly as possible. Waiting several weeks while we go through the process of exchanging letters by post, it not an option unless you are prepared to cover the bills and bank charges I will incur from the loss of a part of my month’s budget that is already allocated fur other things.

[MarcF]

Good Morning Ros,

Thank you for your post.

I can appreciate your frustration when trying to contact us and have passed your comments to the relevant department.

I have sent you a Private Message with further information.

Thanks

Marc

Customer Care