[Russ]

I have to say I've always found cultural differences to be a huge problem. My car insurance is with Admiral and when I called up for my renewal recently, I had to go through the standard DPA which is fine, however on my policy my name is 'Russell' so when they asked for my details and gave my first name as 'Russ', they refused to help me as they did not realise it was one and the same name. Now I understand their intentions were good but it's problems like this which build up resentment from customers.

As it happens I'm thinking of moving my bank account from HSBC to Natwest just so I can be sure of getting through to a UK callcentre. It's not a racism thing, it's just I've never felt confident in dealing with Bangalore/Bombay callcentres.

So if I needed to call tech support and I ended up speaking to someone in India, off the bat I'm not going to feel very confident.