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Bangalore: "I was on the phone each time for 10 minutes minimum , I think to people in Mumbai , and got so frustrated because I couldn't understand what some of the people were saying."

"I had to ask their staff to repeat themselves over and over. I felt like throwing the phone out of the window," said 59 year old Brummie Viv Tomkins, a retired paramedic.

Viv had called BT a number of times to resolve some bill issues. Each time she called, she was routed to the Mumbai based call centre.

Viv Tomkins complained in her letter to BT that she was not able to understand the accent of the Mumbai based call centre, which provides customer services to telecom giant British Telecom (BT). BT in turn sent a letter to Viv explaining that the advisers were not able to resolve her issue as they were not able to understand her accent.

Charlene Conway, from BT's correspondence centre in Durham, however, wrote back: "I can certainly understand the difficulty in resolving your inquiries. Whenever you spoke to advisers, to resolve your issue, they had problems understanding you.
The retired paramedic said: "I couldn't believe the cheek of it. I know I've got a Brummie twang but I speak the Queen's English."

BT said "We'd like to apologize. The letter was not intended to cause offence. We have contacted the customer to clarify."