By agent I meant EY customer care agents ( or lack of).
the tickets were booked direct with EY. I had booked and cancelled before with them and everything went smoothly. I even booked through expedia and cancelled and got the refunds on the same day. But this time it's like dealing with a low cost airline about to go bust and hence is trying every trick in the book to scam people off.
I did talk to the call centre in Manchester, twice. They said the 110AUD charge per ticket is because I called from Australia, and that these are service charges indicated by the * on their website.
I was promised a call back from a lady in Manchester who said will call hq to get the fee down to the originaly agreed 25GBP but nothing was guaranteed. Obviously I haven't heard back from her yet, and doubt ever will.
The tickets were ex-IST and were fully flexible business with the only penalty being for no-show.
Nothing in their terms and conditions points to their phone service charges. It's ridiculous even thinking about it given the lakc of other options (not sure if their manage my booking feature has it).