When the Barclays card first came out, I had to call a few times, and every time I received a helpful, friendly response. Somewhere a couple of years ago, this all changed to a high-scripted offshore group, who stick to their talking points, e.g. "So you are saying that ......"

The one exception to this was when there were fraudulent charges on the card, I got a new person who struggled a bit, but I could hear the supervisor over his shoulder talking him through the responses. This I don't mind.

So was this an planned move by Barclays, or just part of a cost savings to reduce the quality of their customer service?