Contact the consumer helpline

Contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline (formerly known as Consumer Direct) if you need more help with a consumer problem.

Call the helpline

Citizens Advice consumer helpline: 03454 04 05 06
Textphone: 18001 03454 04 05 06
To contact a Welsh-speaking adviser: 03454 04 05 05
Textphone to contact a Welsh-speaking adviser: 18001 03454 04 05 05
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Closed on bank holidays

An adviser will answer your call as soon as possible, usually within a few minutes. Once you're speaking to an adviser your call should take an average of 8 to 10 minutes.

Call charges

We don’t charge for calls to the consumer helpline. Your service provider could charge you for your call, but it should be free if either:

• your contract includes all calls to landlines
• you’re within your free minutes allowance for calls to landlines

You might be charged if your contract doesn’t include all calls to landlines or you’ve used all your free minutes. For example, a 10 minute call could cost:

• £1.73 from a BT landline - find out more about BT call charges
• £3.50 if you’re an EE pay as you go customer - find out more about EE call charges

Check your supplier’s website to find out what you’ll be charged.

Chat with us online

You can also talk about your consumer issue with a trained adviser online. We’ll try to help you solve your problem or make good progress towards it.

Chat is usually available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

To connect you to the right adviser, we’ll ask you for a few details, including your postcode.

Our chat advisers can't help with energy or post problems, but there are other ways to contact us for help with these.  

Other ways to contact us - including online forms

There are different ways you can get in touch, depending on what you need help with. All the options include using an online form.

How the consumer helpline can help you

The helpline adviser can:

• give you practical and impartial advice on how to resolve your consumer problem
• tell you the law which applies to your situation
• pass information about complaints on to Trading Standards (you can’t do this yourself)

However, the adviser can’t:

• make a complaint for you
• take legal action on your behalf

Before you contact the helpline

Before you contact the helpline, you should have a pen and paper ready.

To help the adviser give you the most relevant advice, you should be ready to give them as much of the following information as you can:

• brief details of your problem, eg when you paid for the item or the service, how much you paid, how you paid for it, whether you did so in a shop or online
• the seller or trader’s name and address
• what you’ve done so far to try to solve the issue
• your reference number (if you’ve already contacted the helpline about the same problem)

What we do with your information

We’ll use the information you’ve given us to answer your query. We might contact you to get your feedback on our service.

We’ll also share your information with Trading Standards and other trusted organisations we work with to help their consumer protection work. They could contact you with more advice, or to ask for more information that will help them with their work.

Tell us when you contact the consumer service if you don’t want your information to be shared.

Find out more about how we use, store and share your information.

If you’re unhappy with the service you've received

You should follow our complaints procedure.