cxlinedriver...
Don't you suppose the telephone agent he spoke to was at the London office? So, the probability of that person being a 'product of the local education system' is pretty low I'd suggest!
It is indeed unfortunate that he wasn't immediately offered a refund, but the story is in the Daily Mail, so anything worthy of print supporting CX would have been forgotten. That paper really must be the worst purveyor of jounalistic rubbish in the UK. Anything for dirt. It's what they revel in.
Don't believe everything you read in the papers and nothing you read in the Mail!