Well I don't know if it is due to the merge with Thomsons but I have never found their customer service so shoddy.
We booked back in January our July 2009 holiday to Holiday Villiage in Egypt. We paid our low deposit and our top up deposit in February, luckily on our credit card. We also received our booking confirmation (after phoning them up to request it).
Then we received this email on March 5th

Further to your recent holiday booking, our records show that the remainder of your holiday deposit is now overdue.

At the time of booking, you took advantage of our low deposit offer, the terms and conditions of which required you to pay the top up 8 weeks after your booking date.

Please contact as soon as possible to make the necessary payment, on the following contact details:
Call our payment team on 0871 200 7799 (selecting the payment option for Summer 09). This service is available: -

Mon to Fri - 09:00 to 20:00
Sat - 09:00 to 19:00
Sun - 09:00 to 17:30

Calls cost up to 10p per min plus a 6p set up fee from a BT landline. Mobile and other providers' charges may vary.

If we do not receive payment from you within 72 hours, we will have no alternative than to cancel your holiday. Please note that you will lose the low deposit you have already paid, and will remain liable for the balance of the full deposit due.

If you have made a payment recently, please do accept our apologies and disregard this email.

Of course fuming that I had paid it. I called the number and waited over 25 minutes for an answer. When I did eventually get through, I was told it was the ticketing office problem, that it had been firing off these emails to everybody who paid round the same sort of time as we did, to ignore it and rest assured us our holiday was safe. I even offered to pay the complete balance as I do not want to lose this holiday. He said don't worry and again re confirmation of payment received was sent out to us.

Anyway tonight my partner got a message on his mobile from a Dieter from FC, saying we need to phone at our earliest convinince regarding our booking reference number.
Again quite annoyed (but slightly concerened, probably would not be as worried if we had not received the email before), I phoned and waited over half an hour before hanging up. Ridiculous the idiot did not even leave us his extention number to contact him back!
It just seemed to me like there was either nobody there or they have a seroius lot of complaints to handle.
So now we are in limbo. What was the call (trying to flog us holiday insurance, currency or even worst canel it)?
Surely if it was anything major to do with your holiday, It would be in writing (by Law), not a phone call

What ever the reason, the fact that you can' t actually contact them back, because they won't answer their damn phones is disgusting. I actually agree with the other thread that the premium rate number is a rip off and a waste of time.
Is anybody else receiving emails or calls like this from First Choice lately?

Thanks