KVSimons wrote on Aug 13^th, 2007 at 5:11pm:



LO-CALL is a trade mark of BT! do you have the authority to use it?

BT, the Piper Device, CONCERT, It's good to talk, BESTFRIEND, BT FREEFONE and LO-CALL are trademarks of British Telecommunications plc. All other third party trademark rights are hereby acknowledged.

From the bottom of this page:- http://www.btplc.com/report/1997-98/shareholdernoflash.html

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Aug 14^th, 2007 at 11:11am:

SilentCallsVictim, you make some interesting points. It's food for thought.

The views about whether it's right to charge 5p/min to book to see your doctor expressed by the two members who posted in reply to yours are subjective ones. Some may deem it misery, some may see it as acceptable and not bat an eyelid.

I quote my post previously and NGMsGhost's reply:

NGMsGhost wrote on Jul 24^th, 2007 at 8:57am:


As you can see, points 3 to 8 are most probably not likely to get reported in newspapers anytime soon. That does not mean that they are any less valid discussion topics on here or that 1 and 2 will get media coverage.

But I agree with you in that to take Say No To 0870 forward, we need to focus on the bits that people associate with. This may be the cost of 084/087 calls versus 01/02 ones and the potential for companies using them to earn revenue; or it may be the charges made by GPs to book an appointment. Or is there another way of promoting it? 

Dave wrote on Aug 14^th, 2007 at 4:24pm:


I would have thought that Point 3 was an entirely newsworthy point, especially for a newspaper's personal finance and/or consumer affairs reporters.

NGMsGhost wrote on Aug 14^th, 2007 at 5:31pm:

I think he has a point. The fact is that the DOH says that 0844s are acceptable.

We are told that we must have choice in everything. You only have to visit the NHS homepage and you are bombarded with "NHS choices", note the lower case 'c' in the logo, probably cost hundreds of thousands that. 

Choice means that, whatever the providers are providing, they must set themselves apart from one another. In this case, GPs are operating within the boundaries which the DOH set; that is that they allow 0844 numbers.

Some people don't like them, and as SilentCallsVictim has pointed out, people who object are in the minority. I do not read into that that he is justifying the GP/0844 cartel. He is pointing out that as patients get choice, so too do GPs and they are exercising their freedom (within the rules).

So, on the one hand you expect choice (consumerism) where you may leave one doctor for another if you consider that one is better than the other. In which case what I think SilentCallsVictim is saying is that it is the rules that need changing and thus he is really on our side.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Aug 15^th, 2007 at 6:35pm:


Well that is what 0844 numbers supplied by NEG are - revenue sharing numbers - so surely you oppose them then?

The revenue share is used to covertly pay for the free doctors switchboard and a far larger amount of the revenue share goes to line the pockets of the directors of NEG and their staff for the supposedly highly skilled task of selling and installing these systems in doctors surgeries.

If you do not like "ad hominem" argument then I regret this is not the place for you since the style of most campaigning against 084/7 numbers is distinctly "ad hominem" in approach in usually directing the attacks on to those we see as being primarily guilty for the decisions taken to swithch to using these numbers.  "Ad hominem" argument is in fact frequently used to great effect in political circles but I find it is eschewed by those who might be characterised as lofty eggheads or as overpaid civil servant such as Mr Matt Peacock from Ofcom who found it unacceptable that he should be attacked for continuing to work at a body where commitments he had personally given on BBC Radio 4 about providing alternatives to 084/7 numbers were not then honoured by Ofcom.

You may have been able to conduct your previous campaign on a basis that avoided an "ad hominem" approach because almost everyone actually supported the point you were making and all that was required was a sligh technical enhancment in databases and caling systems.  But no one in the call industry lost any serious money as a result.

But this campaign involves fighting tooth and nail against ruthles entrenched 084/7 interests who will stop at nothing to lie and cheat and mislead about the reals cost of 084/7 calls in order to protect their hidden billion pound a year industry.  Often such campaigning seems to require an "ad hominem" approach to make its point.

The fact that you even seem to feel guilty about using the list of 084/7 alternative numbers as though it was somehow illegal suggests to me that you also lack the ability to see it as being immoral that the regulator repeatedly allows more and more normal priced numbers to be turned in to covert premium rate numbers, in the processing wiping out most of the so called efforts made by Ofcom to increase competition in the telecoms market over the last few years.

I have no wish to disgaree with someone who has done such good work on combatting another telecoms menace but it does seem clear to me from the comments you have posted on the forum that you are not by nature really a saynot0870er.  Ever since I came to this website and this discussion forum around three years ago I have always found one of its most attractive features to be the almost complete synergy of mindset about this issue that exists between virtually all of the most longstanding campaigners.

Once you start saying that you think it is alright for some services to charge the caller through hidden call charges as you do then the logical consistency of your being able to object to any 084/7 number conversions begins to be almost totally undermined.

If of course you can offer us valuable advice on campaigning, even whilst not shaing all our objectives, then it would certainly be welcome to hear from you about that.

Although you say you are not comfortable posting your views on this forum as things stand virtually the only way members of this campaign to communicate with one another is through the forum.  So if you are not comfortable with that this is another stumbling block to you being an active part of this campaign....................

idb wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 2:13am:

Since when has Ms Keeley had paying customers?

Did this only start when they indicated a preference to opt out of the NHS in a satisfaction survey?

What other services would they prefer to obtain on a private basis?

idb wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 2:13am:
I'm sure they cant display costs without VAT included if its aimed at normal consumers, etc.

Besides 3.7p/min without VAT still doesn't come close to the 5p/min (inc VAT) it actually costs.  I think it should be around 4.2p/min without VAT.

I bet you Mrs Kelly and the surgery have been telling their patients that to make it look like they're paying less than a penny a minute more.

derrick wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 11:34am:


This is obviously being done in anticipation of 1st Feb 2008 so that 0845 number users can still turn round and say they are giving theit customers a cheaper deal with BT than if they had an 01/02 number .  It is clearly an attempt to reverse out the tactical marketing error made on 1st July 2005 when national calls became the same as local calls on BT Option 1.  I expect it has even been demanded by some of the major 0845 users like HMRC to justify them not changing to 03.  It is clearly an attempt to defeat pressure on 0845 users to switch to 03.  It will also be used to try and defeat any claims that 0845 are not lo-call or local rate.

BT can afford to do this from the increased connection charge and by slightly cutting their own revenue share on these calls while leaving most of the revenue sharers money intact.

Clearly it is all part of a cunning attempt by the NGN industry and BT (who provide the largest proportion of these numbers) to try to undermine the ability of our campaign to launch an onslaught on 0845 being the new covert premium rate come 1st Feb 2008.

The connection charge and per minute charging is all part of a massive hidden price rise that Ofcom has sanctioned and is now being used to support these phoney call price cuts.