We had a report recently from someone who had incurred a premium charge for ringing an alternative from a O2 mobile. See my reply (#3) in which I made a suggestion as to how to proceed. I think others might have raised this but I've been unable to find other threads.

Basically, we haven't yet got any conclusive proof, other than vague postings for which the poster invariably doesn't come back and post more precise information.

Clearly, call retailers can charge what they like for any number.

If certain providers are billing 01/02 alternatives at a premium, then this suggests that they have fed data into their billing systems to indicate which numbers should be charged like that.

Other than this site, I'm not sure where they might get information from as to which 01/02 numbers are alternatives to 084 numbers.

rfctabs wrote on Jul 17^th, 2011 at 11:13am:

The date and time for the call should help you to determine whether this could possibly have been the call to the 0121 number that you mentioned.

The simple answer to your question is that you are only charged for the call that you dial and this must be in accordance with the published tariff.

Anything is possible ! but I would think it highly unlikely that a major telephone company would go to the lengths necessary to "reverse engineer" as you put it, without declaring it.

As you do not refer to the call to the 0121 appearing on your bill, perhaps it is free of charge. A simple test would be to have another chat with Tesco's using the alternative and see if that appears on your bill!

Thanks for the replies, guys. I've just dialled again and spoken briefly to someone at the store - so time is around 18:14 on 17-Jul-11, duration no more than two or three minutes. I'll let you all know what happens when I get my next bill in August (I have to wait until then as VM don't show recent activity through their on-line account pages).

FWIW, my current bill shows it was an "Operator Connected Call" and has no duration listed.

Hey, thanks for the advice. 

I called VM and explained we didn't make the call listed and the very helpful lady waived the charge immediately (I guess because it was such a small amount). She couldn't say why dialling an 0121 might come out as an 0845 but said if it persisted they could look in to it.

I also noticed in passing that the VM web site now does show charges since the last bill so I'll keep an eye on that and report back.

This is indeed very serious, and there is something odd going on, which VM needs to explain properly.

[url=]This web page[/url] gives links to the currently published tariffs. (Those for "phone review" customers are the ones which offer inclusive 084 calls).

Under the standard direct dial tariff a 1:14 call to a 0845 number would cost 11.24p + (2 x 10.22p) = £0.320, not £0.470.

The charges for operator connected calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers are quite perversely much cheaper than for calls to Geographic numbers (BT does nothing similar) - rather than a connection charge of £3.57, it is only £0.51!!! With 2 x 16p to add for a 1:14 call, this would however give a charge of £0.83, not £0.470.

I believe that we have now seen fairly clear evidence that VM is behaving improperly, unless somewhere there is a justification for this most perverse activity. Apart from the unusually low charges there is a further indication that something odd is going on because the rates for operator connected calls in the document for operator connected call charges are under the high level heading - "Direct Dialled Call Charges". This term has no place in this document whatsoever ...... or does it!!

The direct question about whether it is permissible to charge operator rates for a 0845 call when a 0121 number has been dialled must be raised with someone able to give a coherent answer. Sadly the latter requirement probably precludes the VM customer enquiry service and the Ofcom help line. I will do whatever I can to raise the issue, but it will have to be a low priority item for me at present. I hope that others will wish to take this forward.

This looks like a good candidate for BBC Watchdog or that other TV series that looked into various rip-offs.

Presumably there is a database within the telecoms system that maps dialled non-geographic numbers to their geographic termination counterpart or other such routing information so that the call can be connected.

I guess that it's also not that difficult to query the database in reverse, in order to ask what NGN number(s) route to a specific normal landline or NDO number.