Hi, does anyone know the number(s) for the uni accomodation halls at Plymouth uni?? The cost of the 0871 number is unbelievable!! Hope someone can help, many thanks

wrote on Sep 24^th, 2005 at 9:19pm:

Hi, does anyone know the number(s) for the uni accomodation halls at Plymouth uni?? The cost of the 0871 number is unbelievable!! Hope someone can help, many thanks

I find it unbelievable that the university can be using an 0871 premium rate number for impoverished students.

Have you thought of going to the MP for the area your university acommodation is in and getting him to write to the vice chancellor of the university about this obscene ripoff.  He should also write to Ofcom about it.

You might also want to go to your local council's trading standards department to make a formal complaint if the university is claiming that 0871 is BT National Rate.  0871 has never been BT National Rate.  You could also consider trying to get your local newspaper interested.

You can obviously try quoting the following to these people:-

Leicester County Council Trading Standards - Click Here

See Para 1.3 saying that anyone claiming 0870 is national rate is committing an offence under Part III of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.  For 0871 they would be doing much worse than that.

COI Contact Centre Guidance - Click Here

See page 33 or Para 3.50 onwards.  Although the University is not an official government contact centre as a public sector educational establishment its obligations on telecoms policy and accessibility should be very similar.  Anything worse than an 0845 is totally out of order.

ASA Stop the Call Confusion Guidance - Click Here

Specifically are the university making it clear that it can cost students relatives 10p per minute or £6.00 an hour to call an 0871 number on BT Option 3 compared to a call to a geographic 01 number being free of charge on BT Option 3?

Parliamentary EDM Against 0870 Numbers - Click Here

Lastly it might help to point out the above recent Parliamentary Early Day Motion signed by 21 MPs condemning the use by government of 0870 contact centre numbers.

I hope this helps.  Whoever arranged this in your university is obviously eithe a total moron or a total charlatan getting a backhander from the telecoms company.

many thanks for your reply, shall get busy!

wrote on Sep 25^th, 2005 at 12:32pm:

many thanks for your reply, shall get busy!

I think you should particularly concentrate on the angle that no other university running this scheme is using anything worse than 0870 and that 0870 numbers only cost 1.5p per minute at the weekend whilst 0871 still costs 10p perminute.  And the weekend is when your relatives are most likely to want to call.

You may also find this site helpful which shows that BT does not market 0871 as being Nationa Rate but only as a Contact Call number.

On a more practical level that helps you more immediately if your university provides wireless 811b/g internet access you could get yourself a free geographic number for incoming calls from your relatives from www.sipgate.co.uk and make your outgoing calls using some kind of voip handset or headset on your computer free of charge to any 01/02 uk phone number using www.voipbuster.co.uk

I hope this helps.

wrote on Sep 24^th, 2005 at 9:19pm:

Hi, does anyone know the number(s) for the uni accomodation halls at Plymouth uni?? The cost of the 0871 number is unbelievable!! Hope someone can help, many thanks

Can you supply us with some more information. The 0871 number would be useful. If it's someone's private number, please *** out the last few digits.

Can you also point us in the direction of some information on this system, on the university's website maybe?

Dave, Thank you for the reply the number is; 08717007***

Jo,

I have sent you a Private Message with some more information on some possible journalistic contacts.  You may not realise you have a Private Message unless you have opted in to the forum's automatic private message notification by email facility.

I think journalists would be quite interested in an 0871 ripoff because no other university has gone further than 0870 which the scoundrels at BT corporate NTS division still mismarket as alternately National Call (on their website) and National Rate (on BT phone bills).  Whereas 0871 cannot be described as this. They are just a revenue sharing high cost number.  The only legitimate use of 0870 seems to be to provide cheap overseas phone calls as offered by many companies in the www.niftylist.co.uk.  Almost no one uses 0871 for customer service apart from Easyjet.

wrote on Sep 25^th, 2005 at 1:18pm:

Dave, Thank you for the reply the number is; 08717007***

Can you give us some more information?

Is this number unique to someone's room or is it a system where you dial the above number and then when prompted dial an extension number?

Can you give us a weblink about the system or tell us who operates the system?

I presume that if you dial an outside number it gives a withheld number. Try prefixing the outside number with 1470. On a normal line this will release the CLI (Calling Line Identification: the number on caller display or 1471). I doubt it will work, but worth a try. :-/

The above number is charged at 10p/min at all times from a BT landline.

It was allocated to Telewest Communications in February 2004. Telewest have the following prefixes in the Plymouth (01752) area code:

• 01752 43 Allocated 05/2004
  
• 01752 58 Allocated 12/2004

Assuming that there is a geographical number that the 0871 goes to (there isn't forced to be, which is why some more info on the system would be useful) and that it is an 01752 number (that's not forced to be so, Southampton Uni's numbers are Winchester ones!) these may be the prefixes.

wrote on Sep 25^th, 2005 at 10:25pm:

Assuming that there is a geographical number that the 0871 goes to (there isn't forced to be, which is why some more info on the system would be useful) and that it is an 01752 number (that's not forced to be so, Southampton Uni's numbers are Winchester ones!) these may be the prefixes.

Dave,

I would have thought a bunch of 0871 ripoff merchants like this were going to go out of their way to make sure there is abolsutely no other way of calling.  Obviously they would expect people to try to find a way around such a high 24/7 charge.

Some info from Jo though on whether he/she has wireless or wired broadband access from the university in this acommodation would be useful.  If this is provided then we can suggest other ways to get round the telephone call charges ripoff.

Hi. I have tried the link provided by NonGeographicalMan to the site ending /leicester to find Para 1.3 stating that "calling 0870 is national rate"is an offence, but this link is no longer supported and there is too much for someone of my limited knowledge to try and find this gem which I'd like to print out and give to customer service desks to try to convince them of their misleading ways.
I try and promote this site as often as I can, but it would be really useful to have a page that could be printed to summarise the typical 0844/0845/0870/0871 call costs and what these can legally be described as (with supporting links) and whether they have to state the call cost, as despite reading many topics here, I'm still unsure of the legal requirement for each.
Thanks. Bill

wrote on Sep 26^th, 2005 at 5:09pm:

Hi. I have tried the link provided by NonGeographicalMan to the site ending /leicester to find Para 1.3 stating that "calling 0870 is national rate"is an offence, but this link is no longer supported...

I have corrected that link and the other one in that post.

wrote on Sep 26^th, 2005 at 5:16pm:

I have corrected that link and the other one in that post.

Dave now I have picked up on how to do these hidden URL links from you I have further corrected this to make it even easier by putting Click Here in the links to make it obvious.

I also added one for the recent Parliamentary Early Day Motion.  The above references really ought to go in some kind of sticky message in the Geographical Numbers Chat section.

I wonder what happened to Jo Fish?  Perhaps one of the geographical alternatives you gave has turned out to work?

Jo I think you will find the press release just issued by Ofcom on its proposals for 084x and 087x numbers to be of interest to you.

Under these proposals 0871 numbers will eventually be forced to starting 09 so that everyone realises they are a premium rate call.  You might find this rather useful information in the ongoing battle with the university.

I would repeat that they are almost alone in having allowed an 0871 number to be used.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2005/09/nr_20050928

Hi,
Yes, this may well help make them really aware that the position is untenable, they (the uni) say that its a system they took over and can't change!!!!!!! However we shall see, thank you for all your help I will keep you updated as and when we have further developments.
Jo

wrote on Sep 28^th, 2005 at 6:30pm:

Hi, Yes, this may well help make them really aware that the position is untenable, they (the uni) say that its a system they took over and can't change!!!!!!! However we shall see, thank you for all your help I will keep you updated as and when we have further developments. Jo

Don't believe them on these claims Jo.

Even if there is no real existing alternative 01 prefixed phone number to these phones because the calls are routed over the internal internet network (voice over ip) they can still switch in a matter of days to using a geographic voice over ip number as offered at www.sipgate.co.uk

But they would have to pay extra to the telecoms company to change the contract and get new numbers issued and they are hoping to get students relatives to fund their infrastructure investment in telecoms and its maintenance.  But students already pay rent which should be funding all this and their mums and dads or boyfriends/girlfriends shouldn't have to pay on top when they need to make phone calls.

5.5p for 1 hour versus £6.00 is some difference in call pricing!  And those are both BT phone prices for a BT Option 1 customer calling off peak or weekends.