[Edit]The following posts were split from here to keep both threads on topic.[/edit]

Seems that 0880 Reverse is actually rather different from and a lot more expensive than the service that BT tried to market to me several years ago where you only had a one off use 0800 number like this if you actively gave a card with the 0800 number that linked to your geographic number to the other person.  However its basically "in theory" only an automated reverse charge facility and you the called line have to say Yes or press a button to accept it as you would have done with the old operator reverse charge system.  I'm unclear though whether it even works from mobiles where you can't normally make reverse charge International Calls.  And the called person does also have to accept to pay for the voicemail message option too before it is delivered (otherwise it is binned) but all again assuming the called person don't make a mistake or even more likely a decision they regret in the heat of the moment when they are potentially worried about who is calling them and that it might be an emergency (I bet 0800 Reverse's automated messages make it sound like it might be an emergency).  It doesn't even seem clear whether the 0800 Reverse message asking you to accept the call makes clear what the call charges are.

And with this being a small third party company they obviously have every incentive to pretend the customer had said yes to the call even when they haven't.  In other words one can trust a BT Operator over connecting a reverse charge call but can one trust 0800 Reverse not to "accidentally" connect the call even when a customer doesn't accept it? ;) ::)

And oh dear me people do seem to be being scammed and none other than Lord Coe is involved in running this company

www.mirror.co.uk/news/mirrorinvestigates/tm_column_date=24112005-name_index.html

But good old Ofcom expects all the Lord Coe's and company directors of this world to behave like gentlemen and not merely chase the nearest fast buck. ::)


Quote:

COE'S QUICK BUCK ONE of the worst excuses we've ever heard comes from a company run by Tory boy Sebastian Coe. Lord Coe is a director of 0800 Reverse Ltd, which stuck posters in phoneboxes tempting people to use its reverse-charge call service. Trouble is, the posters didn't say how much the calls would cost - which hasn't impressed people who accepted calls and got stung for a £3 connection charge plus variable call rate. Now the posters have been slated by the Advertising Standards Authority. And the company's excuse for not revealing its charges? Incredibly, it said that you can check these details on its website. As if people in phoneboxes were likely to flip open a laptop and surf online before picking up the receiver.

Perhaps some of you would care to send Lord Coe your opinions on his involvement in this company as a member of the upper house of Parliament and in view of his involvement with a public project like the Olympics. >:( >:( >:(

You can do this at www.writetothem.com/write?who=31172

Here is what 0800 Reverse claims about how the system works in their Terms and Conditions at:-

www.8000reverse.co.uk/faq.htm#howdoes


Quote:

2. WHAT WE PROVIDE TO YOU Service 2.1 Subject to clauses 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, 0800 Reverse provides you with the ability to receive reverse charge calls and the ability to receive reverse charge messages by providing the following Service: (a) a person (the “Calling Party”) calls 0800 Reverse using a designated number (including, without limitation, the National Number if calling from within the United Kingdom or the applicable International Number from outside the United Kingdom) from a Standard Telephone Service or a payphone service (the “Access Service”) and requests 0800 Reverse to connect a call from the Access Service to a specified telephone number within the United Kingdom (the “Specified Number”); (b) 0800 Reverse may in its absolute discretion accept the request and attempt to connect the call; (c) you or the person answering the call (the “Answering Party”), on a particular Standard Telephone Service (the “Answering Service”), are asked by 0800 Reverse whether you, or the person answering the call, wants to accept the call; (d) if the Answering Party agrees to accept the call, 0800 Reverse may make the connection between the Access Service and the Answering Service; and (e)(i) in circumstances where a connection is not possible, the Calling Party may be given the option to record a message with 0800 Reverse for future delivery to the Specified Number; and (e)(ii) should the Calling Party elect to record a message, 0800 Reverse may, in its absolute discretion, use its reasonable endeavours to deliver the message to the Specified Number. It is 0800 Reverse’s usual practice to attempt to deliver a recorded message to a Specified Number a number of times between the hours of 7am – 10pm. 0800 Reverse has absolute discretion regarding the number of delivery attempts and the interval between delivery attempts. The Calling Party and you should be aware that 0800 Reverse may monitor these messages. 2.2 The Specified Number cannot be a telephone number for services including Standard Telephone Services where the local loop is owned by a carrier other than BT, pagers, Freefone numbers, number translation service numbers (such as 0800 numbers), premium rate numbers (such as 090 numbers) or payphones.

It seems the service is not available on LLU phone lines though.  At last one possible reason to consider

Or to cause Lord Sebastian Coe more embarassment perhaps you would prefer to send him your thoughts on his involvement with 0870 Reverse via the London Olympics website - www.london2012.com/en/contactus.htm.  Its a general Contact Us form but just mark it prominently FAO Lord Coe and suggest you think his involvement in 0870 Reverse is an embarassment for him and why that is so given his involvement with the London Olympics project.

Or perhaps send a conventional email to coes@parliament.uk and also copying in say tessa.jowell@culture.gov.uk and whoever the Minister for Sport now is.

bbb_uk I really think this section of the thread now needs to be split off into a new thread called Lord Sebastian Coe's involvement with 0800 Reverse.

IF I WANT OT TROUBLE SOMEBODY ;) , I CAN CALL THEM THROUGH 0800REVERSE WHILE THEY ARE AWAY AND LEAVE COUPLE OF MESSAGES FOR THEM. WHAT NON SENSE IS THIS ALL. I THOUGHT IS IT WAS UP TO THE PERSON WHO TAKES THE CALL TO DECIDE WHETHER TO ACCEPT OR NOT. >:(
GUDMAN

gudman wrote on Dec 7^th, 2006 at 2:01am:

IF I WANT OT TROUBLE SOMEBODY ;) , I CAN CALL THEM THROUGH 0800REVERSE WHILE THEY ARE AWAY AND LEAVE COUPLE OF MESSAGES FOR THEM. WHAT NON SENSE IS THIS ALL. I THOUGHT IS IT WAS UP TO THE PERSON WHO TAKES THE CALL TO DECIDE WHETHER TO ACCEPT OR NOT. >:( GUDMAN

If you read 0800 Reverse's Terms and Conditions it still is up to the person called to decide whether to take the call or any voicemail message left if the person was not in when they were called.  However their marketing tactics of not telling callers using the service how much cost they are imposing on those called and perhaps the kind of automated messages 0800 Reverse are giving to those called (and whether those messages are clear enough about the call cost) give rise to concern.

They have made it far too easy for people to try to reverse the call cost and also since the process is now totally automated (unlike the old operator assisted days of reverse charges) and international calls generally cost a few pennies a minute the kind of fees they are asking those called to pay are scandalously high.  Also it is the fact that the charge can end up on your phone bill that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  If you had to leave your credit card number, Expiry Date and CVV number and an agreement to pay call charges of up to say £25 before starting the call instead of it going cosily on your phone bill I think most people would just hang up.  Also its the old problem of Ofcom providing no way to keep track of expensive phone calls during the course of the call again.

I would have to listen to one of the message played to decide if they are actually misleading or amount to moral blackmail on the person asked to take the call.  After all with modern technology it would be possible for the announcement to play the person's name who is calling and their address although I expect this is not done on the basis this could be used to convey a free message and so the announcement just says someone is calling you and do you want to take the call.

Of most concern is Lord Coe's involvement.  Given his statesmen like role in a public project like the London Olympics he just can't afford to be involved in something like this with its very sleazy connotations.  No government minister would be allowed to remain a director of such a company after they took up public office.

I have a 2nd cousin in Canada who is schizophrenic and in a very bad state financially who is periodically sending my mother begging letters and making phone calls to her in the middle of the night (currently at her own cost) asking for money.   I can just imagine her using this kind of service to take the call and my mother feeling under an obligation to take it.

One also worries that 0800 Reverse may connect calls when people do not say "Yes", although one would hope but not be confident that CISAS would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they received any significant number of such complaints from the public.  Assuming that is the average member of the public ever find out who 0800 Reverse are, where their website is and that belong to the CISAS scheme. ::)

Here is the communication I have sent Lord Coe using www.writetothem.com and directed to him via the London Olympics website in case he never receives the fax from the dusty House of Lords fax machine which is the only way Write To Them has on file for communicating with him:-


Quote:

Dear Lord Coe, I felt I must write to you to express my concern in hearing of your involvement as a Director of the company called 0800 Reverse/Reverse Corp (www.0800reverse.co.uk or see www.mirror.co.uk/news/mirrorinvestigates/tm_column_date=24112005-name_index.html - "Lord Coe's Quick Buck"). It seems to me that the Chairman of the Organising Committee for the London Olympics is in a position of public trust and holds a form of public office and that in particular the integrity of the Chairman of the Organising Committee of the London Olympics needs to be beyond reproach. And as I am someone who is permanently opposed to the increasing prevalence of what I can only call "telephone scams" under the weak and ineffective regulatory control of Ofcom (who seem to often be frequently in dereliction of their primary duty under the Communications Act 2003 to protect UK citizen consumers in favour of an excessive focus on non intervention in the regulation of telecoms businesses) I find it alarming that someone with your normally very positive public image should become involved as a director of a business with a growing reputation for highly questionable sales tactics in breach of ASA rules that apparently does not tell callers being encouraged to use your service the cost of the phone call they are transferring to the person called. Also given that the person called does not have to come up with a credit card number and expiry date and a clear commitment to pay £25 or whatever before they take the call and the call cost is (as I understand it from 0800 Reverse's Terms and Conditions) instead merely dumped on the phone bill of the line they answer I am concerned that parents etc will be effectively blackmailed into taking expensive calls they do not on reflection feel they should have taken due to concern for their loved ones. Alternatively other people with access to a phone line subscriber's home like a cleaner or a workman or even their teenage children could easily abuse this system to take calls free of charge to them but at huge cost to the line subscriber. In principle 0800 Reverse seems like a good way to bring the old system of Reverse Charge calling up to date but what is wrong with it are the scandalously and unjustifiably high charges imposed for an entirely automated calling system that should have slashed the old manually connected reverse charge call costs, especially in an environment when fixed lines in most parts of the world can now be called for 10p per minute or less. Perhaps 0800 Reverse was presented to you differently when you agreed to become a Director but it does seem to be developing a very poor image and I really wonder if you can afford to remain involved with it while you are also Chairman of the Organising Committee for the London Olympics and have to inspire pubic confidence in that capacity. Yours in concern.

I'm not exactly sure why you hold Seb in such high regard that he can be somehow shamed into fixing this. Good luck, but his personal life is public record (say no more) and the 2012 effort so far is mired in more illrepute with what looks to be deliberate undervaluing of costs to win the bid. He's making good efforts on all our heads to leap into the Olympic comittee board. I would not hold my breath expecting this type of character to zap 0800 reverse.

What should kill 0800rev is if enough people dispute bills and demand evidence of agreement to reverse call costs. I'm the bill payer and have not delgated any right to anyone else present to accept such charges. Do they record the supposed agreement to accept costs?

I hadn't really looked at their call charges before

It's ludicrously expensive exploitation of people who, in the blurb for it, don't happen to have a few coins in their pocket

It seems they are sponsoring sporting events for children ...

I hadn't seen any of their TV ads - shall I guess what time of day they are shown?

Anyone with family members who might need to use a facility something akin to this, eg when mobile phone credit runs out, should get a calling card facility allowing calls for perhaps a tenth of this service's per minute rates


There is an international version as well - make sure you're sitting down before you look at the tariffs (clue - it would be cheaper to get a satellite phone)

You can permanently stop such calls to your number by sending an e-mail to customerservice@0800reverse.co.uk.

I used the wording
Quote:

Call Barring I choose not to receive 0800 Reverse services as defined in section 4 ‘Range Of Services’ and request that you block my number (01xxx XXXXXX) from receiving such calls. Please acknowledge receipt hereof.

Heinz wrote on Dec 7^th, 2006 at 7:34pm:

You can permanently stop such calls to your number by sending an e-mail to customerservice@0800reverse.co.uk.

But as a company with which I have no involvment/contract with, why should I have to 'opt-out'?

The fact that I have a BT line leaves me open to this, a service not even provided by BT as part of its contract.

after reading this... i will stick to my good old cable phone line :D

so much less hastle!!!

why should i bother to go and opt out to recieve these calls. if i ever get charged , i am not going to pay for it- should i? i have no contract with BT to recieve these nonsense
gudman

Seb Coe has provided the following response about 0800 Reverse.

I get the feeling that these issues have been raised with him before though from the positive spin he tries to apply on the issue, although I personally would maintain that 0800 Reverse's activities can only become acceptable if their service charges are vastly reduced and if this service is automatically barred for anyone who has 09 premium rate dialling bareed on their home phone number.  Hopefully having 09 barring set up on your BT line would bar this service, although knowing Ofcom and BT I would be far from confident on either point.

Here is Seb Coe's reply to my email:-


Quote:

Thank you for your email and letter about 0800 Reverse. Firstly, I would like to point out that all my interests outside London 2012 are registered with the CEO, Legal Counsel and Board of LOCOG.  My Directorship of 0800 Reverse, which predates my involvement in London 2012 by 3 years, in no way affects my Chairmanship of LOCOG. I was first attracted to 0800 Reverse because apart from being meticulously run and well respected, their introduction into the market offers a peace of mind solution to the community at large, and more importantly, a call of last resort in an emergency situation for children that could not otherwise be made.  I have four children fast approaching their teenage years and as you can understand, this is an issue close to my heart. In answer to your points about ‘questionable’ sales tactics, 0800 Reverse's well known and received marketing initiatives, whether they be outdoor advertising or television commercials, all feature minimum pricing and have always been pre-approved by the necessary governing bodies. In addition, calls may be operator assisted with the opportunity to enquire as to the price prior to accepting the call. Pricing can also be obtained from the customer service centre or the company website.   You mention high charges but since its introduction into the United Kingdom reverse charge market, 0800 Reverse has offered a fast and memorable way to make a reverse charge call whilst at the same time, offering a competitively price alternative to other reverse charge providers. Thank you for writing.   With best wishes Seb Coe

I looked on their web site after seeing a recent ad and in fairness it does mention a minimum charge but the prices are astronomical, particularly the overseas ones.

Seb's played the "think of the little chill'un" card rather well but that doesn't excuse the high rates, nor the abuse of it we've had with self-same little chill'un calling around via this pest as a joke.

Kill it stone dead by requiring prior opt-in, I say.

=CM= wrote on Dec 11^th, 2006 at 4:59pm:

Seb's played the "think of the little chill'un" card rather well but that doesn't excuse the high rates, nor the abuse of it we've had with self-same little chill'un calling around via this pest as a joke..

It seems he has been taking lessons in misusing children for business purposes from none other than DC himself - see www.webcameron.org.uk

The danger of this kind of slippery slope with involving your children in your political career is that you can't then very easily complain if the press make a fuss if your children turn out to be minor drugs dealers as with Jack Straw's son.....................................