The Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (Otelo) have got themselves a shiny new 03 telephone number (0330 4401614) but judging by the information on their website they still remain as telephonically challenged as ever even though they are supposed to be the Telecommunications Ombudsman. :o >:( :'(

See www.otelo.org.uk/pages/13contactus.php


Quote:

If you contact us please provide your name and your postal address. Our Address Otelo, PO Box 730, Warrington, WA4 6WU Our email address is: enquiries@otelo.org.uk Our phone number is: 0845 050 1614 Our new 03 number is:   0330 440 1614 Fax 0330 440 1615 Our regional phone number is: 01925 430 049 Our textphone number is: 0845 051 1513 or 18001 01925 430886 Our fax Number is: 0845 050 1615 or 01925 430059 We are pleased to take calls from those using RNID Typetalk Relay and TextDirect Services.

Am I the only trying to figure out why they now quote an 03 number, an 0845 number and an 01 number for both their phone number and their fax and still insist on calling their 01 phone number a regional number.  Yet they do not call the 01 fax number a regional number do they.  And weren't regional call charges abolished by BT over 10 years ago!

Don't these idiots realise that the only point of having an 03 number is that this is all they should need to quote and that they certainly need to be quoting an 0845 number any more (unless they are worried about BT Light User Scheme customers although I doubt they are cleverer enough at Otelo to know about that).  Even if we allow for the unfortunate problems caused by the cretinous Ofcom not making sure everyone is charged for 03 by their telecoms provider at geographic call rate at the outset they should still not be calling their old 01 number regional.   Unfortunately their IT manage is a complete drongo who refuses to accept he could ever be wrong or ever any take any notice of feedback from the public.

What hope is there for us when the so called Telecommunications Ombudsman does not even seem to understand how the UK telephone numbering system or uk telephone call charges actually work. :-? :-/ [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

Also why the hell do they have an 0330 and not an 0345 that is a direct equivalent to their 0845 number for the remaining digits?  No one in the ordinary public is going to understand 03 properly due to the numerous and unnecessarily large number of codes that Ofcom have allocated to 03.  After all its perfectly clear that the staff of the ombudsman certainly have not the faintest clue........................

As many people dont realise that 0845 isnt actually local rate, etc then they are still going to call the 0845 as it's listed first.  Why even list the 0845 now?

bbb_uk wrote on Apr 20^th, 2008 at 9:06pm:

As many people dont realise that 0845 isnt actually local rate, etc then they are still going to call the 0845 as it's listed first.  Why even list the 0845 now?

BT Light User Scheme as 0845 will be 2p per minute vs around 7.91p per minute or something to 01 and 02.  Also now cheaper for BT Option 1 customers (or whatever it has now become called) to call 0845 at 2p per minute than than 01/02/03 at 4p per minute in the weekday daytime, despite the previous protestions of new BT CEO designate that he wanted to sweep away the evils of 0845 and 0870.

Ofcom tried this with their 0845 for a while (for Light User Scheme customers) but then decided it was too complicated to get across and so just listed their 01 number isntead.

Having said that this won't be the reason for the absured complexity of listings at Otelo where their IT manager (responsible for their website), who I have previously spoken to, is an idiot and just won't listen to reason that there are no regional phone rates etc.

The Energy Ombudsman Service does likewise, giving 0845, 03 and 01 numbers:

http://www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk/links/10-0-contact_us.php

It is based in Warrington, presumably at the same office as OTELO, as the telephone numbers are similar as well as the websites being created by the same company.

Both the web pages are indeed remarkably similar when it comes to the wording around the telephone numbers.

I cannot see any grounds for complaint about the wording. Any of the three numbers could be cheaper to call, depending on the circumstances as follows:

1. A BT subscriber on a call plan, but without their unlimited option in effect, would find the 0845 number cheapest.

2. A caller in the local area for 01925, with one of the very few packages that does distinguish between local and national calls, would find the 01925 number cheapest.

3. At present the 0330 number is redundant (from the point of view of economy). The situation could however change in the future if local rate differentials re-emerge in general and 03 numbers used by public services (i.e. 0300 and 0330) are grouped in with local calls in all cases so as not to exclude local public services.

My own view is that the 0330 numbers should each be presented as the primary one. One cannot however object if alternatives that provide options for callers to take advantage of cheaper rates that may be available on their particular telephone packages are published alongside it.