SAYNOTO0870.COM campaign group response:

Campaigners de-cry Ofcom 0870 proposals as “too little too late”

Ofcom originally announced that the rip-of of 0870 telephone numbers would end on 1 February 2008. This was “delayed” and only now has a new announcement been made - http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2009/04/nr_20090423. The new inadequate regulations will come into effect on 1 August 2009 – 18 months late.

This is not adequate:

·        Ofcom is doing nothing whatsoever about the continuing rip-off on 0845 and 0844 numbers.
·        There is nothing being done about the misleading way in which call charges are advertised by those who use these numbers.
·        There is no guarantee that telephone companies will actually reduce their rates at all.

ENDS

For further comment and information, please contact - dave {at} saynoto0870 {dot} com

---

Ofcom news release:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2009/04/nr_20090423

<<
Reducing the cost of calls to 0870 numbers

Ofcom today set out new rules to provide clarity about the price of calls to 0870 numbers.

These new rules will encourage communications providers:

To stop charging higher prices for calls to 0870 numbers from fixed lines and mobiles than calls to “geographic rate” numbers (01, 02 or 03 numbers); and
To include 0870 calls in call packages on the same basis as geographic calls.
These measures may significantly reduce the cost of calling 0870 numbers whilst increasing consumers’ awareness about the costs of calling them.

Clear advice on call costs
Under these new rules, communications providers that want to continue charging for 0870 calls at rates above those for geographic numbers will now be bound by strict rules about how prices are publicised on websites and in promotional material at point of sale.

Communications providers will be responsible for making sure their customers know how much they will be charged for calling an 0870 number and they will not be allowed to advertise 0870 numbers as “national rate” unless they are charging at geographic rates. If they do not comply with these rules, they could be subject to enforcement action including possible fines.

0870 numbers are used by many businesses and organisations to provide a wide range of information and advice including many customer service lines. Currently 0870 calls are priced at levels that enable businesses and organisations to share the revenue generated by per-minute call charges. Ofcom’s new rules should effectively end revenue sharing on 0870 numbers.

Ofcom welcomes steps that some fixed line companies have already taken to include calls to 0870 numbers in call packages and reduce their prices.

The new regulations will come into effect on 1 August 2009.

The statement on 0870 numbers can be found at:

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/0870calls/0870statement/

Ends.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. Advice for consumers on 08 numbers can be found at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumeradvice/landline/costofcalls/08faq/
>>

Is this finally the date that revenue share will stop on 0870?
http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3609

Ofcom has set out new rules demanding clearer information for customers on how much it will cost them to call 0870 numbers, but has stopped short of requiring a price cut.

Under the new rules, phone networks will be made responsible for ensuring that customers know how much they will be charged for calling an 0870 number. They will not be allowed to describe the numbers as 'national rate' unless the price is in line with that for calling a 01, 02 or 03 number.

The new rules, which come into effect in August 2009, follow a consultation by Ofcom, which found that consumers were often confused over the cost of calling 0870 numbers. Companies that do not comply with the new rules could be subject to fines.

According to research by price comparison website Moneysupermarket two thirds of people who call 08 numbers from a mobile phone have no idea how much they are being charged.

Ofcom said it and payphoneplus, the organisation that regulates phone-paid services in the UK, had received " many complaints" from people calling these numbers in the past few years but was unable to provide an exact figure.

"We’ve put these rules in place following a consultation last year, which found customers are often confused about how much they are charged by their mobile and land line company for calling these numbers. We hope these new rules will help protect consumers and clear up confusion," said a representative.

To view the new rules: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/0870calls/0870statement/0870statement.pdf

Ofcom has now completed resolution of the dispute about the termination charges paid on 0870 calls by BT. As with the previous attempt at resolution, this is subject to referral to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Acceptance of the proposed rates by BT and by the TCPs will be necessary for BT to adjust its charges (for non-inclusive calls) on 1 August 2009. Assuming that such a change is announced, Ofcom will be hoping that all other providers will make similar changes. We wait to see whether the hoped-for reduction to geographic rates occurs.

Given the name of this forum it may be expected that this issue will be followed in some detail, although many members are now more focussed in campaigning on issues relating to 0845 and 0844.


The Ofcom Summary Determination provides a useful and readable history of the dispute and Ofcom's attempts at resolution.

Whilst concern about the time this has taken (noting that we may not yet be at the end) raises questions about Ofcom's competence, it also bears on the extent of Ofcom's powers and the political considerations that flow from this.

Have you all seen this?  http://www.flextel.com/press/news.html

catj wrote on Jul 21^st, 2009 at 3:07am:

Have you all seen this?  http://www.flextel.com/press/news.html

Unless somone can see the catch, this looks like Flextel trying to hang on to 0870 business from those who do not want to change their number, despite the loss of revenue share from 1 August.

Ofcom will be (or rather, should be) on the lookout for any breach of its regulations (i.e. covert revenue sharing) once the regulations come into effect. It also has a duty to further the interest of Flextel customers, so if anyone can see any problems for 0870 users under this new arrangement, then they should be invited to complain to Ofcom.

BT is not yet charging for 0870 calls at the same rate as 01/02 calls. We await a stream of announcements about how call charges will be changed (or not).

catj wrote on Jul 21^st, 2009 at 3:07am:

Have you all seen this?  http://www.flextel.com/press/news.html

Looks all in order to me. Incoming calls are chargeable, as we would expect, and they're allowing revenue from other 08 number(s) to be offset against these charges.

Quote :

"This is not adequate:

·        Ofcom is doing nothing whatsoever about the continuing rip-off on 0845 and 0844 numbers. "

And yet I see on this site is supported by companies selling such numbers !

Aren't you being a tad hypocritical ?

gadfly wrote on Aug 9^th, 2009 at 1:14pm:

And yet I see on this site is supported by companies selling such numbers !  Aren't you being a tad hypocritical ?

Please see the FAQ.  The ads are provided automatically by Google,and they select the adverts based on the site content, so consequently you tend to see a larger proportion of adverts for NGN providers.  There is no direct relationship between any advertiser and this site.

A "re-branding" exercise is currently underway - see this thread. The valid point about apparent hypocrisy has been raised many times and must be one of the issues under consideration by the re-branding team. I am sure that comments about the impoortance (if any) of addressing the present situation and suggestions of alternative means of funding would be appreciated.

irrelevant wrote on Aug 9^th, 2009 at 8:25pm:

gadfly wrote on Aug 9th, 2009 at 1:14pm: And yet I see on this site is supported by companies selling such numbers !  Aren't you being a tad hypocritical ? Please see the FAQ.  The ads are provided automatically by Google,and they select the adverts based on the site content, so consequently you tend to see a larger proportion of adverts for NGN providers.  There is no direct relationship between any advertiser and this site.

Whilst the highlighted statement is true, that is not the point at issue. This is akin to a company saying that it does not receive any revenue directly from a 0844 or 0845 revenue sharing number. Of course it is still benefiting by allowing its telephone provider to take all the revenue, thereby reducing service costs levied directly on it.

With the advertising, the point is that it is promoting the services that the website opposes and that, as I understand it, clicks on those ads generate revenue for the site.

If you succeed in ending revenue-sharing for 0844 and 0845 numbers all you will do is destroy some useful services which otherwise would not be provided - for example, dial-up internet, fax to email.

Rather than Ofcom introducing new restrictions on revenue-sharing numbers, surely it should be the Health Service, FSA etc. to regulate the activities of doctors, banks etc.

gadfly wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 8:40am:

If you succeed in ending revenue-sharing for 0844 and 0845 numbers all you will do is destroy some useful services which otherwise would not be provided - for example, dial-up internet, fax to email.

The first principle must be clarity of, not only charging, but a widespread understanding that certain numbers provide benefit to call recipients. It is generally accepted that services on the 09 prefix are of this nature.

However, those on 084x and 087x were previously designated as being "local rate" as "national rate" with no explanation that they were revenue sharing numbers.

I think that it's far more likely that revenue sharing will cease on 0845, as it has on 0870 and that 0844 will stay as it is.

The services you identify really should be on the 09 range. The charges would be the same and hence they would exist as they do now, just that people would be clear that they belong to a group of services that derive payment directly from telephone call charges.


gadfly wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 8:40am:

Rather than Ofcom introducing new restrictions on revenue-sharing numbers, surely it should be the Health Service, FSA etc. to regulate the activities of doctors, banks etc.

As a principal member of the campaign, I have never considered that revenue sharing numbers should be banned as such. They should operate on number prefixes where everyone is clear what they are from day one.

gadfly wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 8:40am:

If you succeed in ending revenue-sharing for 0844 and 0845 numbers all you will do is destroy some useful services which otherwise would not be provided - for example, dial-up internet, fax to email. Rather than Ofcom introducing new restrictions on revenue-sharing numbers, surely it should be the Health Service, FSA etc. to regulate the activities of doctors, banks etc.

This comment on the assumed position of the SayNoTo0870 brand is helpful and interesting.

Many of those associated with the brand focus their campaigning efforts on the Department of Health etc. to address what they see as specific cases of misuse of revenue sharing numbers. Others reject this approach as they see the whole principle as fundamentally wrong, certainly on 084 numbers, and in some cases on 087 and 09 as well (070 is a separate case that is almost universally seen as a disaster area).

Some of us hope that the current necessary re-branding excercise will enable greater clarity, which may be simply confirmation of the stated assumption.

gadfly wrote on Aug 10^th, 2009 at 8:40am:

If you succeed in ending revenue-sharing for 0844 and 0845 numbers all you will do is destroy some useful services which otherwise would not be provided - for example, dial-up internet, fax to email

No the services would undoubtedly continue and either be funded by the person benefiting from them paying a fee for each minute's internet use or each fax received or by the services switching to one of the PhonePayPlus controlled number ranges such as the deliberately misleading 0871 range or the more honestly extra cost advertising lower cost 09 number ranges.

Your argument that they would not continue is the same hymn sheet that your crowd have been singing from ever since these ripoff hidden extra charge 084/7 numbers were set up and tried to hoodwink people that they were only ordnarily priced "local rate" and "national rate" call.

It is also quite clearly a deliberate conspiracy by the telecoms industry since the same trick has been tried on an EU wide basis in several other countries.

NGMsGhost wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 5:09pm:

gadfly wrote on Aug 10th, 2009 at 8:40am: If you succeed in ending revenue-sharing for 0844 and 0845 numbers all you will do is destroy some useful services which otherwise would not be provided - for example, dial-up internet, fax to email No the services would undoubtedly continue and either be funded by the person benefiting from them paying a fee for each minute's internet use or each fax received or by the services switching to one of the PhonePayPlus controlled number ranges such as the deliberately misleading 0871 range or the more honestly extra cost advertising lower cost 09 number ranges. Your argument that they would not continue is the same hymn sheet that your crowd have been singing from ever since these ripoff hidden extra charge 084/7 numbers were set up and tried to hoodwink people that they were only ordnarily priced "local rate" and "national rate" call. It is also quite clearly a deliberate conspiracy by the telecoms industry since the same trick has been tried on an EU wide basis in several other countries.

Rubbish, you assume that it is the called party who is benefiting when this is not always the case.  If a dial-up internet service is offered and it is made clear that the service is paid through the cost of the call, who is being hoodwinked ?  I know someone who has been using such a service for years, and is only now going over to broadband.

Regarding my other example, fax to email - I have such a number which is only used occasionally when the sender cannot scan and email.  If I had to pay for the service regularly, I would not bother so senders would have to spend far more time and money by printing, putting into an evelope, stamping and consigning to the Royal Mail.  If senders were really bothered about the extra cost over a geographic call, which is doubtful, I'd give them a packet of wine-gums when I next see them.

I cannot see the point of this crusade to end a useful charging model regardless of the circumstances, rather than trying to end its abuse by unscrupulous firms.

The abuse stems from the number ranges allocated and the fact that OFTEL and Ofcom for years allowed them to be misleadingly called Local Rate and National Rate.

Thus the only solution is to provide the facility on a different number range such as 06 where this confusion does not occur.

However Ofcom being as much in the pocket of the telco scammers as they are set up a new range (03) for ethically sound numbers that charge the callers no extra but has allowed all the scam numbers like 0844, 0845 and 0871 to carry on and continue to base their selling activities on the deliberate call cost confusion that they are only Local Rate or National Rate.

gadfly wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 6:26pm:

Rubbish, you assume that it is the called party who is benefiting when this is not always the case. …

So if the called party isn't benefitting from the enhanced revenue from the caller with a 084x/0871 revenue sharing/premium number, then why allow it to be used?

I am on cable with VM and I looked up the tariff guide.  I was amazed to see so many different rates for non-geographical numbers.  Are BT's and other telcos tariffs as complicated ?

A useful service would be a website where you could type in a phone number and it would tell you calling cost from each telco.

gadfly wrote on Aug 12^th, 2009 at 8:04am:

A useful service would be a website where you could type in a phone number and it would tell you calling cost from each telco.

This page will tell you the tariff name (and operator) of a given number:
http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm

and you can then look that up for I think every telco via this one:
http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/residx.htm

irrelevant wrote on Aug 12^th, 2009 at 9:27am:

gadfly wrote on Aug 12th, 2009 at 8:04am: A useful service would be a website where you could type in a phone number and it would tell you calling cost from each telco. This page will tell you the tariff name (and operator) of a given number: http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm and you can then look that up for I think every telco via this one: http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/residx.htm

Thank you, that's very useful.

I have just sent this to a company which is continuing to use 0870 numbers for its customers to contact it, following the Ofcom reform:


Quote:

"I recognise that following Ofcom's intervention in this notorious scam, firms using 0870 numbers can no longer share the profits from the exorbitant cost of these calls with the telephone companies, and that some telephone companies are following Ofcom's recommendation and charging 0870 calls at the same rate as 01, 02 and 03 calls, which is fine.  Unfortunately for us, our telephone provider is Virgin Media, which ignores Ofcom's recommendation and continues to charge us for calls to 0870 numbers at the rate of 9.79p per minute plus a 9.79p connection charge.  So you can run up quite a hefty bill if you're kept waiting for, say, 20 minutes for a customer service representative to become free to speak to you, followed by another 5 - 10 minutes answering security questions, and then another 10 minutes while you're transferred to some other number and the whole process starts again (with a few more minutes spent pressing 1 for this, or 2 for that, or 3 for something else, and then another three rounds of choices), before you even begin to discuss your problem with a sentient human.  It's true that these long delays no longer bring additional profit to [your company], as used to be the case.  All the enormous profit now goes to Virgin Media as the telephone company.  I have complained to Virgin Media about this, only to be told that their reasoning and justification for continuing to impose these ridiculous charges for 0870 number calls (and almost equally exorbitant charges for 0845 calls, by the way) are commercial secrets which can't be divulged to me.  No-one can say that they don't have a sense of humour."

So some of us continue to need the huge benefit of being able to find alternatives to 0870 and 0845 from SayNoTo0870!  When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary?

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 12:24pm:

I have just sent this to a company which is continuing to use 0870 numbers for its customers to contact it, following the Ofcom reform: "I recognise that following Ofcom's intervention in this notorious scam, firms using 0870 numbers can no longer share the profits from the exorbitant cost of these calls with the telephone companies, and that some telephone companies are following Ofcom's recommendation and charging 0870 calls at the same rate as 01, 02 and 03 calls, which is fine.  Unfortunately for us, our telephone provider is Virgin Media, which ignores Ofcom's recommendation and continues to charge us for calls to 0870 numbers at the rate of 9.79p per minute plus a 9.79p connection charge.  So you can run up quite a hefty bill if you're kept waiting for, say, 20 minutes for a customer service representative to become free to speak to you, followed by another 5 - 10 minutes answering security questions, and then another 10 minutes while you're transferred to some other number and the whole process starts again (with a few more minutes spent pressing 1 for this, or 2 for that, or 3 for something else, and then another three rounds of choices), before you even begin to discuss your problem with a sentient human.  It's true that these long delays no longer bring additional profit to [your company], as used to be the case.  All the enormous profit now goes to Virgin Media as the telephone company.  I have complained to Virgin Media about this, only to be told that their reasoning and justification for continuing to impose these ridiculous charges for 0870 number calls (and almost equally exorbitant charges for 0845 calls, by the way) are commercial secrets which can't be divulged to me.  No-one can say that they don't have a sense of humour." So some of us continue to need the huge benefit of being able to find alternatives to 0870 and 0845 from SayNoTo0870!  When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary?

The main target of your complaint should be the firms which rip people off by all this time-wasting.  Why should you pay any call charges at all, even at geographical rate, when you get put on hold and just get muzak with regular announcements that you are in a queue ?

We're in a recession now and firms want your business.  Go back to sending letters (if necessary by recorded delivery) instead of phoning, and get them to phone you at THEIR expense.

When I started my first job many years ago if we couldn't deal with a customers' query straight away we would call back at no expense to the customer.  

Virgin Value - What a laugh  :D they should be halled over the coals for the misuse of Advertising terminology.

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 12:24pm:

When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary?

Welcome Brian - good message - do join us in advising the media about this absurd and indefensible (in)action by Virgin Media and others.

The simple answer to the quoted question is that Ofcom does not have general statutory powers to tell telephone companies what they must charge. There are stronger constraints that remain on BT, but these are being gradually loosened.

Given the convoluted, lengthy and costly efforts that Ofcom has gone to in trying to do something about the rates for calling 0870 numbers, some of us (including myself, but with many dissenters) believe that it would have done as you suggest if it believed that it could get away with it, without legal challenge.

There is much that Ofcom does (including some of what it has done in this case) that is fully worthy of criticism and open attack. My own view however is that the intended result can be most effectively achieved by pressure being applied, through the media, on Virgin Media and the others to end these wholly unjustified premium charges for calling 0870 numbers.

Just between us, I believe they decided that they could not follow BT with its heavily publicised move in January when higher termination rates were still being paid. The retail divisions then forgot about the significance of the 1 August changes, although the business divisions (NTL: Telewest, in the case of Virgin Media) ceased the revenue share on the dot. If we keep up the pressure, I believe that they will get around to putting this right in due course.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 3:55pm:

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16th, 2009 at 12:24pm: When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary? The simple answer to the quoted question is that Ofcom does not have general statutory powers to tell telephone companies what they must charge. There are stronger constraints that remain on BT, but these are being gradually loosened.  Given the convoluted, lengthy and costly efforts that Ofcom has gone to in trying to do something about the rates for calling 0870 numbers, some of us (including myself, but with many dissenters) believe that it would have done as you suggest if it believed that it could get away with it, without legal challenge.

I agree with that.  But even if Ofcom lacks the necessary statutory power to stop Virgin Media continuing to over-charge for 0870 and 0845 numbers, there must be many ways in which they could apply moral and political pressure on them, for example by sending them scolding letters every fortnight which they could invite the media to publish, taking out newspaper advertisements warning VM customers of the charges they will face if they use those numbers when BT have sharply reduced theirs with great publicity, inviting VM to meetings at which they could be pressed to say when these charges will be reduced to match BT's, and alerting a few House of Commons select committee chairpersons to what's going on.  They could get themselves interviewed on the Today programme and Newsnight to warn VM customers about its charges.  A few weeks of that kind of stirring would soon concentrate VM's minds.

Also, am I right in thinking that 0871 numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm.)

I agree of course that we should all be rising up in rebellion against the fantastic delays to which we are all daily subjected whenever we try to telephone a company -- delays waiting for the call to be answered by a human, delays while we press keys to answer multiple-choice questions (none of which quite fits the description of what we want), delays while we answer security questions, and then get transferred to someone else whereupon the whole agonising process starts all over again.  It's intolerable, especially when we're paying premium rates for the call, but still incredibly annoying even when we're on an 0800 number.  What makes it even more aggravating is the refusal of almost all companies to provide a proper e-mail address to allow us to put our complaints and questions in an e-mail instead of waiting around on the phone for hours listening to deafening tuneless muzak.  They nearly all now make you send a message, if at all, by filling in an endless questionnaire online -- and then, when you have filled in all the answers and written your message, as often as not your message is rejected for non-compliance with some arcane requirement in microscopic print, and it disappears into the ether (moral: always select all, copy, and paste your message into a Notepad file before you hit "submit"!).  But all this is a separate issue from the continuing 0870/0845 scam, and one that's going to be much more difficult to crack, because any solution will cost almost all our firms money, which they are forbidden by their accountants to spend.

We could always nationalise the lot of them, of course....

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 5:04pm:

Also, am I right in thinking that 0871 numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm.)

They are indeed revenue sharing.  0871,0872 and 0873 are charged at various rates up to 10p/min, plus 0844, 0843 and 0842 are charged at various rates up to 5p/min.

The only way you can find out what tariff any particular number is charged at, is to look it up.  You can use the tool at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm and it will tell you the Tariff Band, and then you can look that band up in the tables.

e.g., 0871 2244007 (Odeon booking line) is tariff band "Multimedia (g7)".  Which page 1 of the tables tells us BT charge 9.79p/min, Virgin Media 11.75p/min, and SkyTalk 10p/min.

(And while I'm here, scanning through, reveals Vonage customers pay 12p/min, Maxtalk customers pay 13.93p, Pipex Homecall pay 14.69p/min for that call, and "Axis Telecom Callsave" customers pay 18.65p/min!!)

irrelevant wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 5:46pm:

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16th, 2009 at 5:04pm: Also, am I right in thinking that 0871 numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm.) They are indeed revenue sharing.  0871,0872 and 0873 are charged at various rates up to 10p/min, plus 0844, 0843 and 0842 are charged at various rates up to 5p/min. The only way you can find out what tariff any particular number is charged at, is to look it up.  You can use the tool at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm and it will tell you the Tariff Band, and then you can look that band up in the tables. e.g., 0871 2244007 (Odeon booking line) is tariff band "Multimedia (g7)".  Which page 1 of the tables tells us BT charge 9.79p/min, Virgin Media 11.75p/min, and SkyTalk 10p/min. (And while I'm here, scanning through, reveals Vonage customers pay 12p/min, Maxtalk customers pay 13.93p, Pipex Homecall pay 14.69p/min for that call, and "Axis Telecom Callsave" customers pay 18.65p/min!!)

Many thanks.  Once again Virgin Media seems to be over-charging by comparison with BT.  

Even if it lacks the powers to do anything about it by compulsion, surely Ofcom has a duty to publicise much more widely such facts as that --

1.  Although 0870 is no longer a revenue-sharing number, some providers, such as Virgin Media, are still charging nearly 10p a minute (plus the same amount for a connection charge) for such calls;

2. Some providers, such as Virgin Media, are charging around three times as much as BT for 0845 calls, which may be dearer than so-called 'local calls';  and

3. 0871,0872 and 0873 are charged at various rates up to 10p/min, plus 0844, 0843 and 0842 are charged at various rates up to 5p/min.

It doesn't seem to me to be enough to leave it to the telephone companies to issue these warnings to their customers.  There's no obvious reason why Ofcom or Oftel shouldn't publicise them themselves.

I'm currently having an exchange of e-mails about all this with Virgin Media's complaints department.  They say they can't give me an explanation or justification for their 0870 and 0845 charges because that information is "strictly confidential and of a business sensitive nature"!  

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 5:04pm:

They could get themselves interviewed on the Today programme and Newsnight to warn VM customers about its charges.

Sadly the Today programme abandoned its plans to cover the story on 31 July and a campaigner was left discussing the issue only on “Wake up to Money” on Radio 5 Live at 6:55 am.

He did so armed with the following (hasitly-prepared) formal media release from Virgin Media.


Quote:

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "We are confident our 0870 charges are compliant with Ofcom's new regulations. The vast majority of our customers buy their telephony with at least one other product and, on this basis, we consistently review the pricing of our bundles to ensure they offer the best overall value for money. We have looked at charges for 0870 numbers and, with one of the lowest line rental charges in the market, have decided maintain our pricing of 0870 calls for the time being. We will obviously keep this under review to ensure Virgin Media customers continue to get great value for money."

Had the Today programme covered this story, one may assume that Ofcom would have been invited to contribute. No Newsnight T-shirt yet.


Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 5:04pm:

We could always nationalise the lot of them, of course....

This is, of course, where all questions about the powers of Ofcom inevitably lead. Do those who campaign for tighter regulation and the abolition of quangos understand what they are calling for ?

Brian_Barder wrote on Aug 16^th, 2009 at 5:04pm:

Also, am I right in thinking that 0871 numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm.)

The charges for 0871 numbers remain unchanged. They are now officially classed as "premium rate services" (PRS) as regulated by PhonepayPlus. Unlike with 09 PRS "regulations", call queuing is still permitted on 0871 (and 0872/3 as these are simply extra ranges to increase capacity).

From the point of view of Say No to 0870, there is no difference between a "revenue sharing" number and a "premium rate service" number. Both carry a premium and should therefore reside in the 09xx range, as per the original Oftel numbering plan which culminated in PhoneDay in April 1995 where STD area codes were prefixed with 01.

As well as setting 09 aside for premium rate services, these changes created lots of spare numbering capacity, so the current farce makes a mockery of those changes over 14 years ago.