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Charities and NGNs (Read 30,039 times)
westier
Ex Member


Charities and NGNs
Jun 7th, 2005 at 12:23pm
 
Hi

Pardon me if I have overlooked anything contained within these forums, but I cannot find expression of any opinion, either by Administrators/Moderators, or by registered contributors, regarding the use of the 0870 number to generate donations to registered charities using such numbers?

I would genuinely appreciate an idea of the stances being held on this subject by any of the above.

Thanks

Lee Johnson
webmaster
Westie ReHoming
Charity Registered Number 1108659
Telephone 0870 609 2825
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westier
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #1 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 12:43pm
 
Typically, I have since found the thread relating to charities http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=..., and find the comments made to be of immense interest.

I am about to contact our Committee to recommend that we fully advertise the cost of our telephone line via our web site at http://www.westierehoming.me.uk/index.htm, and the fact that it generates much-needed income for our dogs.

I would still appreciate any thoughts anyone has.

Best wishes

Lee Johnson
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #2 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 12:53pm
 
There are far more transparent methods of raising funds for your charity than through exploitation of the poorly-regulated telephone numbering system. It is also likely that your charity is itself being fleeced by the 0870 provider who, almost certainly, will be taking a much larger cut of the revenue than what your charity receives.

Personally, I would not do business with any charitable organization that uses rip-off numbers. As soon as I see 0870, I think "extortion", and go elsewhere. I can't even call 0870 numbers from where I live.

I suggest your charity rethinks the use of scamming numbers such as 08X. What do you gain? A few measly pence per call during the day whilst turning off people who may want to contribute in a substantial way but see 0870 as a scam.
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westier
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #3 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 1:03pm
 
Hi

Thanks for your views.

Whilst it may appear to be 'measly pence' to you, it is potentially life-blood to our deserving cases.  A little more tolerance might be the order of the day.

If you refer to the other thread posted on this subject, you will discover that your stance is somewhat at odds with the majority of contributors to that thread.

We have put our heads above the parapet on this forum not to have it shot off, but to try to convince contributors that there are indeed valid uses outside of sheer profiteering for the 0870 number in particular.

Our experience of other NGN numbers is such that we cannot comment.

With our intention to fully inform the caller through notices posted on our web site, I think all callers will be left in no doubt as to the ramifications of using the number.  If they then decide not to ring us, on our own heads be it.

Lee.
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #4 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 1:27pm
 
Quote:
Hi

Thanks for your views.

Whilst it may appear to be 'measly pence' to you, it is potentially life-blood to our deserving cases.  A little more tolerance might be the order of the day.


As I stated, there are methods of raising funds that do not rely on exploitation. 0870 relies on deceit of the ill-informed public. Tolerance is not an issue. 0870 is a rip-off. Period. Irrespective of use, it is always a rip-off.

Quote:
If you refer to the other thread posted on this subject, you will discover that your stance is somewhat at odds with the majority of contributors to that thread.


That really isn't my problem. Others are entitled to their views, I'm entitled to mine, and you are entitled to your opinions.

Quote:
We have put our heads above the parapet on this forum not to have it shot off, but to try to convince contributors that there are indeed valid uses outside of sheer profiteering for the 0870 number in particular.

I can't think of any valid use of 0870. If you want to generate revenue from the pathetic numbering system that prevails in the UK, use a 09 number. Here there are no hidden charges - the costs are generally known, not hidden, and in the most part, the charges are regulated.


Quote:
Our experience of other NGN numbers is such that we cannot comment.

With our intention to fully inform the caller through notices posted on our web site, I think all callers will be left in no doubt as to the ramifications of using the number.  If they then decide not to ring us, on our own heads be it.



Just bear in mind that not everyone is able to call 0870 numbers, and not just those that live outside the UK.

As I said, it's your choice as to whether your charity uses 0870. My view is that all 0870 numbers are a rip-off and I will not call them unless there is absolutely no alternative. Even then, I have to route my calls through a voip system as I can't call them from my location -this is the problem with doing business with a "third-world" country wrt telecomms. I wish you luck with your charitable venture, but the use of 0870 numbers is telling me something about what your organization thinks of me as a potential contributor, and it is not positive. As I suggested earlier, consider how much the supplier is making from calls to your charity. Is it prepared to hand this money over? Of course not. Why has it given/sold you these numbers in the first place? I suspect philanthropy was not its first priority.
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« Last Edit: Jun 7th, 2005 at 1:28pm by idb »  

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westier
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #5 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 1:51pm
 
Luckily, we cancelled our subscription to blatant cynicism long ago.

I'm happy for you to have almost the last word on this, as I suspected you would.  I further suspect, however, that you will not be ringing us to discuss the matter further!

Your comment regarding your opinion of our organisation is duly noted and also disappointing - therefore consider my head shot off (as I was expecting)!

I will now withdraw from the parapet.  Good luck to all those who are fighting, and those who join the fight against, genuine profiteering through use of these numbers.

Best wishes

Lee.
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bbb_uk
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #6 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 1:55pm
 
Can you actually reveal how much (in pence) you actually receive for each minute that we call you?  Compare this with the cost involved from our point of view (8ppm daytime - even more from other providers and upto 35ppm from a mobile).

For example, assuming we don't have to call you from a mobile and call you from a BT line (can be rare these days as most people use other providers because they're cheaper on geographical calls) and pay 8ppm.  From this 8ppm, you receive 1.5ppm that means that tel company operating the NGN can get anywhere upto 6.5ppm.

Having done a check on your 0870 number it reveals that the number was originally allocated to BT.

Upon checking BT's business website, it reveals that there is a charge of £10 per month line rental (this would be in addition to the line rental charged for your geographical).

Surely, taking into consideration you receive a maximum of 1.5ppm (according to BT's website) and the monthly line rental of £10, are you actually gaining anything from the use of the 0870 number?

An alternative you could consider is advertising your geographical and pointing out that "other" charities may make a profit from you calling them but we don't.  Calls to us can cost upto 3ppm daytime from a BT landline or even as cheap as 2p per call from other providers like Call18866/Call1899.

I'm sure people would appreciate you more because you're not trying to secretely rip us off.
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #7 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 2:09pm
 
Quote:
Luckily, we cancelled our subscription to blatant cynicism long ago.

I'm happy for you to have almost the last word on this, as I suspected you would.  I further suspect, however, that you will not be ringing us to discuss the matter further!

Your comment regarding your opinion of our organisation is duly noted and also disappointing - therefore consider my head shot off (as I was expecting)!

I will now withdraw from the parapet.  Good luck to all those who are fighting, and those who join the fight against, genuine profiteering through use of these numbers.

Best wishes

Lee.

As already intimated by BBB, and relating to what I said earlier, your 0870 supplier is ripping *you* off. This indirectly fleeces the end user - YOUR CUSTOMERS and YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS. It is not that difficult to understand this.

How much do you receive, per minute during the daytime, from your 0870 number? How much do you think your supplier is receiving? It's not difficult to work out.

Just who is the charity here?

Your ogranization is being ripped off. Switch to geographic and you won't be reliant upon a telco supplier using clandestine methods to deceive the public (national rate garbage).

Your use of 0870 DOES say a lot about your organization, just as Sky, DVLA, A+L and the thousands of other organizations that do not give a toss about the end user. Your charity is a small user of such numbers, and it could be argued that it really doesn't matter, however these numbers are so pervasive that the sellers of such numbers have even invaded respectable charities, for example RSPCA.
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #8 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 2:12pm
 
Quote:
[...]

I'm happy for you to have almost the last word on this, as I suspected you would.  I further suspect, however, that you will not be ringing us to discuss the matter further![...]

And that is an important point - even if I wanted to ring you to discuss further, I could not do so. I CANNOT CALL 0870 numbers. My provider does not route calls to such numbers. This is why I percieve those that use such numbers, or at least their orgz, to be either clueless or money-grabbing.
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westier
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #9 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 2:29pm
 
Hi to bbb, and thanks for your refreshingly-balanced, non-strident views.

We do indeed receive 1.5 ppm, and do indeed pay £10 pm rental.  However, you would not believe how busy we are, even if I quoted figures to you (which I will not).  Therefore, the £10 line rental can be absorbed easily.  Suffice it to say that we do not only get people ringing us to offer donations (I wish there were more!).

The main bulk of our telephone traffic is from those who wish to take a Westie off our hands.  While this is laudible, we find that an ever-increasing number of people are, unfortunately, hoping to use our service to obtain a pedigree Terrier 'on-the-cheap'.  These people are likely to apply for a dog to satisfy their needs only, and not the dog's needs, which is paramount for us.  I do not subscribe to cynicism when I say this - it's a fact of our lives in this field.

So there is a certain element of 'off-putting' involved, if you can believe that.  We only rehome dogs to fully-checked and approved locations and individuals - we do not 'move dogs on' willy-nilly.  It may sound strange to you, but after all no-one likes time-wasters.

The other main callers are those wishing to volunteer, and they are given the geographical number as soon as they are accepted into our fold.

Those genuinely wishing to donate money to our cause, we offer to ring straight back at our cost.

Your idea about advertising our geographical number is a non-starter - one of the main reasons we went non-geographical in the first place was to ensure the security of the dogs held at our geographical location.

In conclusion, I must say that, whilst views are held that the companies are looking to rip you off, we certainly are not!

I am afraid that I cannot further reply to this forum at the moment, as our Charity needs my input more than you do, but thank you for your valuable feedback.

Lee.
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #10 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 2:40pm
 
Sadly you've been taken in by the 0870 scammers. They have sold you something that benefits THEM and not you. Charities are being exploited by 0870 providers. Very sad, but wholly expected. It won't be long before every UK business, agency and non-profit will have these numbers. However you describe it, your charity *is* ripping off the end user. It may not be deliberate, but that is what it is in simple terms. The worst aspect is that your charity is feeding the scammers.
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bill
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #11 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 4:30pm
 
Quote:
We do indeed receive 1.5 ppm, and do indeed pay £10 pm rental.
I think you are still missing the point about what happens to the money callers pay to contact you.

If you only getting 1.5p per minute and have to pay £10 per month - that's a very bad deal by the way, most are free - what is happening to the rest (a minimum of 6.01p per minute?
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Shiggaddi
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #12 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 4:48pm
 
Those genuinely wishing to donate money to our cause, we offer to ring straight back at our cost.


Very commendable, but if idb was interested in donating to your charity, then he would not be able to call from abroad in the first place, to enable you to call him straight back.

So there is a certain element of 'off-putting' involved, if you can believe that.  We only rehome dogs to fully-checked and approved locations and individuals - we do not 'move dogs on' willy-nilly.  It may sound strange to you, but after all no-one likes time-wasters.


How about offering 2 different additional numbers, 1 freephone, 1 geographic, for DONATIONS ONLY, or for VOLUNTEERS ONLY.  Beside this, state "The freephone number is provided to allow you to call us free of charge.  If you telecom provider allows free calls to geographic numbers, or you wish to use your mobile inclusive minutes please call 01....., or 02.......   We have to pay a per minute charge for freephone numbers, and calling a geographic number will mean more of your donation will help us"

Keep the 0870, for people who as you mention are timewasters, and being able to be open and honest about the cost of the call, is certainly a step in the right direction.

On your website it might also be an idea to accept donations online.  This would mean getting the payments would be all automated, and free up your telephone lines.

Also, perhaps you can accept enquiries online.  If people want to volunteer, then you can call them back.  If people want to become timewasters etc, then if they state the nature of their enquiry online, then you can reply saying "Thankyou for this enquiry, we can/cannot help you at this stage", or "Thankyou for this enquiry, to discuss the matter further, call 0870...."

If all of this were put in place, then if idb wanted to contribute, he would, either online, or you give him a callback abroad!!  And most importantly, people who want to give you their money won't have to pay an extra charge via their phone company and be more likely to get on the "DOG AND BONE!!!"  (Sorry I had to make this deliberate pun!!)
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« Last Edit: Jun 7th, 2005 at 4:53pm by Shiggaddi »  

I realy hait itt wen peeple canot spel proply. Itt getts onn mye nervs sew mutch annd streses mee owt. Knot onley iz itt vary bade speling butt allso bade gramer.
 
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idb
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #13 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 5:16pm
 
Quote:
Very commendable, but if idb was interested in donating to your charity, then he would not be able to call from abroad in the first place, to enable you to call him straight back.


Good point, but the scam goes deeper than this. Westier seems to imply that I don't give a stuff about his charity. Wrong. Exactly because I DO care about these matters is why I have tried to point out that his charity is being taken for a ride.

My wife is involved with animal rescue, although not with Westies or other dogs, however for illustrative purposes, let us assume she is president of the Miami Westie Rescue Center. Now let us assume that she wishes to contact Mr Johnson and his organization that she has seen through a trade magazine or whatever, and the number she sees is 0870 blah blah. Now, my wife is an American citizen. She has no idea about the bizarre implementation of numbering systems in the United Kingdom. She neither knows, nor cares, about termination payments, originating operators, terminating operators, uplifts, routing, BT mechanisms for calculating payments, Ofcom, ICSTIS and the myriad of problems related to non-geographic numbers, nor should she need to know about this garbage.

So, she has a business proposition, or some other idea she needs to run by westirehoming which, let's say, could give the charity's income a boost. She picks up her calling card, and being familiar with dialling the UK, calls 011 44 870 609 2825 and gets either a NU tone, or some other message saying that the call cannot be completed as dialled -please check the number and dial again. She has no idea that 011 44 870 is some form of pseudo-premium rate number that some operators do not connect, therefore she gives up.

This is a hypothetical example, however it could happen, much like someone who is ill, and tries to call his/her surgery from say Bolivia and finds that the Bolivian telephone company hasn't got a clue about 0844 numbers so loved by NEG and similar scammers.

As I have said before, the UK is entering the dark ages for telephony and Ofcom is mainly to blame.

Even more worrying is that Mr Johnson is *PAYING* for his 0870 number, and most of the revenue is going to the provider and not his charity. He fails to understand this point, therefore there is little point in expecting change.
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DaveM
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Re: Charities and NGNs
Reply #14 - Jun 7th, 2005 at 5:57pm
 
Quote:
. . . She picks up her calling card, and being familiar with dialling the UK, calls
011 44 870 609 2825
and gets either a NU tone, or some other message saying that the call cannot be completed as dialled -please check the number and dial again. She has no idea that 011 44 870 is some form of pseudo-premium rate number that some operators do not connect, therefore she gives up.

Are you sure about that number, or does that include the Calling card prefix ?? (normally UK=0044)

. . and does this problem also occur with other NGN's also from USA ??   Undecided
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