Well Ms Simons, having invited us to talk to you to get the "true picture" I do believe you have failed to convince a single person on this site that there is anything "true" in what NEG says.   Indeed it apprears that just about everything you have said has been shown to be questionable, inaccurate, misleading or a downright lie.   

You have succeeded in calling into question not only your veracity and trustworthyness and that of your company, but have also convinced contributors to this forum of the very low intellectual capacity and moral degradation of yourself and all who work at NEG.   Your mathematical ability appears to be lower than primary school level.   I am sure many 10 year olds could tell whether 40p/min or 5p/min was more or less than 2p/min.   You have added to the general belief that NEG is essentially a parasitic, greedy, exploitative, rip-off company. 

You give no consideration whatsoever to the patients who are compelled to use your expensive phone numbers and in effect have to pay a stealth tax in order to call their doctor.    You have no compassion for the old, the sick and those of limited financial means and you have complete inability to envisage the distress your company is causing, to say nothing of the rage and pent up fury which is welling up in resentment of NEG and its practices.  You and NEG may yet have a to pay a very high price for all the damage you are doing.  You are causing  some difficulties in doctor patient relationships.   I know two retired dentists and a retired surgeon in this locality who are furious that their doctors have gone over to 0844.   

By the way, it is not necessary to adopt 0844 in order to   " adopt a queue facility which TELLS THE PATIENT WHERE THEY ARE IN THE QUEUE".   My doctor's system used to announce your position in the queue on their previous geographical number.   If you would care to call the Royal Berkshire Hospital on 0118 322 7400 you can enjoy being in a low cost or free call queue AND be told where you are in the queue!   I suspect this sizable regional hospital is several hundred times larger than any of your doctors practices so please stop telling your sales prospects that only by using 0844 may callers be told where they are in the queue -- that is another lie.



Do you think you could NOW look at the facts and the TRUTH objectively, dispassionately and logically and finally admit that what NEG is doing is largely dishonest and that you are encouraging doctors, of all people, to deceive and even lie to their patients?  This is fundamentally undermining the bond of trust between doctor and patient.  If doctors can be seen to lie about this, what doubts might patients have about other more important issues?   This especially at a time when GPs are reported to be paid on average £100k and up to £250k per annum(Daily Mail 16/07/2007), a massive pay increase in the past few years -- so why do they need to use NEG's underhand methods to fund a new phone system when they could easily finance it in an open conventional way as a normal business expense?

So having read all the comments so far, and your first message was only timed at 09.51 this morning, what have you now got to say?

[quote author=KVSimons link=1160182005/15#28 date=1184662289]Having read various incorrect postings re NEG, and quite frankly an offensive posting from user idb I felt compelled to register and post a response. I use the word 'offensive' as idb feels that a) he has the right to make assumptions about me and how I 'bull s**t' my customers and b) he assumes to know Surgery Line - when in fact this person has never even discussed our service with us.[/quote]Given your two postings on here, in addition to what I quoted earlier in this thread, I fully stand by the BS assertion. It is clear that you have no idea how much 0844 is charged from a landline; no idea what premium is paid by callers from alternative networks such as cellular, VOIP and payphone, and no idea that international termination to such numbers is either difficult or impossible. Indeed, one poster has even stated his difficulty contacting his surgery from Spain, and all because NEG's revenue stream is more important than providing a SERVICE to patients.

Your odious organization is a disgrace. It exploits patients. It shafts the customer. You should hang your head in shame rather than perpetrate yet more BS relating to SurgeryLine.

The sad aspect is that it will need a death or serious incident, relating the inability to contact a healthcare provider from overseas for any action to take place to curtail this HUGE scam that NEG is hoisting on a largely unsuspecting public (although that may be changing). If this happens, then I hope that a sharp attorney will go after NEG for all it has, and then perhaps it will end up like Patientline - a sick patient in need of decapitation to put it out of its misery and liberate the patient from exploitation.

Does NEG staff have any ethics/morals whatsoever?

I am offended by NEG. [highlight]IT PUTS LIVES AT RISK. IT PUTS PROFITS BEFORE PATIENTS. IT PUTS GREED BEFORE SERVICE.[/highlight][b][/b]

Quote:


This is also pure bulls**t

0844 calls are consistently excluded from inclusive calling bundles by all contract mobile providers and charged at a premium rate of up to 40p per minute.  Also on a a Pay As You Go tariff such as Virgin's Everyday you pay 40p per minute at all times for 0844 compared to 12p per minute for 01/02 and mobile calls.

The whole NEG house of cards is based on simple lieing and given the kind of people who work for them that is hardly much surprise.

What is much more surprising and alarming is that the continued growth of this appalling ripoff empire relies on the apparent stupidity of and/or lack of concern for the economic welfare of their patients of professionally qualified doctors and also the total failiure of Ofcom to take any action to stop the continued scamming or the lies about the call costs, even though the Communications Act 2003 gives them all the powers they need to do so.

idb wrote on Jul 18^th, 2007 at 1:20am:

What a shame that Mr Russell's customers don't seem to have the same caring attitude towards their own sickly captive human customer base.

I still can't believe the NHS hasn't made it illegal for doctors surgeries to use anything other than 01/02 geographic phone numbers.

A shame about the bloke from the RAF as he does seem to have had a reasonably useful career prior to joining NEG.

My betting is that Kath Simons won't be sticking her head above the parapet in this thread again anytime soon.

The main technique ignored by sales people when confronted over their lies is usually simply to act as though they have never heard the question.

The fact that she has been there for 13 years says that she can't possibly not understand what is really going on.

NGMsGhost wrote on Jul 18^th, 2007 at 7:42pm:
I didn't think she would return - her lack of understanding is all too clear.

alan99 wrote on Jul 19^th, 2007 at 12:06am:


I think leeds lad's case a few posts back would be precisely the kind of thing that would make an interesting newspaper story.

I guess now could be the time to try and turn up the heat against OfCoN, who I see are now trying to put the heat on the broadcasting companies to direct attention away from a scam that is actually entirely a result of their regulatory failure to properly restrict the use of these numbers and control access to them on ordinary domestic phone lines.

ultra1984 wrote on Jul 17^th, 2007 at 7:30pm:


Hi there,

I noticed your post and thought you might want to know that there is a journalist at The Times called David Rose, their health correspondent, who is currently writing up a story on the NEG doctor's surgery scam and is wanting to talk to real life examples of people like you who have actually had their own doctor's surgery number change to 0844 as a result of NEG's activities, and so who have to call one of these 084 or 087 numbers and suffered financially as a result.

If you would be interested in talking to him and having your case featured can you send an email to him at david.rose@the-times.co.uk also giving your phone number (home and/or mobile) and name and he will get in touch with you (probably this weekend as he is writing the story for an edition of next week's Times newspaper) to discuss it further.

I hope this is not intruding but you seemed pretty upset about what NEG has done and thought you might want to have the chance to strike back against them.

Regards,

NGMsGhost