That number is charged as a normal geographical rate - maximum 3p/min from a BT landline or included in any inclusive minutes (depending on any price plan, etc).

Only if a number begins 09x can it cost £1p/min.

For those interested, the area code is Walsgrave-on-Sowe, Coventry, West Midlands.

The number originally belonged to BT but could have changed due to number portability but it is definitely charged at geographical rates and for those with an inclusive price plan will be included.

If you got charged £1, then I suggest you ring your telephone company and have them correct it.

I wonder if Fiis is perhaps the IT Director of Barclays given the deliberate misinformation he is attempting to convey to stop people using the Geographical number alternative.

I worked for Barclays back in 2000 and all of their branches & call centres operate on a system they call ClearWay (it is actually a variant  of FeatureNet from BT) the internal number were always available from outside lines as the last 4 digits were used with the local area code plus two digits (sounds complicated but example is internal number would be 1234-5555 was really 01XXX-XX5555) the coventry numbers mention would be valid for branches & the coventry call centre (which is the main personal CS one) Barclays used the 0845 numbers to assist in routing calls to other call centres at peak periods, to assist in balancing loads on the centres, they have them in Liverpool, Dublin, and Newcastle as well as a number of small units as well. If you ring the centre direct it could mean waiting longer than you need to, HOWEVER if you get landline calls free then you might as well wait a minute or two longer! One cautionary tale of ringing the branches direct is at the time I worked for them, we were vastly understaffed, and hardly ever answered calls from outside lines (the ringtone was different) this policy was mirrored across the region where I worked, so don't be suprised if the calls to branches never get answered!