NGM'sG,

I agree entirely. I originally carried on to include something similar in my post but then felt perhaps it was going off topic, so I deleted it.  If only Ofcom had done as you say things would have been quite different by now; but of course they did not, as we know because their buddies BT did not of course want their current continuing near monopoly split-up!

Dave, thanks for your question. I have had some modules of legal training and have some legal knowledge, in business law, but am not a lawyer.

bbb_uk wrote on Feb 9^th, 2007 at 6:09pm:


They seem to publish almost all of their other rates in the PDF documents in the pricing section of their website, including all their 084/7 and 09 rates.

It just seems to be the £4.20 operator connection fee that they have completely overlooked.

bbb_uk wrote on Feb 11^th, 2007 at 2:46pm:


There is no BT routing involved in this.  This was the operator service I got just by dialling 100 with no 1280 prefix involved.  If I dial 150 I get an automated message telling me to call my phone company's customer service number, although if I dial 1280150 I still get through to BT customer services as obviously I would do on 0800 100150 on any phone in the country.

So this is an official Post Office Operator service offered under contract to BT.  If I ring Post Office customer services and query it they find the charge on their Post Office Tariff screen somewhere and Post Office charge £4.20 for this service compared to an alleged official charge of £4.00 by BT (never ever charged it in my time with them despite using the Operator once every 2 or 3 months for problem numbers) which in practice they never charge if there is a fault on the line you are calling.

But because it is so high but not a premium rate 09 service it has just been left off all their tariff sheets or fallen between them

Quote:


I was going to move back to BT but the BT person I spoke to when I was going to do this was thoroughly offhand rude and disinterested in me as a customer and then told me there was a minimum 90 day contract period with BT there were charges for breaching if I moved anywhere else in the period. That was the last straw.

Post Office try to do a pretty good job with 0800 for customer services and well presented bills.  It isn't their fault if BT charges such a high amount for WLR line rental and/or the Post Office has less deep dirty fighting fund pockets than BT clearly have that it can't afford to subsidise the cost of Caller Display as BT does (and anyway BT Retail just pays BT Wholesale which then adds to BT PLC's overall profits).   I hate BT as a large, inefficient and monpolistic company. Why should I go back to them as long as the Post Office let me use 18185.  Also the high Operator charge isn't the Post Office's fault.  BT is blatantly acting anticompetitively by imposing this discretionary charge rarely or never on BT's customers if they ask to be connected but on a blanket across the board basis on its rivals.

Quote:


At the moment the Post Office has no connection fee and no per minute rounding up of call charges so they are useful for calling numbers that persistently answer on to a blank line or have call minder on them.  So I no doubt save the 75p because of that, especially on 0845 calls that have problems with the IVR system not working correctly.

Of the WLR providers I honestly think the Post Office is providing the best quality service so they deserve to be supported in principle.  Any problems I have with WLR are of the benighted Ofcom's making and not of the Post Office's making.  Also by using the WLR service and complaining at high level about the glaring anomalies I put pressure on Ofcom to change the WLR system.

Perhaps now you understand my mission here apart from the Post Office having given me £65 Cashback for which they deserve some loyalty, especially while they refuse to join the herd in adopting connection fees or per minute call charge rounding up.

If they ever bar 18185 then I will leave them to go back to BT the very next day.

darkstar wrote on Feb 11^th, 2007 at 6:57pm:


It was you who made an issue out of the word Mission not me.  But come to think of it doesn't the word Impossible usually go with Mission?  Probably particularly apt in this case.

darkstar wrote on Feb 11^th, 2007 at 9:15pm:

Hey, that part's already taken!

While I'm here, am I the only person who thinks the words spite to face nose off your cutting, rearranged into a well-known phrase or saying, might be appropriate here?

I prefer the 3 P's rule:

Taking a stand on principle may sometimes appear the right thing to do but pragmatism is normally more practical.

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 11^th, 2007 at 3:12pm:
My mistake.

Quote:
Some staff can be rude in companies (BT is no exception).  There is a 3month minimum term for returning to BT but this is ONLY for linerental.  You can CPS your calls to Primus (or anyone else) as soon as you become a BT customer from day one.

When we returned to BT, we were told this and that a fee would be payable for trying move linerental but that it did only apply to linerental.  I don't believe they can put a minimum term on calls for returning to them.  As soon as we were on BT, I started the transfer process to Primus and used Call18185, etc in the interim until Primus CPS was activated.

Quote:
It's my understanding that it can take upto 2 weeks to transfer calls/linerental back to BT so for at least two weeks you would have to pay normal PO rates.