I did a search and didn't see this, so I'm posting this note in the hope it's helpful. 

I've received the AGM docs from Liverpool Victoria, and they say they are moving from 0870 to 0845. Great, I thought, but that's not good enough (... rant rant, you know the thing, rant rant...).

Anyway, I've taken a little more trouble to read the doc and it says the following:

0845 costs per min:
  Daytime    3p
  Evening    1p
  Weekend  0.5p

So my ranting (to myself) was in vain. These sound like extremely good value. It doesn't say when Evening starts, but I would assume after 19:00.

Anyway, I hope others find this useful!

happy__bunny, I think you have a misconception of how telephone charging happens. It is not up to the party being called (service provider), in this case LV to set the call price. It varies between telephone companies people make their calls with, eg BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk etc.

So a call to LV on its 0845 number when with BT is the same as calling any other company's 0845 number. The price LV and any service provider gives should be correct, but that's not always the case. In this case, LV is out of date and thus is misleading its customers.

These 0845 numbers are not "local call" rate as numerous ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) guidances and the comments of BT's new CEO designate, Mr Ian Livingston, have previously made clear.

The key point is that they are excluded from inclusive calling plans like BT Option 3 or TalkTalk Talk 3 under which all calls to 01/02/03 prefixed numbers up to 60 minutes are free of charge at any time.  Also they are excluded from bundled mobile phone minutes calling plans and charged at higher premium rates like 20p per minute or more outside bundled minutes.  Also they do not benefit from BT's Free Weekend Calls plan and instead are charged per minute for as long as the call continues.

Either you are a senior employee of Liverpool Victoria masquerading as a member of the public (quite likely) to try to challenge our criticism of their 0845 numbers or you have simply not bothered to read any of the sticky threads properly briefing you on all the 084/7 call price issues.

Try reading all the articles listed in this thread and I am sure you may then perhaps rather better understand the issues involved:-

www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1117029043

Thanks for the links. I am certainly not a senior employee of LV (or indeed any employee, but as I purchase their savings plans I become an member of the Friendly Society, but I have no vested interest).

I was only stating what I read, and the implication of the comments in this thread is that they are indeed pulling the wool over my eyes. I will do some further investigation, and the links provided seem to be a good place to start.

I'm not trying to open a can of worms, but I suspect alas that the can was long since opened (wasn't it the evil Mrs T in the 80s that started all this complex phone charing nonsense).

Again, thanks for your replies!

If I were you I would make a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about Liverpool Victoria ignoring their rules regarding the description of 0845 call prices.  You can do this at:-

www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

See also www.cap.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Stop+the+call+confusion.htm for more confirmation by the ASA that 0845 must not be called "local rate".  This guidance is nearly three years old so how is Liverpool Victoria still getting it wrong.

happy__bunny wrote on Apr 15^th, 2008 at 9:16am:

It doesn't work like that. As I said, the company (LV) does not dictate to the telco what the charge is. For 0845, call rates are the same for all 0845 numbers when calling from the same telephone operator.

For 0844 numbers from landlines, the rate varies by the next two or three digits, hence some dial-up numbers charge 1 or 0.5p per min at certain times. The highest 0844 band permitted is 5 pence per minute at all times.