NGMsGhost wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 5:09pm:


Rubbish, you assume that it is the called party who is benefiting when this is not always the case.  If a dial-up internet service is offered and it is made clear that the service is paid through the cost of the call, who is being hoodwinked ?  I know someone who has been using such a service for years, and is only now going over to broadband.

Regarding my other example, fax to email - I have such a number which is only used occasionally when the sender cannot scan and email.  If I had to pay for the service regularly, I would not bother so senders would have to spend far more time and money by printing, putting into an evelope, stamping and consigning to the Royal Mail.  If senders were really bothered about the extra cost over a geographic call, which is doubtful, I'd give them a packet of wine-gums when I next see them.

I cannot see the point of this crusade to end a useful charging model regardless of the circumstances, rather than trying to end its abuse by unscrupulous firms.

gadfly wrote on Aug 11^th, 2009 at 6:26pm:

So if the called party isn't benefitting from the enhanced revenue from the caller with a 084x/0871 revenue sharing/premium number, then why allow it to be used?

gadfly wrote on Aug 12^th, 2009 at 8:04am:


This page will tell you the tariff name (and operator) of a given number:
http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm

and you can then look that up for I think every telco via this one:
http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/residx.htm

I have just sent this to a company which is continuing to use 0870 numbers for its customers to contact it, following the Ofcom reform:

Quote:


So some of us continue to need the huge benefit of being able to find alternatives to 0870 and 0845 from SayNoTo0870!  When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary?

Virgin Value - What a laugh  they should be halled over the coals for the misuse of Advertising terminology.

[quote author=SilentCallsVictim link=1240485932/15#24 date=1250434514][quote author=Brian_Barder link=1240485932/15#21 date=1250421879]When is Ofcom going to force the telephone companies to bring down these outrageous charges on the unwary?[/quote]
The simple answer to the quoted question is that Ofcom does not have general statutory powers to tell telephone companies what they must charge. There are stronger constraints that remain on BT, but these are being gradually loosened.  Given the convoluted, lengthy and costly efforts that Ofcom has gone to in trying to do something about the rates for calling 0870 numbers, some of us (including myself, but with many dissenters) believe that it would have done as you suggest if it believed that it could get away with it, without legal challenge.[/quote]

I agree with that.  But even if Ofcom lacks the necessary statutory power to stop Virgin Media continuing to over-charge for 0870 and 0845 numbers, there must be many ways in which they could apply moral and political pressure on them, for example by sending them scolding letters every fortnight which they could invite the media to publish, taking out newspaper advertisements warning VM customers of the charges they will face if they use those numbers when BT have sharply reduced theirs with great publicity, inviting VM to meetings at which they could be pressed to say when these charges will be reduced to match BT's, and alerting a few House of Commons select committee chairpersons to what's going on.  They could get themselves interviewed on the Today programme and Newsnight to warn VM customers about its charges.  A few weeks of that kind of stirring would soon concentrate VM's minds.

Also, am I right in thinking that [b]0871 [/b]numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at [url]http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm[/url].)

I agree of course that we should all be rising up in rebellion against the fantastic delays to which we are all daily subjected whenever we try to telephone a company -- delays waiting for the call to be answered by a human, delays while we press keys to answer multiple-choice questions (none of which quite fits the description of what we want), delays while we answer security questions, and then get transferred to someone else whereupon the whole agonising process starts all over again.  It's intolerable, especially when we're paying premium rates for the call, but still incredibly annoying even when we're on an 0800 number.  What makes it even more aggravating is the refusal of almost all companies to provide a proper e-mail address to allow us to put our complaints and questions in an e-mail instead of waiting around on the phone for hours listening to deafening tuneless muzak.  They nearly all now make you send a message, if at all, by filling in an endless questionnaire online -- and then, when you have filled in all the answers and written your message, as often as not your message is rejected for non-compliance with some arcane requirement in microscopic print, and it disappears into the ether (moral: always select all, copy, and paste your message into a Notepad file before you hit "submit"!).  But all this is a separate issue from the continuing 0870/0845 scam, and one that's going to be much more difficult to crack, because any solution will cost almost all our firms money, which they are forbidden by their accountants to spend.

We could always nationalise the lot of them, of course....

[b]Brian[/b]
[url]http://www.barder.com/ephems/[/url]

[quote author=irrelevant link=1240485932/15#26 date=1250441179][quote author=Brian_Barder link=1240485932/15#25 date=1250438666]Also, am I right in thinking that [b]0871 [/b]numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at [url]http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm[/url].)
[/quote]

They are indeed revenue sharing.  0871,0872 and 0873 are charged at various rates up to 10p/min, plus 0844, 0843 and 0842 are charged at various rates up to 5p/min.

The only way you can find out what tariff any particular number is charged at, is to look it up.  You can use the tool at http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm and it will tell you the Tariff Band, and then you can look that band up in the tables.

e.g., 0871 2244007 (Odeon booking line) is tariff band "Multimedia (g7)".  Which page 1 of the tables tells us BT charge 9.79p/min, Virgin Media 11.75p/min, and SkyTalk 10p/min.

(And while I'm here, scanning through, reveals Vonage customers pay 12p/min, Maxtalk customers pay 13.93p, Pipex Homecall pay 14.69p/min for that call, and "Axis Telecom Callsave" customers pay 18.65p/min!!)

[/quote]

Many thanks.  Once again Virgin Media seems to be over-charging by comparison with BT.  

Even if it lacks the powers to do anything about it by compulsion, surely Ofcom has a duty to publicise much more widely such facts as that --

1.  Although 0870 is no longer a revenue-sharing number, some providers, such as Virgin Media, are still charging nearly 10p a minute (plus the same amount for a connection charge) for such calls;

2. Some providers, such as Virgin Media, are charging around three times as much as BT for 0845 calls, which may be dearer than so-called 'local calls';  and

3. 0871,0872 and 0873 are charged at various rates up to 10p/min, plus 0844, 0843 and 0842 are charged at various rates up to 5p/min.

It doesn't seem to me to be enough to leave it to the telephone companies to issue these warnings to their customers.  There's no obvious reason why Ofcom or Oftel shouldn't publicise them themselves.

I'm currently having an exchange of e-mails about all this with Virgin Media's complaints department.  They say they can't give me an explanation or justification for their 0870 and 0845 charges because that information is "strictly confidential and of a business sensitive nature"!  

[b]Brian[/b]
[url]http://www.barder.com/ephems/[/url]

[quote author=Brian_Barder link=1240485932/15#25 date=1250438666]Also, am I right in thinking that [b]0871 [/b]numbers are still revenue-sharing and charged at the same old extortionate rates?  What justification can there be for Ofcom to allow that to continue?  It seems to me that that should also be widely publicised.  (0871 doesn't appear to be mentioned in the tables at [url]http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/tarifres1.htm[/url].)[/quote]
The charges for 0871 numbers remain unchanged. They are now officially classed as "premium rate services" (PRS) as regulated by PhonepayPlus. Unlike with 09 PRS "regulations", call queuing is still permitted on 0871 (and 0872/3 as these are simply extra ranges to increase capacity).

From the point of view of Say No to 0870, there is no difference between a "revenue sharing" number and a "premium rate service" number. Both carry a premium and should therefore reside in the 09xx range, as per the original Oftel numbering plan which culminated in PhoneDay in April 1995 where STD area codes were prefixed with 01.

As well as setting 09 aside for premium rate services, these changes created lots of spare numbering capacity, so the current farce makes a mockery of those changes over 14 years ago.