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EU to ban excessive hotline charges (Read 31,505 times)
NFH
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #15 - Jan 12th, 2012 at 9:05am
 
I found the wording of this legislation. See Article 21 of Directive 2011/83/EU on Consumer Rights, which states:

Member States shall ensure that where the trader operates a telephone line for the purpose of contacting him by telephone in relation to the contract concluded, the consumer, when contacting the trader is not bound to pay more than the basic rate.

When this is enacted in the UK, the wording will be different, at least slightly, from the above. When the relevant parliamentary bill reaches committee stage in the Commons and Lords, I suggest e-mailing the committee members with suggestions to make the wording watertight.
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« Last Edit: Jan 12th, 2012 at 9:06am by NFH »  
 
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SilentCallsVictim
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #16 - Jan 12th, 2012 at 10:10am
 
NFH wrote on Jan 12th, 2012 at 9:05am:
When this is enacted in the UK, the wording will be different, at least slightly, from the above. When the relevant parliamentary bill reaches committee stage in the Commons and Lords, I suggest e-mailing the committee members with suggestions to make the wording watertight.

If I read Article 28 correctly, the relevant legislation must be published not later than 13 December 2013, with application by 13 June 2014.

It has been announced that the Treasury will be going ahead with a ban on credit card handling charges (also from the Directive) by the end of 2012. There has been no confirmation of how this will be done, nor any explanation of how this relates to the Treasury, rather than BIS. It addresses retail charges, not charges by banks, and the VAT issue which drew the Treasury to become involved in this matter is now resolved.

There is always a variety of ways open for enacting the provisions of Directives through legislation. The telephone charges issue generally falls within the province of BIS, although now that DCMS has total responsibility for Ofcom, the situation is unclear. This is further confused by the fact that Ofcom itself has not (yet) taken the power to regulate users of 084 numbers. If the Treasury is indeed going to be preparing legislation to enact the Directive, then some may ask why it does not do the full job.


As stated previously, I see this provision as largely removing the need for the 084 and 087 ranges in their present form, because a very large number of current users would not be able to use them once the effect of the Directive was enacted.

This is a factor which Ofcom must consider in the context of its forthcoming consultation. The implementation period for the regulations which will emerge from its current work will extend beyond 2014, so Ofcom must consider the effect now.


As suggested, we must be on the lookout for the enacting legislation, which could be found to be contained in wider legislation from one of three departments. This is however highly relevant to Ofcom and indeed the regulations imposed on its behalf by PP+.

Provisions of previous EU Directives have been accepted by the Commission as having been enacted through the existence of regulatory powers and policies, without fresh legislation. (I refer to a total prohibition of Silent Calls, when the original purpose of the call was for marketing - no legislation was made to enact this.) I am not sure that something so soft would wash in this case, when the boys come round to check before reporting to the Council and the Parliament in 2016, however one cannot be sure.
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NFH
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #17 - Jan 12th, 2012 at 10:48am
 
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 12th, 2012 at 10:10am:
It has been announced that the Treasury will be going ahead with a ban on credit card handling charges (also from the Directive) by the end of 2012. There has been no confirmation of how this will be done, nor any explanation of how this relates to the Treasury, rather than BIS.

I understand that it will be achieved primarily through amendments and additions to the existing Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. This is because some of the provisions of the Directive enhance consumers' existing rights already contained within the Regulations, for example cooling-off periods when buying online. With regard to Article 21, I'm sure we all agree that the current use of 084/087 prefixes on customer service lines is indeed "unfair trading", and this would likewise belong in additional section under the existing Regulations.
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SilentCallsVictim
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #18 - Jan 12th, 2012 at 2:16pm
 
NFH wrote on Jan 12th, 2012 at 10:48am:
I understand that it will be achieved primarily through amendments and additions to the existing Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

This would make some sense.

One must assume that amendments would be made by SI. If subject to the negative procedure then there would be no debate, and if the positive, then the committee would have no power to amend the wording.

A number of interesting points emerge with reference to my previous comments. The Regulations do bear on PP+, which returns us to the anomalous position of 084 users. These regulations belong to BERR - now BIS, not the Treasury nor DCMS. Whilst the OFT, the TSI and Trading Standards departments of local authorities will remain, other aspects of the general Consumer Protection structure (i.e. Consumer Direct and Consumer Focus) are undergoing major change.

We dearly hope for clarity. Whilst it is not impossible that this may emerge, it is challenging to see just how this will happen and to monitor the process.
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #19 - Apr 19th, 2012 at 11:44am
 
Despite the Consumers' Assocation reporting that the Treasury would be "bringing the Consumer Rights Directive into effect in the UK by the end of 2012", I have received confirmation from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that only Article 19 of the directive will be implemented early. The remainder, including Article 21, will not take effect until June 2014, so we will have to put up with another two years of rip-off customer service phone numbers. Given that Article 19 will be implemented early, I wonder whether we could campaign to have Article 21 included in the early enactment. For example, it is relevant to Ofcom's consultation on "Simplifying Non-geographic Numbers".
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #20 - Apr 23rd, 2012 at 1:10pm
 
I notice that Article 3 of the directive states that the directive shall not apply to contracts in certain industries, e.g. healthcare, gambling, financial services and passenger transport services. This means, for example, that airlines will be able to continue using 0844 numbers; however it states that Article 19 (concerning card surcharges) does apply to passenger transport services.
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #21 - Apr 23rd, 2012 at 5:38pm
 
why would healthcare be excluded?
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NFH
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Re: EU to ban excessive hotline charges
Reply #22 - May 9th, 2012 at 6:22pm
 
Although there is not yet any obligation to comply with Article 21 of Directive 2011/83/EU on Consumer Rights, I asked Sky why they continue to operate on 0844 telephone numbers that the Directive considers to be an unfair commercial practice.

In response, they pointed out that the term "basic rate", as referenced in Article 21 of the Directive, is not defined in the Directive and currently is not defined either under English law or by Ofcom. They also referred me to an Ofcom document (see page 13) where the term "basic rate" is used for 0843, 0844 and 0845 numbers.

It seems that the UK enactment of Article 21 will need close scrutiny to define "basic rate" and to include the various industries that Article 3 excludes.
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« Last Edit: May 9th, 2012 at 6:23pm by NFH »  
 
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