rao wrote on Dec 16^th, 2012 at 12:24pm:

rao

Please forgive the direct question and answer approach which created the effect of a private conversation. The questions and answers were for the benefit of all. The issues have been covered at a more basic level elsewhere in the forum. They are also covered at the following link - http://www.fairtelecoms.org.uk/ofcom-reform-of-non-geographic-numbers.html.

Your summary of the history is excellent. There is, of course, much more to it. It appears that catj (another expert campaigner) will be covering this shortly - see #14.


The important current point is that the Ofcom changes will address the situation in three vital respects:

• Those who benefit from Service Charges will have to declare them
   
• The telcos will have to declare their own Access Charges separately
   
• BT will no longer be in a special position, which can be exploited to give misleading general price indications

When this is announced as a reality, rather than simply as proposals, probably in January, campaigners must ensure that the message is clearly communicated and prompt action is taken by those who are affected. The new regulations and requirements will have a long "lead time", giving up to 18 months for organisations to prepare. During this time, those who are unable to justify their Service Charge will have to change their arrangements.

Some contributors to this forum, now presenting as the fair telecoms campaign, have long been pressing "invalid" users of 084/087 numbers to change their arrangements. Publication of alternative numbers is only truly proper as a way of saving money by avoiding properly imposed Service Charges. (It is valuable, but only a partial answer, in respect of improperly imposed Service Charges and can divert campaigning energy away from the need for change.)

Once the forthcoming requirements are formally announced, 084/087 users will have to face the prospect of having to justify their Service Charge, as it will have to be declared openly. We will seize on this opportunity to ram the point home.

CRD refers to callers "paying no more than a basic rate call" which should be clarified to mean "no more than a call to an 01 or 02 number".

In that case, only 01, 02 and 03 numbers can be used for these services.

If 0500, 0800 and 0808 numbers become free calls from mobiles, they could also qualify.

It is clear that 070, 084, 087 and 09 numbers should not qualify.

That leaves only 055, 056 and 07 mobile numbers to consider.


There is an unintended issue with this very broad wording. What of a very small company that offers only a mobile number for contact? It seems to imply that they must also publish an 01, 02 or 03 number (mainly because 07 numbers are not "inclusive" from landlines).

catj, thanks for the clarification.

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Some heavy advertsising by Ofcom and ASA would seem to be in order. The quickest way would be to include some details on every business phone bill.

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Little is known of these changes out there in the wider world because they haven't been formally announced. They'll be announced in 2013 and businesses will probably be given several years to comply.

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Unsurprising. The term "local rate" gets used a lot but it is, in itself, completely meaningless.

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Also not surprising. Do BT include 0845? I do know that 0870 is included with BT. Where things go badly wrong is that many people incorrectly assume that 0844/0843 and 0871/0872 are also included because the numbers "look similar".

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Have any of them ever used a mobile phone to phone a bank or power company? Five quid buys you 12 minutes and 12 seconds - less than the average queue time for most of these types of numbers. With a contract phone, calls to 01, 02 and 03 would be inclusive. From a pay as you go phone you'd get almost double the time for calling 01, 02 and 03 as you get for calling 08 numbers.

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Telecoms was deregulated some years ago - but some caps were applied to BT pricing which will soon end. Consumers are conned when companies quote those capped call costs as if they are the norm - and companies have been allowed to get away with doing that for far too long.

Imagine if in the shop a sign said "bread is 80 pence per loaf", but you were charged two quid for it at the till, you'd go nuts. The shop's response might be "oh we only show the price for the Acme mini loaf and none of the others". That's the sort of garbage that companies are getting away with when it comes to declaring the price of calling them by telephone.

So, you can unhappily substitute "has already" in place of "will". For example, the 1200 GPs using 084 numbers have collectively caused their patients to over-spend on their phone bills by about one billion quid over the last seven years.

Add in banks, power companies, travel agents, department stores, and others and it's tens of billions.

rao wrote on Dec 16^th, 2012 at 12:24pm:

Banning all premium rate numbers is obviously one possibility. But I don't see premium rate numbers per se as being the issue; it is the way in which the system currently doesn't work.


There is also the fact that from a campaigning perspective calling simply for the outlaw of premium numbers is a much much much bigger thing than calling for changes to the way in which the numbers work.

There are two developments that are expected in the coming few years:

1. The introduction of the Unbundled Tariff for clarity of who benefits from (or incurs cost of) what.

2. The introduction of the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) into UK law which will see many businesses banned from using 084/087 numbers for post-contract service helplines.


With number 2, there will be great in-roads made into stopping those who shouldn't be using 084/087 numbers. This won't require any great consumer understanding other than 03 is as good as 01/02 and 084/087 is not allowed for customer service lines. So people who believe that premium rate numbers should not be permitted will find that there are far fewer of them that they "have" to dial.

For those 084/087 numbers which continue to exist (and not prohibited by CRD), then those who wish to call them will find the system in number 1 in place.

rao wrote on Dec 16^th, 2012 at 2:46pm:

I have thought further about rao's quoted comment.

Many things in life are understood on differing levels by different people. It is accepted by people that when a light switch is turned on that the light lights. Most do not understand the physics behind it. The same goes for the inner workings of the motor car.

In this thread we've talked about TCPs and termination charges and so on which obviously form part of the solution (but in the background as it were).

However, what needs to happen is that the parts of the Unbundled Tariff need to be accepted by consumers in general.

At the present time they try and relate the cost of calling back to one provider which is bound to fail. Users of these numbers either don't give call charge information at all or give that of one atypical provider.

With the split or Unbundled Tariff, users of 08 numbers will have their part to play in getting the message across in the form a pricing message.

The aim, therefore, is that Service Charge (set by the Service Provider) plus Access Charge (set by the caller's phone provider) will become the accepted way of how these numbers are charged. There will be no need to understand the intricacies.

Unfortunately, as they don't know anything of life before premium rate number abuse, they mostly seem to accept these charges as "normal".

rao wrote on Dec 16^th, 2012 at 2:46pm:


Great front page article in the Daily Mail today about HMRC and premium rate charging.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2249713/Hanging-phone-taxman-costs-milli...

Perhaps this article will get the ball rolling.