The SayNoTo0870 Article Discussion Area

Heinz wrote: »

I don't understand that. What's wrong with ordinary 0161 xxx XXXX or 020 xxxx XXXX numbers? There are no ingress charges for those.

Customers know the cost of calls (3p/minute peak and 5.5p for up to an hour off peak - or less if you use a prefix-dial provider or have a calls package other than BT's standard) and some, like me, appreciate not being ripped off by disguised premium rate 084/087 numbers. As a result, they are happy to deal with such companies again instead of doing everything possible to avoid doing so.

BTW, Oftel (now Ofcom) are to blame for the STD code changes, not BT.

When the Septi .....erm Americans bought into BT they convinced them [Oftel] that all the invoiced large customers [Vodafone, Orange, and can't remember what T-Mobile used to be called One something or other] were not actually customers but ONLY competitors even though they still had a supplier customer trlationship. As ONLY competitors this allowed them to charge a termination fee for 0800 (In the telegraphy act BT are not allowed to charge customers for 0800).

When the mobile operators retaliated with a termination charge to BT and other landline customers - BT went bleeting to Oftel and the mobile operators were ORDERED to reduce the termination charge they imposed (repeat - in retaliation) but ignored the causal termination charge applied by BT.

Smells fishy, though I at the time, wondering how the oversights were possible?

Having sucessfully rused that one they proceeded to introduce all the 0845's etc with call revenue sharing.

Thanks to the EEC - much of their con-artistry is slowly being undone.

Having capped a pre 18th March Three contract it delights me to email companies that because they use a number begining 08 I can no longer call them so the will not receive any business from me.

bbb_uk wrote: »

o2 are one of the very few (if any) that actually still include 0845/0870. The problem now is that some companies may migrate to either 0844 (likely cost they will choose will be either 4ppm or 5ppm all the time) or 0871 due to the loss of revenue that will happen in the next two years on 0870 numbers.

As briefly mentioned by Martin in his article, Virgin Holidays, have recently introduced an 0871 for their sales line for holidays to Bush Gardens, Tamper Bay and even advertise it as a 'national rate' number - discussed on Sayno here.

Another one is that Cahoot have changed their customer services number from an 0870 to an 0844 costing 4ppm all the time. Although slightly cheaper in the daytime, during the evening & weekend Cahoot will earn more money - discussed on Sayno here.

And the reason is - they're still a sister company/part of BT so a few charges to themselves are by far exceeded by the termination charges to others. It was all so they could to say to Oftel - but we charge ourselves too. look see.

Intelligent1 wrote: »

And the reason is - they're still a sister company/part of BT so a few charges to themselves are by far exceeded by the termination charges to others. It was all so they could to say to Oftel - but we charge ourselves too. look see.

It would help if you stopped digging up old posts,and making incorrect comments.

O2 are not part of BT they parted company years ago,and they no longer include 08 numbers in inclusive minutes.

Intelligent1 wrote: »

Forgot to mention the clever marketting techniques by BT sales reps telling all the benefits of wider customer potential when HQ location is unknown; can use overseas call centres at no extra cost to the caller; the caller pays no extra??; you get 2p back from every call you receive and there's no downside.

The sales and use of these numbers will drop considerably due to the new laws.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32011L0083

and the new govt guidelines to govt/and local govt.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268785/hmg-guidance-customer-service-lines.pdf