Misdial Misery

AirCooledHeaven

Just a word of warning to those who like me use the call18866 service.

I've inadvertantly dialled 118866 three times in the last month and been connected to one of the rip off directory enquiry lines. This one charges an outrageous connection fee of £1.27 + vat (before providing any number information), as I discovered to my horror on my latest BT bill.

If I was a bit more cynical I'd believe they've set up this number just to catch out clumsy fingered call18866 users.

pricefighter

Been mentioned here a number of times since you joined. Eg :
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=65395

Also https://www.1899.com is now cheaper then 18866 3p connection instead of 4p.

Basil_Fawlty

You'd think that OfCOM would pick up on these rogue companies. Oh but I forgot, OfCOM is useless.

Benji

You can't really blame the directory enquiries company, after all you DID dial their number:-(

If you're serious about saving money on your phone bill - and want to prevent that happening again - consider investing in an Orchid Dialler. It will handle all the pre-fix numbers for you AND you can even set it up so that whatever DQ service people ring, they'll still get through to the (cheapest) one you select.

redux

spaceage wrote:

You'd think that OfCOM would pick up on these rogue companies. Oh but I forgot, OfCOM is useless.

This directory enquiries number was established before Finarea's 18866 service, and there is no connection at all between these companies.

Therefore, although it is an unpleasant surprise to be billed for these calls, the implication that there is something underhand going on is false. Ofcom could have issued a different prefix than 18866 of course, but there are several hundred DQ numbers in use. Should they not issue any 18xx prefix numbers on the basis that a few people occasionally misdial? Are they also liable for inadvertent international calls?

Basil_Fawlty

redux wrote:

This directory enquiries number was established before Finarea's 18866 service, and there is no connection at all between these companies.

Therefore, although it is an unpleasant surprise to be billed for these calls, the implication that there is something underhand going on is false. Ofcom could have issued a different prefix than 18866 of course, but there are several hundred DQ numbers in use. Should they not issue any 18xx prefix numbers on the basis that a few people occasionally misdial? Are they also liable for inadvertent international calls?

They were competitive before but once they realised they could make more out of misdials from 18866 they just racked up their costs to make money from these unfortunate individuals.

Come on, what kind of company would have the highest connection fee in the market and still be in business? They don't advertise anywhere I've seen either. It's obvious what's happening here.

Heinz

spaceage wrote:

They were competitive before but once they realised they could make more out of misdials from 18866 they just racked up their costs to make money from these unfortunate individuals.

Come on, what kind of company would have the highest connection fee in the market and still be in business? They don't advertise anywhere I've seen either. It's obvious what's happening here.

Agreed but call18866.co.uk have been contacted by a number of us on MSE suggesting they might like to apply for a different short code and received no replies.

Thankfully, they're not No.1 at the moment (1899 are) so they've lost business anyway.

Stompa

To avoid such problems I just set one of the speed dial numbers on my phone to 18866.

Stompa

Basil_Fawlty

Heinz wrote:

Agreed but call18866.co.uk have been contacted by a number of us on MSE suggesting they might like to apply for a different short code and received no replies.

Thankfully, they're not No.1 at the moment (1899 are) so they've lost business anyway.

1899 and 18866 are owned by the same parent company, Finera, so technically they are both no.1