0844 numbers driving up my phone bill

maturelearner

I don't ring 0845 numbers frequently and 0870 numbers I only ring a few times a year.

However the local health centre, card protection provider and my housing association all have 0844 numbers this can end up costing me around £2.70 a week!

Any advice, please.

I cannot ring the housing association on their geographical number as they just put the phone down once they realise it is a tenant!

LeeSouthEast

Is there an alternative listed on www.saynoto0870.com ? Despite the domain they list loads of other non-geographic numbers, too.

Ypaymore

Who is your phone and calls supplier ?

maturelearner

Plusnet home phone for calls and landline plus broadband. Though am on a month by month contract only.

The saynoto0870 site is useful but little help if the company puts the phone down at the other end or refuses is unable to transfer.

Our local council use a geographical switchboard but refuse or say they are unable to transfer to the departments with 0845 numbers. Apparently some of these are handed by a call centre over 60 miles from our borough! Fortunately I am not forced to call them on a regular basis.

Ypaymore

At least your not on Virgin Media who charge more to call
0844 numbers.:D

Unfortunately their are no cheap way of calling 0844/0871 numbers.

JohalaReewi

The OP said "I cannot ring the housing association on their geographical number as they just put the phone down once they realise it is a tenant!"

So saynoto0870 is not going to be of any use in this case.

Crabman

If you do as some of us do and let companies know you're not using them because they use a rip-off number, you'd hope some would come to their senses and realise that a couple of pence revenue per call in the short term isn't worth losing customers over in the long term.

The ones that don't realise that simple fact will hopefully go into administration

junkmayle

Maturelearner - In the case of the housing association, write to them using 2nd class recorded. They will then HAVE to write back (as you have evidence you sent letter) and it will cost them time and money to communicate with you, rather than the other way round. They will soon get the message.

utilitybroker

s_robinson wrote: »

how about using 18185 to bypass plusnet...

doesnt work with 0844 but reduces the cost of 0845 and 0870!


martin lewis has a review/article....

do a search for uk call checker

Have you bothered to compare PlusNet rates to 18185 before posting this ?

EG 0845 peak 2p a min on PlusNet and 3p a min 18185.

Their is a cheap work round to call 0845 via 1899 0808 freephone number i think, but i cant remember it right now. Perhaps Heinz will come along and remind us.

shadowspy24

how much are you paying a month excluding calls? Because the cheapest plus net package appears to be about £17 a month (£10.95 line rental plus £5.99 cheapest package.) Perhaps you could switch to talktalk to their essentials package which will give you exactly the same stuff for £17.74 a month but you get the free calls to 0845/0870 numbers which i'm guessing also includes 0844 numbers.

MadMax2_2

The free 0845/0870 calls only includes numbers starting with that and not 0844/0871.