Classified add scams

Altarf

Strictly speaking only 09 numbers are premium rate numbers, but the term has become muddled with people claiming that anything other than an 01 or 02 number is a premium rate number.

070 are "Personal Numbering Services" numbers, according to Ofcom.

Tim_Deegan

Altarf wrote: »

Strictly speaking only 09 numbers are premium rate numbers, but the term has become muddled with people claiming that anything other than an 01 or 02 number is a premium rate number.

070 are "Personal Numbering Services" numbers, according to Ofcom.

If they charge higher rates so that the owner of the number makes money from incomming calls then they are premium. They should display a message to all callers explaining the calls.

geordie_joe

Altarf wrote: »

Could you provide the full 070xxx code that is 123p. The only calls I can see that price are code P33, which are to certain 09xxxx numbers.

Sorry, I have to admit that I must have been wrong. Just spent ages looking at it again and can't find it. If you can't find it then I must have been wrong the first time.

I don't mind being wrong, but I double checked before posting so I must have made the same mistake twice

PS. Pretty certain it was p33 that I was looking at too.

geordie_joe

Altarf wrote: »

Anyway, as I said up there, I am not saying there isn't a scam, but there are too many posts where the costs are exaggerated.

Yes, but exaggerating the cost of a call isn't proof there is no scam. I don't think people deliberately exaggerate the cost of calls, I think they just see a non-geographical number and fear the worst.

As a total aside, why would any one have an 070 number?

forever_broke_2

geordie_joe wrote: »

Yes, but exaggerating the cost of a call isn't proof there is no scam. I don't think people deliberately exaggerate the cost of calls, I think they just see a non-geographical number and fear the worst.

As a total aside, why would any one have an 070 number?

Give me a call on 070123 342348 and i'll tell you

Altarf

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

If they charge higher rates so that the owner of the number makes money from incomming calls then they are premium. They should display a message to all callers explaining the calls.

Using that logic, everything other than 0800 numbers are "premium rate numbers". Certainly all mobile numbers are "premium rate numbers" according to your definition, because thy are higher rates and the owner (the mobile phone company) makes money of the interconnect charges.

geordie_joe wrote: »

Yes, but exaggerating the cost of a call isn't proof there is no scam.

But it always happens. If the value of the scam, just the existence of it, is relevant, why are the cost not underestimated. "I have just been scammed for 10p per minute", doesn't sound as good, does it.

geordie_joe wrote: »

I think they just see a non-geographical number and fear the worst.

And there you hit the nub of the problem. Nobody knows the price of a phone call, so they just guess. For example, which is more expensive, calling an 070660 number or an 070670 number? If you guess wrong, one is more than 100% expensive than the other.

This is where Ofcom have completely and utterly failed in their regulation of the market.

geordie_joe wrote: »

As a total aside, why would any one have an 070 number?

They were introduced as a "personal number" which could be diverted to follow you around. Some of the numbers allowed a diversion to a mobile phone, and so as in the UK the caller pays to call a mobile, the cost of the call to one of these numbers had to be large enough to cover the onward forwarding of the call. Some of the numbers didn't allow forwarding to a mobile, and so the cost to the caller was only high enough to pay for diversion to a land line. And here the problems began, with multiple charge rates in the same number range.

Over time, businesses began to exploit the number range, for example with classified adverts, where you can put your advert for free, but the system allocates you a number which callers have to dial to leave a message, and you have a number to get the messages. They tend to be 070, which allows the service provider to make money, and as they are not 09, people perceive them to be in the same range as mobile numbers, and are not barred as premium rate numbers by peoples home, work, etc.

What Ofcom should have done was insist that there was a simple correlation between the number dialled and the cost of the call. There should not be the stupid situation I highlighted above where the cost of a call where a single (5th) digit in a number makes a 100% difference in the call price.

It should have forced phone companies to provide a simple way for people to find the cost of the calls before they make them, for example opting in to hear a price announced before the call is connected. As I am with VM, I am not stupid enough to route any of my calls through VM. I use 18185.com, who offer you this option. If a 2 bit company like this can do it, why can't the big boys.

Why do the big boys have indecipherable tarrifs, and not a simple system on their website where you can enter a prefix and it tells you a price. As has been demonstrated, even the "trained" "experts" at VM have not got a clue.

And the answer is that BT, VM and the mobile companies are crooks who want to rip off their customers, and Ofcom is a toothless and incompetent organisation.

Freddie_Snowbits

Tim_Deegan wrote: »

Why do you say that?

Their scam works in two ways.

it works firstly on the shallowness of the greed of the enquirer, whom thinks that to pay for everything, they will get some woprth from an intrinsic object.

Then their own gullibility takes heed of their long arms and short pockets as they are aghast with pity.

Tim_Deegan

Freddie_Snowbits wrote: »

it works firstly on the shallowness of the greed of the enquirer, whom thinks that to pay for everything, they will get some woprth from an intrinsic object.

Then their own gullibility takes heed of their long arms and short pockets as they are aghast with pity.

Actually the second part of the scam involves sending an e-mail asking for details of the town you live in etc..

They then say that they are 100's of miles away, and offer to send the puppy by pet courier at a cost to you (in advance) of up to £180.

Obviously the puppy never arrives.

So these numbers are being used by fraudters, who have a two part fraud.

geordie_joe

Altarf wrote: »

And there you hit the nub of the problem. Nobody knows the price of a phone call, so they just guess. For example, which is more expensive, calling an 070660 number or an 070670 number? If you guess wrong, one is more than 100% expensive than the other.

Don't look at me, i don't know the price of phone cals. I do know where to find the price list, but I've made an @rse of looking up the cost of calls in that once already!

Altarf wrote: »

This is where Ofcom have completely and utterly failed in their regulation of the market.

Have to agree, it should be simple to know/find out the cost of a call.

Altarf wrote: »

They were introduced as a "personal number" which could be diverted to follow you around.

Thanks for your explanation. I am assuming the person who "owns" the 070 number does not get a share of the revenue when someone calls it? If not then where is the incentive to keep a caller on the line, which is what the OP said the scam was.

Even if they do get a share of the revenue, playing a recording of the ring tone must be the worse possible way of keeping someone on the line. After all, how long do you let a phone ring before you decide you are not going to get an answer and hang up.

Altarf

geordie_joe wrote: »

I am assuming the person who "owns" the 070 number does not get a share of the revenue when someone calls it? If not then where is the incentive to keep a caller on the line, which is what the OP said the scam was.

All sorts of deals available these days, so perfectly possible to set up a scam based on it

geordie_joe wrote: »

Even if they do get a share of the revenue, playing a recording of the ring tone must be the worse possible way of keeping someone on the line. After all, how long do you let a phone ring before you decide you are not going to get an answer and hang up.

Plenty of scams work on taking lots of small amounts where the person being scammed doesn't realise that have been scammed. But I wouldn't have thought that advertising a pet would have brought in many callers..