Something to be aware of with 18866

jb84344

This is not a complaint about 18866 at all, but it's something which I felt people ought to be aware of....

If you are prone to making errors when calling people be very careful if you use 18866. The reason being is that if you accidently prefix your number with 118866 (note extra 1), you'll be calling a directory service which will hang up on you immediately (calls normally last 0.06 of a second) so you think you've just mis-dialled at no cost, whereas you've actually been charged 49p each time you do it.

My parents spotted this when looking at their most recent bill, which contained 4 calls to 118866. They'd always assumed that I'd been phoning the directory service (cheek of it ) but realised I was away last time it happened. Anyway, on further investigation they saw what had been happening, and are now that much more careful.

Just thought I'd pass on the tip.
Julia

Shawz

Thanks Julia.

Was looking at getting 18866 so will help.

koru

I wonder if the directory provider is entirely legitimate, or has it deliberately chosen a number that is intended to pick up 49p every time someone misdials?

To be fair, they look legit, if their website is anything to go on: http://www.118866.info/why.php

Perhaps Ofcom ought to introduce a requirement that directory services can't charge you anything if you hang up in the first 10 seconds of connection?

jb84344

To be honest I wondered something similar - I wondered if 18866 owned the 118 866 but they don't!

I agree about no charging (or at least not full price) for less than a second as well - There's no way they can justify taking 49p when an operator couldn't even have said Hello!

jstyles

Just a suggestion/related question.

Is there any kind of 'gubbins' on the market which would magically add 18866 to the dialled number shoots out to the exchange?

This would avoid the problem - probably?

sergeant121

jstyles wrote:

Just a suggestion/related question.

Is there any kind of 'gubbins' on the market which would magically add 18866 to the dialled number shoots out to the exchange?

This would avoid the problem - probably?

Yes, the Orchid dialler (there's nothing 'magic' about it BTW).

jstyles

sergeant121 wrote:

Yes, the Orchid dialler (there's nothing 'magic' about it BTW).

Thanks!

A 'magic' reply, though!!

emh_2

I came across your thread just before I was about to warn fellow MSE's of this error, unfortunately for me I didn't know about this until I saw my onetel bill and discovered that for 9 seconds (I don't know why it took that long!) it cost me £1.55!!! my most expensive wrong number. Perhaps it is more expensive for onetel customers?

please be carefull when dialing, I am now going to investigate what this orchid dialler thingy is.

Edinburghlass_2

As this thread was obviously pre the new forum software I am shifting it across to Home Phones.

trisha

I bought a digital phone when I registered with 18866 so that I could key the number in it's memory, I couldn't do that with my old phone.

I have all my friends numbers etc all keyed in with the prefix, also I keyed in 18866 followed by the area codes I use most and then 18866 on it's own, so whichever way I dial I don't have to put in 18866 I have a list near the phone with the corresponding numbers from 1 to 20 for example my daughter is number 1.