845 as opposed to 0845 on O2

tempxn

Hello moneysavingexperts,
I've just incurred a £4.454 charge on my O2 mobile bill by dialling 8456032020 instead of 08456032020 and being kept listening to a recorded message before I realised it wasn't the number I wanted (Contact Lenses By Post). O2 can't tell me what the 84... number is (and certainly won't refund me) - does anyone know what happened? Two possibilities spring to mind:

* In missing off the initial '0', I dialled an international number (84 is the country code for Vietnam) - but why is O2 connecting me without my putting a '+' in front of the number?

* 845... (without the '0') is some kind of UK premium number registered by a scammer to trap misdiallers and I was charged £2 a minute for it - why (on Earth?!) are people allowed to register a prefix so close to the well-known 0845 prefix as a premium rate number? To make matters worse, one has to *omit* the initial '0' when dialling 0800 numbers from an O2 mobile (this came as news to the customer 'services' gimp I spoke to at O2).

Rant over - can anyone shed any light on this?
Cheers,
Chris

OneADay

Not sure but 84 would dial Vietnam so you are going to get charged.

The + is not mandatory - its not O2's fault - nor is the first 0 mandatory.

You just have to take more care in future.

bengalknights

By the sound of the amount you must have dialled vietnam the only way you could prevent this kind of thing in the future would be to enable international call barring and premium rate barring.

JJ_Egan

Not find that number using . http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/output/Check-a-number-results.aspx jje

tempxn

Yup - it looks like someone's registered a premium rate number with a recorded message in Vietnam to get a few pence per minute from people mis-dialling 0845 numbers as 845... on networks that don't require the '+' for international calls. I'm not detecting a lot of sympathy on this forum for people who make this mistake, even though it is a bit of a scam (I'd have hung up with a polite Xin Loi if someone had started talking to me in Vietnamese).
Perhaps I should start registering common 0845 numbers in Vietnam? Anyone know which country has 87.. as its dialling code?!

brizzie_2

This is not an isolated incident. 4 calls in quick succession to the same 0845 number on my January bill, the first and fourth were charged at the proper rate, 20p per minute. The 2nd and 3rd were shown on the bill without the leading zero. First explanation from o2: 0845 number owners can charge what they like. Not true and the o2 tariff gives the charge rate. Second explanation from o2: the absence of a leading zero on the second and third numbers means they were routed via directory enquiries but £10 credited for £6 of calls. Not true, they were dialled direct (from the phone contacts list), the per minute rates were wildly different, and besides other calls on the bill missing the leading zero were bundled free calls (and therefore not via Directory Enquiries).

There is clearly a billing fault on the system they do not want to admit to (or can't find) and over-crediting the account may be a way to shut me up. Anyway, no mention of accidental calls to Vietnam and it would not have been credible anyway - the two calls were charged at very different,and far in excess of the published, rates for Vietnam, disregarding that the exact same number, including the zero was dialled each time.

I would advise comparing the call length/cost to the published international tariff - if there is an exact match then this might be the cause. Otherwise I would pursue a refund in the absence of o2 not being able to properly explain the 845 entry.

Not holding my breath but one operator did say he would request a network check which would take a week or so to find out the cause and I will post again if they come up with anything more credible.

arielcohen

lol i read £4.454 as £4,454. I was wondering why you wernt fuming and also estimated how many minutes you must have been on the line for if you were charged £2 a minute hehe. Glad it isnt as bad as my imagination perceived it to be

Techhead_2

Numbers beginning 84 are Telex numbers and would be charged at the providers telex rate. Sounds to me like the accidental misdialling of a valid Telex number. (84is the code for Reading)

pimento

Veering (only slightly) off topic, Three initially said they couldn't turn off International dialling and premium rate dialling and it was only after I created a bit of a fuss that they reluctantly blocked international dialling on my SIM only 1 month contract. They wouldn't budge on premium rate calls and said I'd "have to keep a manual check".

baby_frogmella

Also going slightly off topic (sorry) but those on Vodafone Pay monthly contract can now get calls to 0845/0870/0800 included as part of your inclusive mins or even free. If you're negotiating a new contract then you can ask VF to add this as a freebie though you'll only get 100mins pm to such numbers. For those on existing contracts you can either pay an extra £2.50 pm and calls to these numbers will come out of your inclusive mins or for an extra £5 pm, you will get 'unlimited' calls to these premium numbers subject to a fair usage policy of 3000 mins pm. AFAIK Vodafone is the only network which lets you make calls to these numbers free/low cost.

brizzie_2

Sounds to me like the accidental misdialling of a valid Telex number

Like the Vietnam theory, misdialling might be an explanation o2 could get away with if it was an isolated item on a bill. In my case all 4 calls connected to the right number (a bank call centre), they were all dialled with the leading zero via the contact list within the space of half an hour, and there are other numbers on the bill shown with no leading zeros treated as bundled calls. This points at a network/billing fault in the o2 systems related to 0845 numbers and the quick crediting, without being asked, of more than the cost of the calls suggest o2 are aware of a fault. The pattern on my bill illustrates the fault clearly but where only one call gets caught by the fault then a subscriber may well accept they have misdialled by the time they get the bill when this is not the case and they are being fobbed off. Personally I would not accept that without evidence - you dialled Vietnam/telex for x minutes at £1.20 per minute = £y as it shows on the bill - the theory of misdialling is easily proved or disproved by comparison of time/cost with published tariffs.