International & UK CallChecker discussion

jhp

Roger1 wrote: »

Does anybody know how much a BT call to TopUpNow costs? Thanks.

Charge Band: FX21 Premium Fixed Fee

(Call costs include VAT at 20%, minimum call 60 seconds)

All Week - Fixed cost of 153.29p per call

Roger1

jhp wrote: »

All Week - Fixed cost of 153.29p per call

Thanks for this.

So £1.53-ish produces a credit of £1.50 which at 5p a go allows handling charges for 30 calls, so about one a day. That's if all are used within a month. More than that means another £1.53 charge, fewer than that means each call 'costs' more than 5p for the handling charge. *But see EDIT.*

We call Switzerland a lot. I'm looking at calls to Swiss landlines @ 0p per minute + 5p, compared with 1p per minute + 4p with 18185. It could work but with constant monitoring. I'm thinking in this case 18185 is more practical.

EDIT: Somehow I thought the credit lasts for 30 days and now see that it's 90 days, so my calculations are a little awry and the offer is more favourable than I suggested..

jhp

Roger1 wrote: »

We call Switzerland a lot. I'm looking at calls to Swiss landlines @ 0p per minute + 5p, compared with 1p per minute + 4p with 18185. It could work but with constant monitoring. I'm thinking in this case 18185 is more practical.

Consider http://www.localphone.com/call/switzerland payg service. 1p a minute no connection charges. They point a dedicated UK 01/02/03 number at your Intl Target Number directly so no having to dial two numbers and get charged if you get no answer.

buglawton

Or there's Skype.
400 min to Switzerland, £2.99 per month (0.7p/min + 5.6p connection)
For lots of short calls where connection charges add up, Unlimited Switzerland is £3.99 per month

Ypaymore

buglawton wrote: »

Or there's Skype.
400 min to Switzerland, £2.99 per month (0.7p/min + 5.6p connection)
For lots of short calls where connection charges add up, Unlimited Switzerland is £3.99 per month

If you dont need a bundle they charge 1.7p a minute plus connection on the payg service.

No connection fee appears to be charged if you use bundles.

Plus its helpful if you quote the rates including vat.:D

jnw100207

Hi
This is my first post on here and I am looking for advice.
We are with PlusNet, (who charge 13.87p connection charge) and we use 0844 901 6958 to call Ukraine landlines at 4p a minute and 0871 801 7500 to Ukraine mobiles at 7p a minute. Or so we thought!!!!!!
Apparantley, PlusNet have different rules. They charge us 9p to mobiles and 6p to landlines a minute. This is posted on their tariffs page under "Specialised Service" g13.
I had to download an Excel bill to find this out, because my online bill didn't give this information.
It took me over 2 hours trawling their website to find this information, and I'm really not happy.
I was under the impression that the advertised 4p and 7p plus connection charge was the price we paid seeing as that's what is being advertised.
Why are PlusNet allowed to charge a separate, unadvertised, price?
Surely they are breaking some rules here? How am I supposed to know what a "Specialised Service"g13 is BEFORE I make these calls, because the numbers aren't listed.
Please,please,please can someone help?


many thanks

buglawton

What did Plusnet say when you emailed them or posted the same question on their forum? A Plusnet rep very often replies in the forum.

But in the end it may be what you are stuck with. The only way to get the 'official' 0844 prices these days seems to be via BT.

Ukraine is exceptionally expensive to call, thank the local monopoly telcos there and their oligarch owners for this!

Ypaymore

jnw100207 wrote: »

Hi
This is my first post on here and I am looking for advice.
We are with PlusNet, (who charge 13.87p connection charge) and we use 0844 901 6958 to call Ukraine landlines at 4p a minute and 0871 801 7500 to Ukraine mobiles at 7p a minute.

If you had used the callchecker http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/
you would see a clear warning.

" Warning!
This is an AUTO-generated list, errors can and do happen. Always double check the price first yourself." and then if you clicked on to find the price from other suppliers you would have got " Warning! There's no way to know prices for your provider. Select BT as a guide, but beware prices may vary HUGELY."

The prices you quote are only from a BT Line and are actually 15p connection and 4.08 to landline and 7.15 to a mobile in the Ukraine the Callchecker shows the correct rates via BT.

Other suppliers not just PlusNet can and do have different connection charges and call rates to BT for calls to non geographical numbers as you have discovered,and are within their rights to do so.

0844 901 6958 is provided by http://www.lowcalls.co.uk 0871 801 7500 appears to be a Just- Dial agents number http://just-dial.com/ neither are recommended by the callchecker.

Just Dial although not up to date with connection fee do say in FAQ." Please note that charges from other service providers may differ. Please check with your service or network provider before making a call to be sure of the rate they charge. You may also want to check if call connection or set up fees are applied, and whether the charges are calculated per second or minute."

Lowcalls site run by a Dutch Company in faq is very misleading and warrants a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.

"What are LowCalls's calling rates exactly?

All you pay are the rates per minute that are listed at our website. You also hear what the rate/minute will be right before your call is placed. It can't be any clearer than that!

About the rate per minute: will I get charged extra for the LowCalls Access Number?

No, the listed rates per minute are what you actually pay. There are absolutely no other costs involved! "

NonGeographicalMan

Plusnet are a wholly owned subsidiary of BT so for them to have different 0844 call prices when this rate isn't actively advertised by them in any active way and is not a marketing differentiator of the Plusnet service from parent BT is to my mind particularly unethical.

If the price was lower than BT that would be ok because it would be in line with Plusnet's general proposition of BT quality with a Yorkshire based customer service front end. However for Plusnet to sneakily have higher call prices than BT to already expensive 0844 numbers on a call rate they don't actively advertise is to my mind extremely bad practice.

I would take my complaint on this matter where it belongs to Plusnet and BT by using the contact details for the Chief Executive of each of those two companies shown at www dot ceoemail dot com

Our useless telecoms regulator Ofcom is seriously negligent in failing to do anything about the quite outrageous cartel scam between the fixed line telcos with the ever increasing per call connection charge to try to blackmail all landline customers in to taking an Anytime calls package.

oldharryrocks

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Plusnet are a wholly owned subsidiary of BT so for them to have different 0844 call prices when this rate isn't actively advertised by them in any active way and is not a marketing differentiator of the Plusnet service from parent BT is to my mind particularly unethical.

If the price was lower than BT that would be ok because it would be in line with Plusnet's general proposition of BT quality with a Yorkshire based customer service front end. However for Plusnet to sneakily have higher call prices than BT to already expensive 0844 numbers on a call rate they don't actively advertise is to my mind extremely bad practice.

I would take my complaint on this matter where it belongs to Plusnet and BT by using the contact details for the Chief Executive of each of those two companies shown at www dot ceoemail dot com

Our useless telecoms regulator Ofcom is seriously negligent in failing to do anything about the quite outrageous cartel scam between the fixed line telcos with the ever increasing per call connection charge to try to blackmail all landline customers in to taking an Anytime calls package.

Plusnet do advertise all tariffs https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/tariffs/.