International & UK CallChecker discussion

[Deleted User]

mopsymuffin wrote: »

I am not using BT for any calls at the moment .... Ofcom have made it worse not better in most cases with these new rules! I think the phone companies have seen this as a way of ripping us off even more with these new per min access charges! We are all much worse off now!

Greater clarity in all of us getting royally shafted. At first glance, this is what it seems like to me as well. I haven't really delved into all the issues and done much pondering on the topic yet though.

oldharryrocks

buglawton wrote: »

I also use mobile (Three) for all 03x shortish calls nowadays.

Why they are treated the same as 01/02 calls and you can call them cheaper then Three Mobile,s 3p a minute.

buglawton

Yes they are 3p, should have said, I use Three for all shortish 01x, 02x, 03x calls. For longer ones it's 18185.

JamesU

As with other OPs, I have just received a quarterly BT bill where huge increases have been applied to the O844 calls made abroad due to the new access charges from 1st July. They have worked out at approx 11p/minute and added approx £60 to the bill. Frustratingly, this could have been avoided with a simple £6.20/mth international freedom package.

I asked BT to explain how they could introduce these access charges without informing me first, and was told no BT customers were informed by letter in advance of these changes and charges. Is that correct? Was any BT customer on thread here notified beforehand? Intuitively it does not seem correct for BT to be able to charge in this manner without informing the customers first.......

JamesU

Ian011

A dedicated Ofcom website about the changes came online in mid-September 2014.

Ofcom ran newspaper adverts about the changes from the end of February 2015 and radio adverts from the end of April 2015. There were also a number of newspaper articles spread over a number of months.

BT sent out information to all customers a month or two before the changeover date and had information online as early as five months before.

JamesU

Ian011 wrote: »

A dedicated Ofcom website about the changes came online in mid-September 2014. Ofcom ran newspaper adverts about the changes from the end of February 2015 and radio adverts from the end of April 2015. There were also a number of newspaper articles spread over a number of months.

Not sure how any of the above can be considered a way of informing customers of contractual changes to their pricing structure. I read newspapers and did not pick up on the "publicity."

Ian011 wrote: »

BT sent out information to all customers a month or two before the changeover date and had information online as early as five months before.

Do you know what letter was sent out by BT? Is there a link to it somewhere?

I certainly did not receive any forward notice from BT ....just a letter about a week ago saying access charges (along with others) were changing from 20th Sept. And on the phone today BT confirmed to me 3 times that BT customers were not informed directly about the introduction of the access changes.

Hence my previous question on whether or not any BT customers here on MSE did actually receive such notification. Did you receive any Ian011?

JamesU

Ian011

There was a whole page about it in the April or May 'BT Update' leaflet.

There were also a number of threads in this forum.

JamesU

Ian011 wrote: »

There was a whole page about it in the April or May 'BT Update' leaflet...........

Ian, thanks for that.
JamesU

dvdgremlin

this list looks good for teletop until you look at the details on the site. on a mobile call it automatically charges you another £5 if you use your initial £5 charged.

that seems ok until you see that this credit on your account only lasts 90 days and then disappears. that makes 1pence a minute suddenly possibly significantly more.

also there is no mention of voip services such as callcentric which are reasonably priced and don't charge vat.

finally if you can go through the hassle of getting google voice (possible outside US - read internet) then they are cheap too.

michaels

Just checked the international call checker and it still lists 0844 from BT as 4p per minutes - this is now 2 months out of date - surely better to pull the tool than to report info that may lead to some shock bills?