Call18866 Questions and Answers

MSE_Martin

As most regular MoneySavers will know call18866 is my recommendation for rock bottom no-frills cheapest calls providers in the UK (see the Cheapest way to make calls article).

Yet 'no-frills' really means that, and it makes getting in touch with it a nightmare. As I have 'the phone-number' to get through and a number of issues have arisen I thought I would put them to 18866 so people know what's going on. Here you go:

ML Question: The other day the service was engaged when you tried to call? Are you struggling with capacity?

Answer: On 22 Feb we experienced a fault which affected some of our customers. This was due to part of the network of one of our providers being down. Unfortunately this fault lasted most of the day for some customers, but please be assured we do everything we can to prevent these sort of disruptions.

(ML note: One of the advantages of call18866 is that as it isn't a carrier pre-select service, where all your calls automatically go that way, if it doesn't work you can just not dial the pre-fix. If that does happen, and you're on an expensive BT package, you can access Telesavers at 1p/min to any UK number as a back-up, and you don't need an account for it)

ML Question. Are you facing capacity issues? Have you got too big? People are reporting this when they try to sign up.

Answer: Some new customers are having problems signing up due to capacity issues. We are working hard to expand our capacity but this takes some time and in order to keep the network available for our existing customers we sometimes temporarily have to decline new customers.

ML Question: AOL customers don't receive their e-mails, and therefore don't get their bills. What's being done?

Answer:The AOL issue is still ongoing. AOL has very strict policies and is not willing to budge. Unfortunately AOL has chosen to block our emails and this means customers point the finger at us for not responding. As a result we have been forced to not allow AOL email addresses when signing up. It is also not advisable to email us any questions from AOL addresses until this issue is resolved as our replies are being blocked by AOL.

(ML info: I've pushed AOL in the past about this personally, as i get so many e-mails about it. I know AOL are trying to sort it out and there has been dialogue between it and Call18866 (I gave it 18866's number, yet I think both sides need to try a little harder), slapped wrists to both. Full details on the AOL&Call18866 issue can be found here).

Hope this is useful

Martin

margaret_3

I'm sure that Martin's post will be VERY useful to quite a few folks who have been complaining that they were refused when they applied so they would give up.
This will give them fresh hope as 18866 is fantastic.
Thanks.

Margaret

Mark_Peters

Hi

Just wanted to say we registered to both 18866 & 1899 about 6 weeks ago after a friend put me onto your site. Use the former for landline calls and the latter for mobiles. Has worked great for us so far, no problems connecting, touch wood.

Regards

Mark

Edinburghlass_2

I signed up a friend just a week ago with no problems so hopefully the capacity problem is a thing of the past

JSCChan

Hi

I have been using 18866 and 1899 for a few months on my BT line and it works great. However I am thinking of switching my broadband provider to Bulldog (am sure that's another thread!) and that would mean my phone line gets transferred to them as well.

So if I do not have a BT line any more, can I still use these 2 numbers for calls?

Thanks
John

boblevin

All users of 18866 should be aware that they now charge a 3p connection for uk calls and not 1p. This started a few days ago. They now announce 0 pence per minute. This no longer gives them a competitive edge for me.

gdhgdh

The 1899 service just went even further up in my estimation You can now use your computer's broadband connection to make calls via 1899! ))

http://www.call1899.co.uk/voip.php

It's also opened up that 1899 are actually using the Linux-based Open-Source 'Asterisk' PBX to run their system since they support 'IAX peering' .. and Asterisk is the only PBX software which uses IAX ))

http://www.asterisk.org/

Cheers,
Gavin.

sergeant121

JSCChan wrote:

I have been using 18866 and 1899 for a few months on my BT line and it works great. However I am thinking of switching my broadband provider to Bulldog (am sure that's another thread!) and that would mean my phone line gets transferred to them as well.

So if I do not have a BT line any more, can I still use these 2 numbers for calls?

Only BT are required to allow access to other providers.

I think you’ll find that, somewhere in the small print, Bulldog will require you to make all voice calls via them (they can probably bar specific prefix codes if they want to anyway).

[font=&quot]What are their charges for voice calls?[/font]

Edinburghlass_2

boblevin wrote:

All users of 18866 should be aware that they now charge a 3p connection for uk calls and not 1p. This started a few days ago. They now announce 0 pence per minute. This no longer gives them a competitive edge for me.

I just checked my account online (Firefox and padlocks all the way to any who are interested;)) and the five calls I made yesterday are all charged at 1p

I am with BT, are you?

[Deleted User]

boblevin wrote:

All users of 18866 should be aware that they now charge a 3p connection for uk calls and not 1p. This started a few days ago. They now announce 0 pence per minute. This no longer gives them a competitive edge for me.

I have just checked my bill and I am still being charged 1p TODAY.

sergeant121

boblevin wrote:

All users of 18866 should be aware that they now charge a 3p connection for uk calls and not 1p. This started a few days ago. They now announce 0 pence per minute. This no longer gives them a competitive edge for me.

Are you sure you're not confusing 18866 (1p connection) and 1899 (3p connection)?