0845 numbers advice

brixandmorta

I am looking into getting an 0845 number for my business, basically if I move premises at anytime I can take the same number with me, handy for repeat business and card printing.

Does anyone have any advice on this subject, good companies to go with, is 0845 the best number to have? what sort of price should you pay? are there any catches? I know people loathe the 0870 numbers as they are more expensive to ring, and companies you are ringing earn out of the call too.

Would appreciate any good or bad comments to aid me in my decision.

Thanx

Heinz

0845 numbers also cost more* to call than standard 01/02 numbers and you'll lose business if you use one.

* During weekday business hours, they cost 3p connection plus 3p/minute to call from a BT residential landline (5p/minute from an NTL landline, 10.91p/minute from a payphone and vastly more from a mobile).

Although many 0845 (ab)users say (re the 3p/minute part), "That's the same as calling an 01/02 number costs", that is not true for most people on these forums - who either:

(1). use 1899 or 18185 for their weekday daytime calls. For them, calling an 01/02 number during weekday business hours costs 5p - for a call of any duration;

or

(2). have an inclusive calls package but have to pay for 084/087 calls (whereas 01/02 calls are 'free' [i.e. included in their monthly subscription]).

andrew-b

brixandmorta wrote:

I am looking into getting an 0845 number for my business, basically if I move premises at anytime I can take the same number with me, handy for repeat business and card printing.

Does anyone have any advice on this subject, good companies to go with, is 0845 the best number to have? what sort of price should you pay? are there any catches? I know people loathe the 0870 numbers as they are more expensive to ring, and companies you are ringing earn out of the call too.

Would appreciate any good or bad comments to aid me in my decision.

Thanx

I have a couple of sequential 0845 numbers that i got a while back from AGM Telecom. No costs at all ...in fact you earn 0.3 pence per minute on all your incoming peak calls - though you have to accumulate £100 before they will pay out.

Personally i hate having to call 0845 numbers for the reasons Heinz outlines. I noticed AGM Telecom offer geographic numbers "What a contradiction in terms - a Geographic Non Geographic Number!" (See http://www.agmtele.com/gn.htm) so that might be worth investigating as an alternative option.

Andy

Heinz

I see they're typically 'economical with the truth' in one of their FAQs about calling 0845 numbers too:

Q. Does my customer have to pay more when they call me?
A. No. In most cases they will pay less, as they are only charged at local call rates, no matter where they are calling from in the UK.

There's that ridiculous "no matter where they are calling from in the UK" rubbish again (suggesting that calls to 01/02 numbers are still charged at different rates depending on distance).

andrew-b

Heinz wrote:

I see they're typically 'economical with the truth' in one of their FAQs about calling 0845 numbers too:There's that ridiculous "no matter where they are calling from in the UK" rubbish again (suggesting that calls to 01/02 numbers are still charged at different rates depending on distance).

I suspect that's probably just a case of not having updated the FAQs from times when that answer actually was the case at least when calling using BT. I still recommend them all the same..