Call18866 now free calls too

MSE_Martin

Some Thoughts: Call18866, Call18899 and the price cut.

Forgive me, but I thought a bit of a 'stream of consciousness' on this would help:-

There is a price war going on, that much is obvious. However the war is effectively between two franchise operations of the same company. The reason they can compete is they are operating of the same very small cost base - effectively running a website, marketing and promotion. The parent company is the one doing the telecoms site with low cost carrier facilities

Let's not get carried away here. Landline call costs are cheap - OneTel do them free at weekends or allow you to buy a months for £9.99. Yet OneTel is a massive organisation, with shareholders, overhead and costs.

Call18866 is a website with technology provided by a parent company and no customer service - the cost base is massively lower. I do suspect their landline calls are a loss leader - however it's important to note it has increased it's call costs to mobiles and non-geographic numbers to off-set this, so i suspect it has been well costed.

Credit Card Authorisations:
It is quite right to point out that there is an inherent danger with these. I've warned about it both here and in public. Let me be candid though, the biggest culprites here are pornography sites, where people are embarassed to fight a claim that the company continues to charge. That is not to say there aren't problems with other sites, just that no one would be embarassed to say "im a call18866 user - they won't stop taking my money."

In normal circumstances I would say steer clear of anyone requiring payment by this method. However the reason for it here is that is much cheaper to set up and this company, as is obvious, is working off low margins. The other reason is that many users of this site (including me personally) have used these companies for a good number of months with no problems whatsoever. And people have reported successfully cancelling accounts when they need to.

The system is by no means without fault, however, evidentially there has been no problem so far. Call18866 & Call1899 are manifestly cheaper than any other total calls offering out there - and therefore it's a balance of MoneySaving.

My personal call is it is worth doing, but everyone needs to satisfy themselves - there is a small level of risk.

Sorry not to give a categoric answer, but sometimes there isn't one. Hope this helps you skeptics make their mind up one way or the other though.

Martin

clock24

Thanks for that input, Martin.
I have been using 18866 for a few months with no problem, as well, but it is strange that lowering prices like this does create thoughts of "Is this OK?".
Usually we would just jump for joy!!
However I go along with your reasoning, their cost base is low and so maybe they are employing 'loss-leaders'. If so - good luck to them. I will continue to accept their low prices.

grasmere

I realise I can save even more if I also use companies like 18866 or 1899 to make some of the calls, but I'm really concerned about keeping tabs on all the different bills...there's potentially 3 different bills each month, don't people find it confusing?

Wheres the difficulty ?? If your typical single bill is eg £50 then only use others when they are cheaper ! That way you know overall its going to be less than £50 .

Certainly with 18866 you have an ongoing summary on the website of your expenditure.

Dont make it confusing by worrying about multiple bills - if you cannot handle it stick with BT for line and calls - oh and pay a small fortune too :-)

This website is about YOU MAKING money work for you . . . so theres got to be some effort somewhere.

LincsLad_3

I was surprised to get the 'This is a free phone call' message when using 18866 tonight, so thought I would check here.

Good to see free UK landline calls, but for those who use it for overseas calls, some of those costs have increased too (eg Malaysia).

niteowl_2

I've been using Call18866 for several months with only slight problem when I kept getting engaged tone because their lines were busy - but via BT I could get through. Fortunately that's almost stopped happening now. I was surprised but please to hear that my landline UK & National calls were now free (and on this forum) discovered that connection was only 1p . It's sad that they had to increase their calls to mobiles from 10 to 12p - but I guess that had to make up the money somehow. I still think 18866 are doing a great service to telephone users and will continue to use them.

On another note, I tried to register with sister company 1899 - gave them all my details (i.e. visa, email etc), which they confirmed acceptance by return email. I still can't use them - when I try to dial out on 1899, I get recorded message telling me to register or try another number to get my registration ???. I have sent them several emails saying I still couldn't confirm my registration, but got automated replies telling me to phone the same recorded message - so ended up going round in circles >:(.

To be on the safe side, I've notified my creditcard company not to make any payments to 1899 and gave reasons why.

Has anyone else had similiar registration problems?

Niteowl

sergeant121

:)Thanks for the details - Just signed up to 18866, although I would use then more if you didn't have to dial that extra number every time.

Most CT2 phones these days have enough memory to enable programming of (at least) 16-digit numbers into memory. Forgetting to dial the prefix isn’t a problem for most regularly called numbers then.

For example, ‘Fred’ with an associated 1886601234567891 number is no problem. Neither is ‘Fred W’ 01234567891 – to enable dialling out on OneTel CPS at the weekend and saving 1p! Now that true MSE (and very tight)!

superhoop

Do you HAVE to put a hash at the end of the number you want to dial on 18866. Is it possible to program this in?

Edinburghlass_2

as long as you have registered with them, yes you have to dial 18899 before the USA code

No, no, no!! You dial 1899 if you are registered with 1899 and 18866 if you are registered with call18866.

Edinburghlass_2

I'd like more info too.

I have been a Telewest customer for 18 months and have just signed up for their talkunlimited evenings and weekends scheme at about £6 per month. Have I been a mug?

Our monthly bill is only ever about this amount anyway - we are not heavy users.

Is this 16886 business as good as it sounds?

Is it worth me cancelling the talk unlimited package?

Would really appreciate your advice.

Thanks

Steve

If you don't feel you are using £6 worth of calls every month then I would cancel and use call18866, please note the correct number when looking for the website, lol.

Why don't you cancel it, try 18866 for a couple of months and see what your bill comes in at. If it doesn't work you can always go back to Telewest. With Telewest and NTL etc you have a longer number to pre-dial i.e. 18866 is only for use when you have a BT line.

I have put several people onto 18866 who are Telewest customers and they have made a big saving!

Sooler

Or use 18866 but also change to OneTel StandardUKTalk (free sign up) for free weekend calls & free directory enquiries.