101 call charges

Buzby

Yes - it was stated this was the case on a police website - no doubt to deflect ire that the emergency service was making money from callers.

http://www.police.uk/101/

NFH

Buzby wrote: »

Yes - it was stated this was the case on a police website - no doubt to deflect ire that the emergency service was making money from callers.

http://www.police.uk/101/

It says "Everyone calling the police for non-emergency matters now knows exactly how much a call will cost them, and can be assured of equal access whether they are on a pay-as-you-go mobile or a home landline". So basically callers from fixed lines (where 15p is more than the basic rate) are subsidising mobile prepaid customers (where 15p is less than the basic rate).

DUTR

When I have called 101 on O2 it has been free of charge on both occasions.

diamonds

"Is 101 available outside England and Wales?

101 is only available if you are calling from England and Wales. If you need to contact a police force in England and Wales whilst you are abroad, please use the list of alternative numbers for the police forces."

And the list of numbers from abroad include 08 numbers ! Given not all international telco's can dial a UK 08 prefix thats pathetic, I had this issue with Santander Fraud dept from AU on certain telco's as every third time I used my card Santander barred usage and I had to call 9-5 UK time, thankfully they upgraded thier security systems since then as I had a big old rant to CEO office about not being able to use my card time & time again to access MY money & they refused to call my AU number knowing I could not call them & india staff were saying we are not allowed to transfer although we can use the 0845 number even after explaining it was a UK internal number I could not call from abroad, DOH !

Buzby

NFH wrote: »

It says "Everyone calling the police for non-emergency matters now knows exactly how much a call will cost them, and can be assured of equal access whether they are on a pay-as-you-go mobile or a home landline". So basically callers from fixed lines (where 15p is more than the basic rate) are subsidising mobile prepaid customers (where 15p is less than the basic rate).

I was actually more concerned with the statement that 'everyone will know exactly how much'. How? Each network is different, and here is no uniformity (pun intended) between them. The caller is charged what the network states it will charge for that price band - and Virgin previously charged 50p!

As for a 'basic rate' - this is also meaningless as a benchmark, as much as those tho proclaim the cost is the same as 'local/national' call. They don't know and cannot assert this. Anyway, who has a local call charge? Better yet, is this basic charge inclusive of call setup fees, call rounding to the next minute, or a myriad of other tricks?