070 Personal Numbers to carry cost warnings.

utilitybroker

"Telecoms regulator Ofcom has ordered that from September, callers to so-called "personal numbers", which start with the digits 070, must hear a warning on the call's cost for free before being connected if the call will cost more than 20 pence.

The regulator also said it is considering scrapping the 070 numbers because users think the numbers are mobile phones, and moving personal numbers on to the empty 06 number range. Calls to personal numbers from mobile phones can cost as much as £2 for a 10 or 15 second call."


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/01/personal_number_warning/

DonnyDave

Following on from the announcement, if you can call it that, about the changes to 0870 being suspended, Ofcom has today declared that 070 numbers don't have to have pricing announcements because of the issues they cause with equipment such as burglar alarms.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/numbering03/070precall/

<<

Removal of the requirement for pre-call announcements on 070 numbers

The 070 number prefix is intended to identify those numbers as being “personal numbering” services which enable the holder of the number to be contacted whatever their location. 070 numbers have been widely abused, in particular for scamming purposes, in many cases with consumers believing they are responding to a missed call from a mobile number, which also commences with “07”.

In Ofcom’s statement Raising confidence in telephone numbers, published on 31 May 2007, we announced measures aimed at protecting against such abuses by two principal means:

* first, from 1 September 2007 Communications Providers have been required to provide free pre-call announcements (PCAs) for calls to 070 numbers where either the per minute or the per call charge exceeds 20p so that consumers would be aware of the maximum charges that could apply to such calls;
* second, we reiterated our earlier policy decision from 27 July 2006 to evaluate the long term future of personal numbers by reviewing the situation at the end of 2007. Our original intention was to migrate current 070 services to another number range by the end of July 2009.

Since the introduction of the PCAs in September, Ofcom has received a number of complaints about them. In particular, we have identified certain automated calling services provided on the 070 range designed to protect human life or property, where use of the PCAs has caused these remotely activated calling services to fail because of the dialling delay introduced by the PCA. This potentially endangers the life and security of people who depend on the reliability of such services.

Examples of this would be a personal safety or burglar alarm which, when activated, triggers an auto-dialler to contact a monitoring centre. The reason for the time-out is that in the event that the call is not completed, the unit will automatically disconnect and try again for a set period or a certain number of times. For many such units the duration of the time-out means that after the PCA has been played there is little or no time for the call to be completed before the unit disconnects and retries. Ofcom does not regard the use of such services as falling within the generally understood use of personal numbering services. One option would be to require these applications to be moved from the personal numbering range however, this would require a minimum of several months lead time and not address the risks quickly enough.

Given the risk of such services not working as a result of PCAs, Ofcom has already asked the major fixed line providers to lift the PCA in respect of three 100k 070 number blocks where we have identified such systems as being used. We have taken steps to identify the full extent of the use of such emergency-type service. However, given the widespread use of 070 numbers, and the number which have been allocated, it has been impossible to identify all of them. There remains, therefore, a residual risk which we are unable to eliminate, that there are still emergency-type services in use which we are unaware of.

In light of this risk we have decided that we will withdraw the requirement for PCAs on 070 numbers with immediate effect. We have already asked the fixed line providers representing the majority of users to remove the PCA, and one of the purposes of this statement is to ask all other Communications Providers to do so.

>>

The changes to 0870 have been suspended because of this. Who knows when, if ever they will come off.

The call announcements on 0870 were a prerequisite for any telco wishing to charge more than a 01/02 call. If they are now going permit 0870 to be charged at a higher rate, then it must have to come under Phonepay Plus' regulation, as is the case for 0871.

More on Saynoto0870 here.

peter999

utilitybroker wrote: »

"Telecoms regulator Ofcom has ordered that from September, callers to so-called "personal numbers", which start with the digits 070, must hear a warning on the call's cost for free before being connected if the call will cost more than 20 pence.

The regulator also said it is considering scrapping the 070 numbers because users think the numbers are mobile phones, and moving personal numbers on to the empty 06 number range. Calls to personal numbers from mobile phones can cost as much as £2 for a 10 or 15 second call."


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/01/personal_number_warning/

Something needs to be done to stop these 070 phantom scam calls.
People naturally think they are calls from mobiles.

I vaguely remembered that 070 numbers are personal numbers, but haven't had any recently. The call cost to each specific 070xx dialling code can vary greatly.

I had a call from 07036 563165.
I returned the call, got forwarded to "Donny Banks" answering machine.

I checked Virgin call rates & found this number is charged at 50p/min !!

UK non-geographic calls (calls made to numbers that are not landlines)
(see pages 19-31)
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/pdf/uk_non-geographical_calls_a.pdf?feb08

How much do calls cost?
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/phone/callingcosts.html

peter999

DonnyDave

peter999 wrote: »

Something needs to be done to stop these 070 phantom scam calls.

[...]

I had a call from 07036 563165.
I returned the call, got forwarded to "Donny Banks" answering machine.

Stop calling them back for starters.

littleowl

I received a call today from 07036 547949 - the caller kept repeating 'can you hear me'. At first I thought it was my son calling from a mobile phone but the number wasn't correct. Next I checked all the numbers for people I know with mobiles. Then I did a Google search and came to this thread so realise this is a so-called 'personal number'.

I did not call the number back but am very annoyed being fooled into thinking someone I knew was trying to get hold of me.

Is there any way to block such calls?

peter999

peter999 wrote: »

UK non-geographic calls (calls made to numbers that are not landlines)
(see pages 19-31)
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/pdf/uk_non-geographical_calls_a.pdf?feb08

littleowl wrote: »

I received a call today from 07036 547949 - the caller kept repeating 'can you hear me'.

On Virgin Media (page 24) calls to 070365 numbers are charged at 50p/min, so you were right not to return the call, as I'm sure all Telecom operators charge a similiar high rate.

peter999

safariman_2

Just checking my mobile bill and have been charged £3.81 + vat for 2 calls to 07036237235 and 1 call to 07036237635. Checked with my mobile company “Three” and apparently I had made these calls one after another at around 7.45 pm now as this is more than 6 weeks ago I cant remember doing so but may have returned the calls after thinking it was a customer trying to contact me.
[FONT=&quot]So let this be a warning never return a call without checking the number first as this was obviously a SCAM …[/FONT]

Heinz

Another case of Ofcom failing to put the consumer citizen first.

They published their plan to move all these 070 numbers to the reserved 06 number range - but then DID NOTHING.

jhp

safariman wrote: »

Just checking my mobile bill and have been charged £3.81 + vat for 2 calls to 07036237235 and 1 call to 07036237635. Checked with my mobile company “Three” and apparently I had made these calls one after another at around 7.45 pm now as this is more than 6 weeks ago I cant remember doing so but may have returned the calls after thinking it was a customer trying to contact me.
[FONT=&quot]So let this be a warning never return a call without checking the number first as this was obviously a SCAM …[/FONT]

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1875245