Why do we have to pay customer help calls

cool888

Hi All,

I am new here but I thought I had to raise this issue, I realise over the last years nearly all companies make you use 0845, 0844, 0870 etc numbers that will charge you for calling their customer support centres, I feel this is ridiculous so the suppliers are making us pay for them to help us which should be part of their service, its insulting and greedy for the fact that mostly the reason one is calling is because one has a problem with their product or service, thus why should customers pay for the privilege for them to sort out the problem and often you are kept waiting in a queue for ages costing you ££££££££ - crazy this should be outlawed by legislation.I welcome any feedback on this and perhaps we should start a campaign to the office of fair trading to stop this practice.

chattychappy

You aren't forced to use their products if you don't like the way they do business.

cool888

yes agreed but often you don't select a product or service and look at all the implications and also most suppliers are doing this so do you want to use your time to filter those who do not? plus you often don't know until you bought and certainly don't expect to have problems, you only find out that you have to pay for the call when you do.

Voyager2002

cool888 wrote: »

Hi All,

I am new here but I thought I had to raise this issue, I realise over the last years nearly all companies make you use 0845, 0844, 0870 etc numbers that will charge you for calling their customer support centres, I feel this is ridiculous so the suppliers are making us pay for them to help us which should be part of their service, its insulting and greedy for the fact that mostly the reason one is calling is because one has a problem with their product or service, thus why should customers pay for the privilege for them to sort out the problem and often you are kept waiting in a queue for ages costing you ££££££££ - crazy this should be outlawed by legislation.I welcome any feedback on this and perhaps we should start a campaign to the office of fair trading to stop this practice.

https://www.saynoto0870.com

And why is this posted on the credit card section?

[Deleted User]

I don't think it's ever been so cheap for customers to call companies, with being able to find the numbers behind the premium rate lines, email, texts, facebook and so on.

The trouble is we do now seem to be breeding a generation who believe everything should be free.

imoneyop

cool888 wrote: »

Hi All,

I am new here but I thought I had to raise this issue, I realise over the last years nearly all companies make you use 0845, 0844, 0870 etc numbers that will charge you for calling their customer support centres, I feel this is ridiculous so the suppliers are making us pay for them to help us which should be part of their service, its insulting and greedy for the fact that mostly the reason one is calling is because one has a problem with their product or service, thus why should customers pay for the privilege for them to sort out the problem and often you are kept waiting in a queue for ages costing you ££££££££ - crazy this should be outlawed by legislation.I welcome any feedback on this and perhaps we should start a campaign to the office of fair trading to stop this practice.

They could always offer a freephone service and just bump their prices up by X% to cover the costs of providing a call center for you to call with all your options.

I know which option I'd prefer and at least I'd know that I was only paying if I had a problem.

forgotmyname

Severl phone apps you can use to phone the 08 numbers.

Whats worse having an 0844 number so your paying to call them to query their mistake. Or them having an 0800 number and you only have a mobile to hand so get charged?

Saynoto0870 Numbers for most companies.

WeQ4U app on android. Probably others but thats the only one i have used.

grumbler

MSE news: Government launches premium rate number ban

imoneyop

Voyager2002 wrote: »

And why is this posted on the credit card section?

It was probably too expensive to post it with all the other moaning in the vents section.

dotdash79

In the 90's someone could call a geographical number and one person would be charged a local rate because they were under 50 miles away and another person would pay national rate because they were over 50 miles away.

People complained so OFTEL (before OFCOM) created number ranges so everyone would pay the same, with the added bonus of revenue share to encourage businesses to use them. The system worked up to the last few years when companies started charging for these numbers.

Now people are complaining about these numbers.

Where I work we have been running a project to move away from an 0845 number to a geographical number, and we now publish this online and all information sent to customers.

PeacefulWaters

cool888 wrote: »

I am new here but I thought I had to raise this issue, I realise over the last years nearly all companies make you use 0845, 0844, 0870 etc numbers that will charge you for calling their customer support centres, I feel this is ridiculous

0845 numbers are probably the most common. When they were introduced, a couple of decades back, they cost the same as local numbers such as 0121, 0131, 0161 etc.

As the years passed, call packages that usually involved increased line rental but free calls were introduced, free calls excluding the 0845 and other numbers. Then the mobile phone became important and the new mobile tariffs tended to charge extra for the calls too.

So the original reasons for companies having 0845 numbers were solid. Telephone company charging strategies created the concerns you raised.

so the suppliers are making us pay for them to help us which should be part of their service

Come now. Everything has to be paid for one way or the other. If they created freephone numbers for everything the charges for their products would be higher to make up for it.

its insulting and greedy for the fact that mostly the reason one is calling is because one has a problem with their product or service, thus why should customers pay for the privilege for them to sort out the problem and often you are kept waiting in a queue for ages costing you ££££££££

And in the wild world of retail banking those customers who have a valid complaint can ask to be refunded for time and call costs and will usually recover those funds.

crazy this should be outlawed by legislation.

No. It should be disuaded by customers moving their business elsewhere. TSB made some sort of announcement last week around local call numbers.

I welcome any feedback on this and perhaps we should start a campaign to the office of fair trading to stop this practice.

Save your time. It's not that important. www.saynoto0870.com saves you the effort.