Extortionate DQ Services

Ian011

The cost of ringing Directory Enquiries has become extortionate.

Just as a warning, these are the costs when ringing 118118 and others that have a Service Charge of £6.98 per call + £3.49 per minute (after 60 seconds) from the main mobile networks.

Three
EE
O2
Vodafone

Even from a BT landline, there's not much of a saving...
BT

Most services will offer to put you through to whoever you are trying to call and the high rate will continue for the whole of that call too.

dealer_wins

Who still rings DQ when you can google the number?

Ian011

dealer_wins wrote: »

Who still rings DQ when you can google the number?

Someone must still be calling, otherwise they would have gone out of business long ago.

NFH

http://www.thephonebook.bt.com gives the same data for free.

I don't understand the continued raison d'être of directory enquiries. Why pay someone else to look up a telephone number in a database when one can do so for free oneself?

Would these same people phone a premium rate number in order to ask someone to search for something on Google? It's no different.

mije1983

I imagine it's mostly people of the older generation who used the service long before google existed and still do out of habit or the fact they don't have internet access.

Ian011

NFH wrote: »

Would these same people phone a premium rate number in order to ask someone to search for something on Google? It's no different.

I believe that such a service, more or less, already exists.

Laconic

I rarely use Directory Enquiries, but the last time I used one it's because I simply couldn't get a Wi-Fi signal to google anything, but did have phone reception and I really needed to find the business I'd come out to see. I'd made the mistake of thinking I'd always have connection and hadn't written down the phone number when I'd googled it at home. Oops.

Swipe

Laconic wrote: »

I rarely use Directory Enquiries, but the last time I used one it's because I simply couldn't get a Wi-Fi signal to google anything, but did have phone reception and I really needed to find the business I'd come out to see. I'd made the mistake of thinking I'd always have connection and hadn't written down the phone number when I'd googled it at home. Oops.

In that situation there's still no need to use them. Just call a friend/relative instead and ask them to look up the number for you.

DUTR

Swipe wrote: »

In that situation there's still no need to use them. Just call a friend/relative instead and ask them to look up the number for you.

Indeed, the amount of times I have had friends /relatives ring to ask if I'm near a computer and to get the number for ?? business.

d123

Laconic wrote: »

I rarely use Directory Enquiries, but the last time I used one it's because I simply couldn't get a Wi-Fi signal to google anything, but did have phone reception and I really needed to find the business I'd come out to see. I'd made the mistake of thinking I'd always have connection and hadn't written down the phone number when I'd googled it at home. Oops.

But then the question could be, why bother with a smartphone if you don't have even a smallish data allowance that would have allowed you to google it yourself?

A Google search uses a negligible amount of data.

Swipe

DUTR wrote: »

Indeed, the amount of times I have had friends /relatives ring to ask if I'm near a computer and to get the number for ?? business.

Why would you need to be by your computer when you could look it up on your phone for them there and then?