£20 call charge for 3 minute call

patchwork_cat

My daughter was looking for a physio and found one at our local council run leisure centre. When she rang them there was a recorded message saying there is a fault on the line please call 118200, unfortunately she didn't listen to the call charges or ask me! Anyway she rang the number and got an alternative number for the physio at the leisure centre.


I have contact 118 and don't think we are going to get the money back, but then I thought our local council leisure centre shouldn't be condoning this. I phoned them and emailed the physio.The Leisure Centre don't seem to know what to do and couldn't careless and the Physio is saying that isn't our number, nothing to do with us, tough.


The website that the faulty number directed us to mentions the name of the Physio , but if it is a fraudulent number deliberately directing people looking for Physio treatment in our area through an expensive directory enquiry line or an old number associated with this Physio. Surely they need to take it down. What can I do, please?

christaitfife

I doubt you will get anything back. You even say that she didn't listen to the call charges - so they must have told her how much it would have cost. Think about going to a restaurant and ordering a £20 steak of the menu and despite it stating on the menu that the cost was £20 and eating it (and it being exactly what you ordered) you suddenly want your money back.

It also sounds like the physio may just rent space from the council and if that is the can't I can't see a problem with anything here. Surely the only issue you have is with the Physio asking customers to call the 118 number.

So, it may be worth contacting the Physio about this. Forget the council or the 118 company who have done nothing wrong.

Ian011

This is an often reported scam, but the exact mechanics remain unknown. The message to call the 118 number is generated by one of the telephone companies in the chain between caller and called party.

It would be useful to know the next six digits of the number that was dialled, after the leading 0, and whether what was dialled is their real number or whether it was mis-dialled in some way.

Was the original number found on their official website or on some third-party website?