Lowri Beck and 0845 number

NonGeographicalMan

Also some very interesting reviews on the ethical and business culture of Lowri Beck by former or current employees at https://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Lowri-Beck/reviews

For instance this recent one:-

This is a company with very poor management. The company lacks imagination and fail to do the most obvious things most modern businesses are doing. A lot of yes men that lack knowledge, who have no experience are shoe horned into roles because they will say yes to what ever they are told from above, despite not having a clue of how to get the job done. This company suffers from a high turnover of staff, but for some reason they do not seem to mind. I guess they keep recruiting filling positions with like minded characters. Hence no imagination just a bunch of yes people who have no concept of thinking for themselves or out of the box. Its a real depressing place to work.

And this one:-

WORST company I’ve worked for ! Does not deserve 1 star Way to many people in team leader positions thinking they are top dog. Yet not a clue when it comes to problems or customer service.Find the smallest faults in reviews to look like they are being active in their role. (Most of the time they’re on their mobile phone) don’t progress anyone worthy or with higher credentials as it may result in those in a higher position being put to shame. Boring and mundane. Oh and no laughing or general conversation between colleagues during working time and make sure you have a strong bladder as You will be forced to hold it until a convenient time for the business In busy times. Higher management will not speak to you directly whilst passing you, if you print in colour by accident. She will tell a lower team leader member to tell you even after she’s just had a conversation with you !?
Bad management. Bad people skills and even worse career prospects.

and this one:-

have never known a company to be as dishonest & unorganised as Lowri Beck. Not only do they give their customers false promises and lies on a daily basis, but they also treat their staff like cattle to the slaughter. The staff are expected to undertake tasks with minimal training under high volumes of stress, abuse from customers due to the company’s incompetence, and there are very little to no incentives to want to genuinely work harder. Unless you are management, a team leader, or have relations with the latter, then your experience here will be soul-crushing, unrewarding and will truly make you wonder how such a company is still on its two clubbed feet today.

So anyone who thinks their continued use of 0844 is an accident or that the directors are not aware of it had better think again. Clearly the only reason they still use 0844 is because it is cheaper for them and because they think the weak and useless regulators at Ofcom and Ofgem will never get round to fining them for not changing to an 03 callback number.............

Gerry1

Lowri Beck are probably getting their IVR service free of charge or at a subsidised rate from Affiniti Integrated Solutions Ltd. Calls cost up to 65p/minute so energy consumers are being ripped off well and truly (and illegally).

But don't expect the dozy watchdogs Ofgem and Ofcom to do anything. :mad:

And Dawn will be along any minute to say it's all hunky dory...

NonGeographicalMan

I have now just consulted the alternative numbers lookup for Lowri Beck at https://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php and discovered that 0844 245 1260 was not listed at all, as seemingly it is a fairly recent 084 number used by Lowri Beck (although evidence exists on the number report websites that it has been in use since at least 27/09/2017 according to https://who-called.co.uk/Number/13,08442451260) but that 10 previous unique 0845 numbers listed by Lowri Beck are shown.

So seemingly Lowri Beck have quite deliberately moved on from using an 0845 number to an 0844 number since they were banned in summer 2014 because the revenue share for their telecoms partner is substantially greater than on an 0844 number.:eek::mad::(

Needless to say I have also now added the new Lowri Beck 0844 number to the saynoto0870.com list of available alternative geographic numbers.

NonGeographicalMan

According to https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cold-callers-to-be-forced-to-display-phone-numbers-under-new-government-plans companies that break new rules on providing a number that identifies them when making unsolicited calls can face fines of up to £2million from Ofcom and a further £500,000 from the Information Commissioner's Office.

I also seem to remember that some other ruling required that companies making unsolicited calls provided either an 0800 or geographic number that either allows them to be called back or at least plays a message about who was calling, especially in the event of Abandoned Calls.

Although the number given by Lowri Beck does lead to an IVR for their call centre with a message as to which company it is it does not play a message specifically about who was previously calling and nor is the call back to them by the called person able to be made free or at standard geographic rates.

Given the massive number of calls Lowri Beck appears to have made on behalf of several different energy companies during the last two years from the CLI of 0844 245 1260 (and for several years before that from 0845 numbers) you might think that they could be in line for receiving a significant fine from Ofcom or the ICO, although I expect they will find a way to wriggle out of this as long as they promise to stop using 0844 numbers in their CLI right away with immediate effect...........

Gerry1

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Lowri Beck Could Face Fines Of Up To £2.5 Million

Sadly, I doubt that the so-called watchdogs will even whimper.
Ofcom are always asleep at the wheel, and the ICO is under resourced. Ofgem is a complete waste of space: they happily and knowingly allow British Gas and others to give fake E7 quotations (they don't ask for day and night readings or ignore the proportion used at night), so for low night time usage the actual billed amount will be significantly higher than the fake quotation.

084/7 rip offs won't even appear on their radar.

NonGeographicalMan

Gerry1 wrote: »

Ofcom are always asleep at the wheel, and the ICO is under resourced.

Seems you have formed the same jaundiced view of this regulator as myself. I stopped responding to their consultations several years ago because they always ignored all my consumer led proposals in favour of those put to them by the telecoms industry.

ICO pretty much as bad and largely jobs for the boys up in the North West.

Ofgem is a complete waste of space: they happily and knowingly allow British Gas and others to give fake E7 quotations (they don't ask for day and night readings or ignore the proportion used at night), so for low night time usage the actual billed amount will be significantly higher than the fake quotation.

Agreed re Ofgem as they for years allowed change of energy suppliers to take two months so consumers would not benefit from the lower rate of the new suppliers through the worst of the winter season. They also allowed bills to still be presented to consumers in gobbledegook form and also allowed suppliers to link lowest tariffs to paying by fixed rate direct debits that frequently accumulated massive credit balances with the energy suppliers that they then repeatedly tried to wriggle out of refunding.

Scottish Power amassed over £2,000 of my money in credit on a gas and electricity combine supply that never cost more than £1,000 of fuel in total per year while my mother was ill and I was at her house for nearly 3 years by regularly increasing the direct debits and then refusing to return the overpaid money.

084/7 rip offs won't even appear on their radar.

Possibly although I think knowingly going on using 0845 and then 0844 for years after the EU/UK SIs banned them across several energy suppliers (they use the same 0844 CLI for all of them which is why the calls are answered as Lowri Beck and not on behalf of Scottish Power) really ought to attract some form of regulator sanction, although they may get away with just switching to 0344 or at least lieing to the regulators by saying that is what they have done whilst carrying on with accidentally (again) still using 0844.

But yes it was because I came to the view that the regulators had almost no will to hold the scammers to book that I previously gave up most of my campaigning efforts in this area.

But finding Lowri Beck still using 0844 for its CLI was too much to bear and was the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back.

But no one else is participating in this thread (apart from the two misinformed posters who withdrew) so that does make you wonder if anyone else cares......

Gerry1

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

But no one else is participating in this thread (apart from the two misinformed posters who withdrew) so that does make you wonder if anyone else cares......

Possibly because it's become more telecoms flavoured, although Ian0xx11 is always very well clued up and may well comment if he comes across it. The problem is that few people are aware that 084/087 calls can cost up to 71p/min so they don't complain.

It's all because of two massive blunders by Oftel / Ofcom. Firstly they allowed the friendly 08 range (home of 0800 and 0808 free calls) to be populated with friendly-ish 0845 local rate numbers that were cheaper than long distance calls, but also polluted with 0870 national rate numbers that were more expensive than local calls. That confusion was bad enough, but over a decade ago Ofcom allowed the links with genuine local and national rates to be broken and the cost of calling 084/087 numbers ended up being opaque and expensive, as well as being misdescribed as local or national rate.

The second blunder resulted from a failed attempt to clarify the cost of calling these expensive numbers. Ofcom should have moved all expensive numbers to the 09 range (all the equivalent ranges are available, e.g. 0944, 0945, 0971 etc) but stupidly they still retained the once-friendly 080 range. Naïvely they expected the telcos to charge the normal geographic rate (to be known as the Access Charge) plus the surcharge (the Service Charge). But of course, the telcos ran rings around Ofcom and brought in Access Charges up to 58p/min which resulted in the numbers being excluded from free minutes and call bundles.

Lowri Beck, other culprits and the telcos exploit this loophole knowing full well that they'll always be allowed to get away with it.

NonGeographicalMan

Not convinced Ofcom are really asleep at the wheel but rather think they have been "captured" (by employees from the telecoms and broadcasting industries) and are driving their vehicle to a completely different destination of freer and lower barrier opportunities for their telecoms cronies to make as much money as possible. So that means not actually worrying about consumers facing rising prices or having a poorer choice of services.

They actually seem very wide awake about heading towards that objective.