Amstrad Em@iler/ Amstrad Emailer Cheap Calls and Premium Rate Numbers

allantaximan

I have had Amstrad Emailers for several years now; they are excellent phones / telephone answering machines / directory and Caller Identity devices.

And they are CHEAP.

Unfortunately they are subsidised by regularly self-dialling a premium rate number every day to pick up mail wether you want them to or not.

I dont want mine to, as you will note that I did not rate it as a very good device for eMail and I do not want to subsidise the cost of this otherwise very nice unit for £70 per year - for this is what it costs!

This is the best way round it and it seems to work for me.

First, set up call barring to premium rate phone numbers. BT charge for this so there's a loss here unless you do as I do. I have One.Tel as my "select" carrier. This means that all my calls go thru One.Tel and not BT. One.Tel's call barring is free, and you can switch it on and off as required very easily at no charge.

Having said that, I dont use One.Tel for my calls either because I have an even cheaper supplier https://www.call18866.co.uk who charge just 2p connection and no further charge however long the call.

Once you have an account with them, you set up a 18866 dialling prefix on the emailer so that all calls are routed through 18866 - this itself can also be set to tell you how much each call will cost. There's nothing more satisfying than hearing the words "zero p per minute" Actually there is, and I'll tell you about THAT in a moment.

Back to the emailer. It will try to access the premium-rate number each day, but if you occasionally suspend the call barring on Onetel, and do a manual email connection on the emailer, it will think that all is "ok" if not great. I believe that the Emailer contents itself more on being able to recieve (at no charge to you) the adverts than the email connection.

I believe this because for the past 2 weeks I have had 2 emailers connected to the same line and allowed each to connect manually to the email collection once a week. One of them is working fine, but the other requires another email collection within a day or two. Why should that be? Imagine the emailer advert line ringing my emailers to send those ads. One of them is going to respond to the call before the other, pick up the ads and be satisfied with a job well done, while the other is going to feel "un-fulilled" and thats why I think its been needing to re-connect. I have scrapped this one.

Now, what is more satisfying than hearing "zero p per minute." Stay with me on this.

Suppose you have to ring one of those blasted premium rate numbers for a company like T*&e Computers. You knew at the time that you bought the machine you were going to resent paying £1 minute for technical assistance, particularly when they fart !!!!!! about confirming your address, age, password, phone number etc etc.

This is what you do. Before you need to make that call, look up https://www.saynoto0870.co.uk and look up the terrestrial phone number of the company you need to call. All premium rate numbers still get routed to a traditional land line. Then you make your call to their LANDLINE number using 18866. After the 2p connection charge, and that lovely lady saying "zero p per minute" you get through to your technical help line or telephone banking or Insurance claims line.

They advise you that calls may cost £1 per minute, but you know otherwise and think "take your time, my good man, take your time....

I hope that this is of use to some of you. Let me know

payless

might work for 0845 / 0870 numbers but I'm not aware of any " geog numbers" for the £1 pm / 0906 type

pricefighter

Surely the purpose of the say no to https://www.0870.com. site is amongst other things to provide alternative numbers for non geographical 0844/0845/0870 numbers which have been lumbered upon us in the name of customer service.

It does not to my knowledge,normally give you alternatives to premium rate numbers, which are being legitimately used, for the provision of information.

Contrary to popular belief not all NGN have an alternative geographical number.

allantaximan

Well, look up T--y (small) Computers or T--e (hours&seconds) Computers on saynotto0870.co.uk and you WILL find a landline number to replace the 090 premium rate numbers.

A site like sayno is dependant on users offering up information that is in the public interest. My experience with the above companies is such that they waste several minutes telling you your own name and address and the tecnical help they have offered has been flawed and certainly NOT been qorth £60 per hour.

scattycat_3

Welcome Allen,

Thanks for the Amstrad info, might blow the dust offof mine, tho might be not as easy with a NTL line. Also thanks for Blackburn 090 info.

Thankfully, we have known about Saynoto here for nearly two years, as the site owner is a member here. In fact Martin sponsors the SayNoTo site.
Perhaps we may becoming compacent, not knowing about that particular time related 090 fix .

A common cause unites the both sites, BTs tricks and Ofcoms stickiness.

Scat;)

PS the correct link is http://www.saynoto0870.com/ as pricefighter's one has been mangled a bit.

pricefighter

allantaximan wrote:

Well, look up T--y (small) Computers or T--e (hours&seconds) Computers on saynotto0870.co.uk and you WILL find a landline number to replace the 090 premium rate numbers.

A site like sayno is dependant on users offering up information that is in the public interest. My experience with the above companies is such that they waste several minutes telling you your own name and address and the tecnical help they have offered has been flawed and certainly NOT been qorth £60 per hour.

I did say that NORMALLY you would not get an alternative to a premium no.I didnt want members to think that it was an site for finding the geographical equivalent for premium rate numbers because its not.If theres one shown thats bunce.

ScattyCat thanks for pointing out the error in the Domain Name.I have amended my posting.

Edinburghlass_2

You will find the link to Martin's article regarding saynoto0870 in the blue bar along the top of this board along with other useful articles on 18866/1899 and the best usage depending on your usage and telephone provider be it BT or cable.

I would also suggest reading the thread here about the Orchid Dialer which you can pre-programme to dial which ever provider is cheapest at a given time.

ramonb

I cannot open saynoto0870. Each time I get the same reply "you have timed out and cannot open www.saynoto0870" Has this been organised by a group 0870 users? Somebody is making sure I do not get alternative numbers!!!
ramonb

pricefighter

ramonb wrote:

I cannot open saynoto0870. Each time I get the same reply "you have timed out and cannot open www.saynoto0870" Has this been organised by a group 0870 users? Somebody is making sure I do not get alternative numbers!!!
ramonb

Try going through this link it is working
https://www.saynoto0870.co.uk

gavinp

Edinburghlass wrote:

I would also suggest reading the;thread here about the Orchid Dialer which you can pre-programmu to dial which ever provider is;cheapest at a given time.

You can also block premium rate numbers with an Orchid dialer.

Thanks

Gavin

Godspeed

The reason one of your emailers only gives you a few days of use before wanting to phone in again is because they changed the firmware and re-wrote it to include an inbuilt timer. A call home gets you 3 days credit.

The original versions of the firmware did'nt have this feature and people who changed the settings and turned on PABX prefix dialling to stop then phoning in will not have recieved the firmware upgrade with the new timer firmware. If you plug the emailers in i can guarantee 100% that they will have different firmwares.

Basically the non upgraded phones can be used indefinately without having to dial in (care must be taken to make sure they don't dial in and update themselves)

Those that have recieved the update and now have the credit timer running on them will spit the dummy out the pram and lock up if can't phone home every 3 days.

A way to make a call from a locked phone is to pick up the handset and hold down the 'email' button btw.


Cheers


G