Is there bt card to avoid reverse charge calls

cattie

I've got a friend who doesn't have a phone, never seems to have any money & has just tried to phone me, by make a reversed charge call from a phone box. I refused the call being pretty sure I'd heard somewhere that the cost was pretty high & having just checked on the internet am glad I refused the call as it would have cost me at least £5 by my reckoning. It is possible there was a fault with the phone box & she couldn't get any money in, so then decided to try the operator to reverse the charges.

My friend is like a lot of people who are pretty careless with money & has a devil-may-care attitude to money & I feel she thinks because I've always been good with managing my finances that a reverse charge call on my phone bill now & then isn't & going to cause me any grief.

I know that there used to be a card from BT, back in the dark ages before mobile phones, that I got to enable my son to phone my home number only & the cost of the call was added to my bill. I've tried to find out if there is still something like this available that I could give to my friend, but found no info on the BT site. I'm not very good at saying no to people & if there were such a card I could get to give my friend it would save me an awful lot of stress & anxiety as well as cash. Does anybody know if BT do still offer this type of card & if so what it's called?

skylight

Try This

http://www.payphones.bt.com/callingcards/index.htm

pinkonion

£3 connection charge plus 15p a minute

skylight

£3!! Cricky - is that for reverse charges or the calling card (cos I didn't actually read it!)


Just dont do anything and don't accept ANY reverse charges or these chargecard things. Its your phone and your money - tough - don't bother subsidising anyone!

Or - change your home number and tell your friend that you dont have one anymore.........

MarkyMarkD

The BT website doesn't say £3 at all! There's no connection charge on directly dialled calls as far as I can see and about £1.50 on operator connected calls. Normally the fault with payphones is that they won't take money - so you can still directly dial using a chargecard.

andy88_2

There are several calling cards available in tobacconists/newsagents/supermarkets. I heard somebody ask for one (for cheap international calls, but UK too) at the news/etc counter in Sainsburys - don't know which brand though.

Some are account based (credit card funded by block prepaid top-ups), and some just have a scratchcard PIN. You dial an 0800 number then account/PIN number, then destination number.

I have a virtual account one from Alpha Telecom, that dates from before I discovered MSE and the cheap calls providers named here. Alpha's rates are 4p/minute for UK landlines, and from 3p/minute for several foreign destinations. I still use it from time to time, if I leave mobile phone behind, or as it also has access from abroad (about 30 countries).

dag_2

If you don't want either yourself or your mate to pay over the odds for phone calls from a payphone, then the best thing to do is call them back - using 18866.

If she hangs up before you answer, you can get the number from dialling 1471, or from your caller display unit. Caller ID is now free with BT Privacy - and if your caller display unit is capable of displaying alphanumeric information, it will say "Payphone" whenever anyone calls you from a street payphone, as well as giving you its number.

If you answer before she hangs up, her 30p will let you talk for 15 minutes. So you might as well make the most of it.

But be careful about 1571. If you have 1571 on your line, but not call waiting, then, if anyone calls you from a payphone while you're on the line, they'll be charged the full 30p just to be put through to your voicemail, as soon as they've finished dialling the number. They won't have an opportunity to hang up first.