Bt1571

bobdwright

I hope that all the moneysavers out there with BT1571 answerphone spare a thought for everyone trying to call them being billed for a call, just because you happen to be on the phone talking to someone else! A brilliant moneyspinning Scam for BT though.

ginger_nuts

yes but all us moneysavers are on free evening and weekend calls ,another brillant scam !

thefirs

Besides which, if you leave a message for us to call you back, you'll have saved a fortune on your own phone service.

Rikki

I didn't realise we were being charged to call people who have 1571. Is it just if we leave a message?

pricefighter

Rikki wrote:

I didn't realise we were being charged to call people who have 1571. Is it just if we leave a message?

When you hit the 1571 message, like any other answering machine,you start to be charged,whether you leave a message or not.(This would normally be a min call charge).Unless the call is coming out of your free/inclusive minutes of course.

Unless you phone a number regularly you cannot tell whether you will hit an 1571/answering machine or not.Thats why i always leave a message why waste your money.

paul_h

As far as I understood it, you are charged as soon as you are connected to the answerphone, I may be corrected. That's why I didn't bother with it - I thought it was a bit cheeky by BT.

sad_gills_fan

Seems BT can't win .. they give us a free answer service and people complain because, OMG, they have to pay to call that person !

Get a grip people .. they are a business, not a charity.

If you call someone and they answer, you get charged, so it stands to reason that if you phone them and a BT machine answers, you should pay for that bit of the call.

If you don't like it, either don't call people who have 1571 (if you know they have it of course) or ask your friends to pay you back the money.

I can't believe people are wasting their time moaning about a free service. BT are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Wig

I disagree with the post above and the others who say it is ok.

When you phone someone and they are on the phone you get an engaged tone and are not charged for the call.

The honest way for this service to act would be for the message to say:

"the person is on the phone, you have not been charged for this call, if you leave a message after the tone you will be charged for this call"

This would be what I consider the correct procedure.

kazd

Thats a good idea but as someone else pointed out, if the person you were calling had answered the phone you would immediately have a min call charge. You then might be on the phone for 10 or 20 mins, at least if you leave a message they can call you back on their phone and they get the bill.

Personally I pay onetel £10.99 per month and have all my local and National calls foc at anytime. Some of you out there may point out that my calls aren't free as I pay £10.99 but trust me my call charges prior to adopting this service were far higher.

Becles

1571 is frustrating if you call from a call box. I needed to ring my Mam while I was out and had forgotten my mobile.

The phone box had a minimum fee of 30p a call, and I got the line busy recorded message twice before getting through. Overall it cost me 90p for a quick word.

Wig

kazd wrote:

Thats a good idea but as someone else pointed out, if the person you were calling had answered the phone you would immediately have a min call charge. You then might be on the phone for 10 or 20 mins, at least if you leave a message they can call you back on their phone and they get the bill.

Personally I pay onetel £10.99 per month and have all my local and National calls foc at anytime. Some of you out there may point out that my calls aren't free as I pay £10.99 but trust me my call charges prior to adopting this service were far higher.

<Off topic, but> you will find cheaper than onetel, try call1899 and call18866 - As a quick rough calculation, unless you make more than about 500 calls a month
You might find they will be cheaper for you.