18866/Finarea Unnotified Price Rise Scam

pricefighter

NonGeographicalMan wrote:

18866 are going to save you a lot less of a fortune at 3p per call than 1p per call! Especially as you can now have unlimited 01/02 calls for £7.50 per month with https://www.tele2.co.uk

Also bear in mind that the Talk Talk (Talk 3 all calls to 01/02 numbers free 24/7) is free for the first 3 months then you pay 7.99p a month.If you average that out you only pay approx £6 a month for the first year.The crossover point therefore gets nearer.

By the way the Head of BT Wholesale said at a conference today.
Communications in the UK is an ultra competitive market, and that level of competition will continue to drive down prices.

fbrj

NonGeographicalMan wrote:

18866 are going to save you a lot less of a fortune at 3p per call than 1p per call! Especially as you can now have unlimited 01/02 calls for £7.50 per month with https://www.tele2.co.uk - the reality is that my loss of fortune is about 75p/month with the recent increase in the connection charge....it's important to focus on the bigger (money saving) issues

Notice that I didn't complain when 18866 increased connection from 1p to 2p per call as I could see the 1p rate was unlikely to last and they were still the cheapest.- but surely the issues for you were exactly the same - you were not informed beforehand?

But by going to 3p so soon after the 2p rise they are no longer uniquely the cheapest and more disgraceful is to withhold the information. Also all calls plans are getting cheaper all the time. There will soon be a crossover. If they are no longer the cheapest then people will react accordingly (why you think it is "disgraceful" that they are no longer "uniquely the cheapest" - I don't understand...did they ever say they would be?). To say it is "disgraceful to withold the information" is a bit hard - in my previous post I referred to where the new connection charge was shown in 5 different places...hardly "withheld"! If there is a "crossover" then so be it - it's what is called a competitive market place

I only found out about the 18866 price rise 12 days after the event but as I rarely visit the 18866 website it could have been two months later when I got a bill. I have several relatives who I have signed up to this service who do not visit this forum or saynoto0870. How would they know of the price rise when 18866 still says "zero p per minute" on their announcement and does not quote the connection charge.- you are absolutely correct - they wouldn't! But I am sure you would have explained that there was a connection charge when you first signed them up. If they have the facilities to check on line then advise them to do so regularly. If not, check on their (and your own) behalf and tell them. You might ask "why should I have to?", which is a fair point but the answer is that it's part of the price of having really cheap calls from this operator.

As for going to a £10 per call connection charge and then clearing off with the profits after 30 days before anyone catches them that may be their final master stroke.- as I mentioned before...that is up to each of us to assess the risk of that happening!

You say you have no connection with Finarea but you sound just like their managing director. - nope..'fraid not...no connection. Whether I sound like their MD I have no idea!!

To my mind we are enjoying historically low rates for our phone calls at the moment through the likes of 18866. They may have cut a few corners about keeping customers informed about price hikes - I agree; but in the overall scheme of things that price hike costs me 75p/month and, although irritating by not being directly informed, should be kept in perspective and is something I can live with. The only reason why I commented on your original post was that as a 18866/1899/18185 etc fan (as they have saved me several hundred pounds a year) the word "scam" that you used particularly jarred with me - and I thought a bit unreasonable in all the circumstances.

bunking_off

..and since my name comes up a bit on the saynoto0870 thread, I'll correct the misconceptions that may have arisen about wholesale charging (I don't have the time/inclination to register for another website...).

All wholesale charging for calls is done on a pence per minute basis. The only exception isun-metered dial-internet (the £7.50/month dial up deals which are largely being replaced by broadband).

-For calls originated from BT to an access code e.g. 18866, 18866 will pay BT an origination fee which is on a ppm basis.

-For calls terminating to a BT geographic number, 18866 will pay BT a termination fee which is on a ppm basis. They might send the call overseas to arbitrage rates, but fundamentally when the call is handed over to BT to terminate, whoever does that will pay BT the ppm fee.

The above rates are regulated by Ofcom.

-For calls terminating on a non-BT geographic number (e.g. a Telewest number), 18866 will pay the terminating operator a ppm fee. In general, these are not dis-similar to BT rates due to reciprocal agreements that are in place.

This means that any calls to a UK number will cost 18866 both an origination and termination fee, which will be on a ppm basis.

It therefore follows that any operator that provides a service which is either drop fee (18866's 3p per call) or provides unlimited calls for a monthly fee (£7 for all geographic calls) is taking a risk that the amount they charge - which is a set sum - will cover all of the ppm wholesale outpayments that they have to make. For shorter calls, they'll make a profit; for longer calls, they'll make a loss. Simple as that.

As bbb_uk said on the thread, knowing what I do about the level of these fees, I'm pretty confident that there is no way 18866 could have been making a profit at 1p drop fee, and it was pretty unlikely at 2p. I have my doubts at 3p, but it really depends upon how many of their customers make daytime calls, and how long the calls last.

I wouldn't defend 18866's (lack of) customer service, but as with everything, where one goes for the cheap option, one can't expect wonderful service.

gavinp

While an email advising of the price rise would have been preferable, increasing the connection charge from 2p to 3p per call is never going to fairly be described as a "scam"... :rolleyes:

Thanks

Gavin

dunstonh

gavinp wrote:

While an email advising of the price rise would have been preferable, increasing the connection charge from 2p to 3p per call is never going to fairly be described as a "scam"... :rolleyes:

Thanks

Gavin

What happens when they decide that they cannot offer 3p a minute and go with something higher? What happens if they exclude more numbers?

Notifying someone that the pricing is going to change by 50% in the future should take place. It may not be much for you but my company has the prefix for this loaded into the telephone system and my phone bills are quite large.

A bulk email sent out to all registered individuals would have cost little to nothing.

bunking_off

As always with these things, one must read the T&Cs of what one is subscribing to. To quote;

>>
Charges and Payment
We withhold the right to vary any charges or rates at any time by posting the resulting price changes on our website or otherwise giving you notice.

Changing the Contract
We may vary the terms and conditions of this Contract at any time by posting the changes on our website. You agree that, if you decide to use the Call18866 Service after any amendments to the terms and conditions of this Contract have been posted on our website, you will be bound by the terms and conditions of this Contract as varied. Should you not agree with any amendments to the terms and conditions immediately cease to use the Call 18866 service and terminate your account without delay as described in clause 'ending the contract' below.
>>

They meet their regulatory obligations of tariff publication via having the website : they have no obligation to mail everyone individually, although it would be good customer service to do so.

On the issue of lack of ADR, however, they patently are in regulatory breach and Ofcom should be pursuing that.

gavinp

dunstonh wrote:

What happens when they decide that they cannot offer 3p a minute and go with something higher? What happens if they exclude more numbers?

Notifying someone that the pricing is going to change by 50% in the future should take place. It may not be much for you but my company has the prefix for this loaded into the telephone system and my phone bills are quite large.

A bulk email sent out to all registered individuals would have cost little to nothing.

There is a lot of "what ifs" there but as I said, I agree that it could have been handled better and that an email should have been sent out but I still think using the word "scam" in this thread title is ridiculous.

If they changed the connection fee from 2p to £2 then "scam" would be appropriate IMHO.

Thanks

Gavin

bbb_uk

bunking_off wrote:

As always with these things, one must read the T&Cs of what one is subscribing to. To quote;

Charges and Payment
We withhold the right to vary any charges or rates at any time by posting the resulting price changes on our website or otherwise giving you notice.

That doesn't mean it's correct - it may be an unfair t&c and therefore doesn't apply. I could have sworn that they have to provide us some kind of notice first. I'm sure Bulldog have been told off over something similar to this and had to amend their t&c and so has o2

Changing the Contract
We may vary the terms and conditions of this Contract at any time by posting the changes on our website. You agree that, if you decide to use the Call18866 Service after any amendments to the terms and conditions of this Contract have been posted on our website

This is clearly unfair. If this was a legal and fair t&c then every company including mobile networks, etc would say this and therefore when there is a change of contract (ie price increase) then us customers could do nothing about it but instead many have gotten out of contracts because of changes to t&c.

How can it be a fair t&c that we are expected to look on their website every single day and read their entire site so we are aware of any changes to the t&c which they claim they can change whenever they want.

On the issue of lack of ADR, however, they patently are in regulatory breach and Ofcom should be pursuing that.

I've got more chance of winning the lottery than OfCOM have of doing their regulatory job.

Update:

I found this on OfCOM's website about unfair o2 t&c and specifically:-

Clause 11.1 of O2's terms and conditions allows O2 to modify the terms and conditions at any time, such amendments taking effect immediately on notification to the customer. The means of notification is reserved to O2's discretion.

Ofcom regards the ability of O2 to determine the means of notification as potentially unfair under paragraph 1(i) of Schedule 2 to the Regulations where O2 chooses a means of notification which does not give customers a reasonable opportunity of becoming acquainted with any amendments.

O2 has agreed to amend the term and to add a new Clause 11.2 as follows:

"11.1 Subject to clause 11.4 below we may increase or decrease our Charges at any time (including the introduction of charges for aspects of the Service previously provided free). Where we increase the Charges we will notify you by text message before the changes become effective

As you can see from the above, o2 had something similar about changing t&c (which would include increasing/decreasing charges) without any notification and just expect people to look at their website and OfCOM decided it was unfair so now we get notified by text of any changes and ask us to visit their website.

bunking_off

You may be right on the unfair T&Cs bit, bbb_uk, but unfortunately it has not been legally or regulatory tested. All that's been said is that Ofcom think it *might* represent an unfair term, and O2 took the path of least resistance and amended it. Regretably, that doesn't set any kind of precedent as Ofcom have not tested their theory from a legal perspective or made any determination on the subject. To be proven as unfair, it'd have to go before the legal system. If someone has case law that proves such terms unfair, I would be interested to know.

Either way, as others have said, this hardly justifies the word "scam".

egbe

I also think the word scam is over the top.

If NGM says that there are all-inclusive tariffs with other suppliers that cost around £7.50 per month, then the very worst damage that can have been caused by the 18866 increase is £2.50 per month.

3 hours with 18866 is as cheap as one minute with BT. Try and get some sense of proportion about this complaint.