Some months back I wrote to Elspeth Attwooll MEP asking her to raise the question of transparency of price information under the EU Universal Services Directive with the Commission. She has replied:

'...I have now received a reponse from Commissioner Reding.. (who) ...believes that the consumer protection..may be inadequate and currently the Commission is conducting a thorough review...They have suggested that they will come forward with a legislative proposal to better serve consumer protection...'

Reding's written answer actually states:

...According to a study commissioned by the Commission , many Member States have requirements for a price announcement at the beginning of the call at least for some service categories, such as for calls that are priced over a given threshold. Usually these price announcements are free of charge....

...In the context of the ongoing review of the regulatory Framework for Electronic Communications , the Commission has indicated that it proposes to strengthen consumer protection by improving the transparency and publication of information, for example, when calling a premium rate number. The Commission is currently evaluating the results of the public consultation on this review and will come forward with legislative proposals in due course....
E-4337/06EN
Answer given by Mrs Reding
on behalf of the Commission
(10.1.2007)

Is this good news or are we being conned again?

farci wrote on Jan 15^th, 2007 at 2:33pm:


It all depends on whether we can get the EU to classify all non 01/02/03 numbers as being premium rate and so requiring a price announcement.

As to Commissioner Reding she personally is certainly on our side as a former journalist and a Luxemburger no doubt with an absolute bee in her bonnet (along with fellow countrymen) about being constantly and unknowingly hit for roaming charges on incoming calls as she moves around the boundaries of the tiny state that is Luxembourg.  The big EU mobile phone companies all hate her after she announced she was going to stop them charging for incoming calls when roaming some time later this year.

I do think more of us ought to contact our MEPs though to get them to individually raise the matter with the Commission.  That really achieves far more than posting on this website does.

Source: Stephen Hughes MEP's website

Date: 21 January 2008

http://www.stephenhughesmep.org/press/PR054.htm

<<

Pre-fix telephone number Rip-off

Stephen Hughes, Labour MEP for the North East has the backing of Commissioner Vivian Reding to call upon Ofcom to do something about  the pricing policy for calls to non-geographic numbers in the North East of England.  Many people will have been forced to use phone numbers  with a 0844 or 0845 numbers to get health advice or to make an appointment with a doctor only to find that these calls are charged at up to 5p per minute on top of what their telephone provider has already charged them.  Other examples of organisations using these pre-fix numbers are:  Police Forces (Durham Constabulary for incident reporting-- number is 08456060365) and even Council Departments.  Stephen Hughes and now the Commission believe Ofwat should do more.

The Commissioner has confirmed that pricing policy for calls to non-geographic numbers must comply with Directive 2002/22/EC (the Universal Service Directive) and in response to a letter to the European Commission on the matter, Commissioner Reding said, "Ofcom in the United Kingdom has primary responsibility to consider the extent to which the relevant requirements of price transparency are being met by the telecommunications service providers and to take corrective action...".

Speaking today, Stephen Hughes said, :--

"Too many public and private institutions are using these premium rate phone lines when providing vital information required by the public.  Many times people don't even know they are being charged these rates on top of what it normally costs them to make a regular call. European law does not ban the use of the numbers, but it does say that people should know what such calls cost them.

The fact that people don't know the costs, means that the directive is not being complied with.  For this reason, I have written to Ofcom to ask that they take action to make these charges more transparent so people can make an informed choice as to whether they make a call or not.

I think it is scandalous that the police are using a 0845 number for people to report crimes.


On the Commissioner's advice, I have written to Ed Richards, Chief Executive of Ofcom to ask whether he believes the transparency requirements of Directive 2002/22/EC are being met.  Depending on his reply I may be asking the European Commission to launch legal action relating to non-compliance with EC law."

>>

Dave wrote on Feb 13^th, 2008 at 8:56pm:


I think you surely meant Ofcom Dave.

But coming back to the main news this is really very significant indeed as the EU is about the only organisation that has the power to force the ultra corrupt and ultra Telco loving Ofcom to fulfil its duties under EU price transparency legislation.  Of course only the Parliamentary Ombudsman has the power to force Ofcom to fulfil its principal duty to UK citizens and UK consumers under section 3(i) of the Communications Act 2003.

It seems rather ironic though that one of Labour's own MEPs is having to bring Ofcom to book for slavishly following the secret instructions clearly given to it over 084/7 numbers by Gordon Brown and his other senior New Labour cronies.