Ofcom consultations  and the Radio 4 program.

As highlighted by other member, Radio 4 did an excellent program (You and Yours Monday 8th November 04) on the 0870 telephone number scam.  Towards the end of the item, Ofcom’s policy unit spokesman, Mr Matthew Peacock, was asked by the presenter, if 0870 number are Premium rate numbers by another name, he replied, “absolutely”.

So now you have it from Ofcom – 0870 numbers are premium rate numbers.

It is my view that 0870, 0845 and 0871 numbers should be changed to the 09 premium category and be regulated by ICSTIS.

Ofcom are now conduction two consultations relating to Number Translation Services (NTS) which include 0845, 0870 and 0871 telephone numbers.  The closing date for both consultations is 7 January 2005.  To make progress it is important to make a contribution to both consultations.  As usual for Ofcom, the consultation documents are long and complex and border on the unintelligible.  The cover sheet to use when submitting your opinion can be found on the Ofcom web site at  www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations (then go to “cover sheet”).  One of the items under consultation is to extend the existing premium rate regulation, ICSTIS, to cover all or some services provided on 0845 and 0870 numbers.  This would be a step forward.

The consultations titles are-
Number Translation Services, Options for the future. AND
Number Translation Services, Call termination market review.

It is important that you send your opinions to Ofcom, however short, in response to both consultations.  The more they get the better.  For good measure it would do no harm to sending a separate letter/fax/email of complaint to Ofcom regarding 0870 and 0845 numbers, as they claim that they only get a small number of complaints.

Hi kk,

I agree with what you say. This should have been done as soon as this scam was started. In the NTNS all revenue sharing numbers should be in the 09 category. The reason that BT and others with a commercial interest do not want this is because queueing is prohibited with 09 numbers.

Actually I understand that the consumer protest co-ordination site is currently being updated for these, to make submission easier as in the last Ofcom consultation on this issue, and should be published shortly. The urls are
http://www.freeweb.telco4u.net/rachelf and
http://0870abuse.tripod.com.

Yep,

I can confirm that the Campaign sites are now updated and allow you to submit your consultation responses more easily and quickly. (The Ofcom documents are very weighty and would take a long time to go through yourself.) Either of these sites help you to compile your own response much more quickly.

I think everyone that is annoyed by these 0870 etc. DPNs should send  responses to these consultations to show Ofcom just how many consumers there are that are annoyed by this problem. There are 2 responses to send. Don't foget to send yours!
http://www.freeweb.telco4u.net/rachelf or  
http://0870abuse.tripod.com.