My son is studying as an overseas student at LSE, and has a 0870 phone available for incoming calls. However, these can cost over $6.00 a minute from Australia!! Does anyone have a normal number instead of this rip-off number?

It is 0870-147-6820

I find the whole philosophy of these 0845 and 0870 numbers to be disgraceful, and entirely indicative of the 'rip-off' culture that pervades so much of Britain. Ever looked at American business? Virtually EVERY business and Government Department has a 1-800 number. That's free. Nixt. Nothing. Long as you like.....

God help Britain!  :-/

~ Thread title edited by Dave

wrote on Jan 26^th, 2005 at 5:44pm:

God help Britain!  :-/

I thought that S/He was helping the USA?

But the US idea is that they want callers to call. Here it still seems that all would be well if it were not for the callers calling.

wrote on Jan 26^th, 2005 at 5:44pm:

My son is studying as an overseas student at LSE, and has a 0870 phone available for incoming calls. However, these can cost over $6.00 a minute from Australia!! Does anyone have a normal number instead of this rip-off number? It is 0870-147-6820 I find the whole philosophy of these 0845 and 0870 numbers to be disgraceful, and entirely indicative of the 'rip-off' culture that pervades so much of Britain. Ever looked at American business? Virtually EVERY business and Government Department has a 1-800 number. That's free. Nixt. Nothing. Long as you like..... God help Britain!  :-/

The LSE's website is http://www.lse.ac.uk/ and, at the bottom right of their homepage, is this:


Quote:

LSE Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE England UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7405 7686

Any help?

Thanks for the information - it certainly will be worth trying.  :-*

Further to my earlier post, I just checked a few utility accounts. Gas, electricty, phone, cable, cell phone, auto insurance, house insurance, bank, mortgage - every last one of them has a 1-800- number. Yep - looks like they really want me to call them.....

I read with rising anger and disbelief the disgraceful replies from DVLA to one of this site's contributors. It beggars belief that a public servant could get away with such a catalog of lies and deception! And this from someone who's salary you pay from your taxes! What good are the myriad 'cheap' calling plans that are increasingly on offer to UK telephone subscribers when just about every 'business' call is outside the plan, and is an expensive and unbudgeted extra?

Hi Mike.

Sadly, I have to agree with you that it is becoming more like Rip-off Britain.

As a short-term measure, I can only suggest that it may be cheaper for your son to call you. It is worth him checking the calling rate from his phone in his room.

You've probably seen other institutions on this site which have similar systems. In some cases we have discovered the geographical prefix under the 0870.

Looking at Numbers administered by Ofcom, the UK regulator, we see that 0870 147 is operated by Torch Communications (see 'Special services 08').

The list (see 'Geographic numbers: Code blocks 2000 00 to...') with 020 (London) numbers on shows that Torch have the following prefixes. The dates are given by Ofcom as when they were last changed:

Prefix		Last changed
020 1174		03/2002
020 7160		07/2003
020 7788		05/1999
020 8181		06/2001

I presume that the above number is a direct dial to your son's room. If this is the case, I suggest you '****' the last 4 digits. If not, is it a number which you dial and then dial the extension you require? In this case, we may find the needle in the haystack before we find the number we're after!

If it is a direct number, I suggest you take the last 4 digits of the 0870 and put them onto the geographical prefixes I have given above.

The first one may not work as it is 'national dialing only'. That is, the number begins 1 and must be dialed with the 020 dialing code, even from within that area code. BT and other operators seem to block these numbers, as they are intended for using with non-geographical numbers.

In some cases, these systems use VoIP (voice over IP), which routes the calls over the internet. These lines will probably not have an alternative to the 0870.