I wish that I had heard about your site sooner. My husband recently died here in Spain and as I have an 'alternative' phone company I can call any UK numbers. I have called the Inland Revenue, National Savings, Capita Hartshead on numerous occasions over the past month, all using either 0870 or 0845 numbers. My total bill for 2004 using my service was 91 euros. My bill for January 2005 was 94 euros! Please find some way to warn other overseas residents if you can. I am doing my best to spread the word to others from this end.

Sorry to hear of your loss, ex-pat.

If you're now using this site to find geographical alternatives to the rip-off UK 0845 and 0870 numbers, I hope you're also using a cheap route back to the UK.

The cheapest I've heard of is http://www.dialabroad.co.uk/spain/ where, according to THIS THREAD in another forum, calls to the UK by dialling 902-902-952 before the normal international number (i.e. 00 44 etc) will cost 8.33c connection and then 6.73c per minute 0800-2000 and 4.03c per minute 2000-0800.

Hope that helps (if you know of cheaper, please post again giving details - for my sister-in-law's benefit).