There has been correspondence recently about UK government depts using 0870 numbers after disasters - a practice they have now stopped, I believe.

But the misinformation continues with this week's edition and what constitutes a 'local' call.

I can't find my copy but would any of you erudite gentlepersons who still have one consider it worth a response to this esteemed organ in order to put them straight?

Hi, I got my copy yesterday and one thing that jumped out at me was the subscription advert.

0870 750 1714 in big numbers but slightly smaller it had below it "or 01795 414 871 +44 (0)1795 414871 overseas"

Interesting to see them put both numbers there.

Just found the letter defending the BBC from a JAMES DIXON.

"Sir
You published a letter in issue 1138 in which a reader criticised the BBC for using 0845 and 0870 prefixed telphone 'hotlines' following the terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. Your readers should be aware that 0845 numbers (about 3p/min - i.e. local rate) and 0870 numbers (about 7p/min - i.e. national rate) are not the same as 0898 numbers (typically £1+/min). The letter suggested that the BBC was trying to make scandalous profits from the disaster. Quite unfair.
Yours
JAMES DIXON
Reading"

Quoted word for word. I think saynoto0870 should draw up a response to send to that letter. I meen for example 0844's which cost more to call then an 0871 from a payphone or even saying that 0870 vary in cost depending on where the caller is calling from and that the terms local/national rate were abolished when BT moved everyone over to BT together 1.

God I bet that James Dixon is some high up manager for the beeb

Yep - that's the one.

My point is that he is perpetuating the myth of the true cost of local & national calls.

I would suggest a reply pointing out that most people pay considerably less than those figures for geographic number calls.

I would reply myself but I do not have the facts at my fingertips. Also I have been told off by a Superior Member about my attitude so... ;D

Anyone up for it?

Hi Farci,

May I suggest that you have an equal right, as a consumer who is being ripped off by the NGN scam, to complain as anyone else.

Please don't take such offence at the fact that a Superior Member on this forum responded rather vigorously to your post "Grow up guys ....", since I am sure if you really think about it that perhaps was not a very tactful or sensible thing to post?

You have equal rights to anyone else in learning and responding to this scam, but you ought to accept that there is some truth in the concept that those who have been involved in fighting this for some long while are likely to have slightly more knowledge of the details than you do yet?

I personally am glad to see that you are also annoyed by the deceipt of this scam and hope that you continue to participate in this forum and in fighting the scam. Thanks for your contributions so far.

Thank you, Dorf.

I have no argument with the fact that I am a 'bit deficient in the knowledge dept' as Peter Cook might have said so that's why I would like to hand over the banner on this one to somebody with the background to answer the Private Eye correspondent.

Meanwhile, I will continue to patrol NGN-land with renewed vigour, righting wrongs and... (that's enough, Ed) ::)

I am afriad I cant write a letter to private eye, well not in my name anyway due to other 'comitments'.

Im already err umm 'giving' them documents!

wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2005 at 3:06pm:

I am afriad I cant write a letter to private eye, well not in my name anyway due to other 'comitments'. Im already err umm 'giving' them documents!

Is that because it is "politically incorrect" for members of a certain political party to contribute to Private Eye? ;)

There seem to be no such stipulations related to the political party that I am involved in. :)

wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2005 at 12:56am:

Just found the letter defending the BBC from a JAMES DIXON. "Sir You published a letter in issue 1138 in which a reader criticised the BBC for using 0845 and 0870 prefixed telphone 'hotlines' following the terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. Your readers should be aware that 0845 numbers (about 3p/min - i.e. local rate) and 0870 numbers (about 7p/min - i.e. national rate) are not the same as 0898 numbers (typically £1+/min). The letter suggested that the BBC was trying to make scandalous profits from the disaster. Quite unfair. Yours JAMES DIXON Reading"

0898 numbers?

I never get charged anything for dialling 0898 numbers - I just get the unobtainable tone (and have done for a number of years now).

wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2005 at 4:56pm:

0898 numbers? I never get charged anything for dialling 0898 numbers - I just get the unobtainable tone (and have done for a number of years now).

The BBC's misleading propaganda defending its use of 0870 numbers appears not to have been rewritten for several years.  I believe these 0898 numbers now all commence 09.

OK - would somebody give me either a draft or the facts about average geographic UK rates and I'll willingly stick my head above the parapet?

I'm only an enraged user for whom the biggest part of my small business phone bill is NGN despite the fact that almost all my other calls are to Euroepan countries during the working week.

Thank you

wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2005 at 9:25am:

OK - would somebody give me either a draft or the facts about average geographic UK rates and I'll willingly stick my head above the parapet?

You mean the average price for calls starting 01 and 02 as opposed to 084/7?

On a normal home BT phone line one can make a call to a geographic number starting 01 or 02 for as little as 2p with http://www.call18866.co.uk.  The call then still costs 2p even if your call lasts 4 hours.

Of course you can currently call uk 01 and 02 numbers for nothing at all with http://www.voipbuster.co.uk and http://www.voipcheap.co.uk  But then you have to be prepared to use a computer to make your call and buy a voip headset or handset.

The BT deal for geographic numbers is 3p per minute weekday daytime and 5.5p for the first hour in the evenings and at the weekends.  Other providers like TalkTalk and Onetel charge slightly less than BT for geographic numbers.  But then you can also get 24/7 inclusive calling plans to geographic numbers for under £10 per month.  TalkTalk currently give you the first 3 months of their all inclusive plan free.  Their advertising wrongly describes this as all uk "landline" calls being free for 3 months.

0870 calls cost 7.5p per minute weekday daytime with BT and almost no one seems able to undercut them as they charge their competitors more for terminating these calls.  You can call 0870 for 5p per minute though with www.dialaround.co.uk on their 0844 access number.  Off peak no one is able to undercut the BT 0870 rate of 4p per minute in the evening and 1.5p per minute at the weekend.  0845 cost 3p per minute weekday daytime with BT and 4p per minute with other people like TalkTalk.  Off peak the BT 0845 rate is 1p per minute or 60p per hour.

Then there are BT phone boxes where a 15 minute call to an 01 or 02 number costs 30p but a 15 minute call to 0845 and 0870 costs £1.75 at all times.  A 15 minute call to an 0844 or 0871 number costs £2.05 for 15 minutes from a BT Phonebox.

And what about mobile phones.  Vodafone, Orange and Three exclude 0870 from their bundled minutes and charge a premium rate of up to 50p per minute depending on the plan you are on.

There are so many outrageous differences between non geographic and geographic numbers pricing wise that it  positively makes my blood boil to hear most of the morons who work in these call centres brazenly still telling customers that calls cost just the BT local or national rate.

I think there's some more information in Dave's locked threads at the top of this section of the discussion forum.

Thanks, NGM.

I'll e-mail Private Eye today but it might have more impact if more than one person wrote their own version.

Always remember, P Eye is the house magazine for the lazy journalist.....

wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2005 at 9:56am:

Always remember, P Eye is the house magazine for the lazy journalist.....

I suppose you could also try to get in the fact that while BT proposed a simple reform on all this to Ofcom, where 0845 and 0870 would then cost the same as ordinary 01 and 02 calls, that Ofcom are instead intent on some harebrained scheme where 0845 calls will soon cost more than many 0870 calls and where the cost of an 0870 call will vary depending on whether or not there is a price announcement when you dial.

I think Private Eye quite like letter issues that run and run from one edition to the next.  But I'm not sure how effective Private Eye is in achieving our main goal as not very many people read it (I mean even I don't any more).  What we need is headline coverage in The Sun and/or The Daily Mirror.

Not many ordinary people read P Eye, except conspiracy theorists like me AND journalists (briadcast & print)looking for ideas - hence my suggestion.

I wrote today:

James Dixon (last Eye) should try paying his own phone bill sometime – obviously he has done so for a long time as the premium number ‘0898’ disappeared sometime last century.

He is a little economic with the ‘verité’. 0870/0845 is a scam since the notional local/national rates he quotes are way above what most people actually pay when calling normal numbers beginning with 01/02.

When you can make a four-hour call to normal 01/02 UK numbers for 2p and most European countries for 2-3p/min the 0870/0845 rip-off is nothing short of a scandal in which Ofcom and the  BBC seem complicit.

Want the truth? - check-out www.saynoto0870.com

James Dixon (last Eye) should try paying his own phone bill sometime – obviously he has done so for a long time as the premium number ‘0898’ disappeared sometime last century.


Err "he has done" or did you send "he hasnt done"????


wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2005 at 4:03pm:

Is that because it is "politically incorrect" for members of a certain political party to contribute to Private Eye? ;) There seem to be no such stipulations related to the political party that I am involved in. :)

Well that would be telling wouldnt it!! I meen I already *cough* let them borrow 'grey' pages *cough*

I know, I know: CORRECTION ALREADY SENT TO P EYE

CORRECTION

James Dixon (last Eye) should try paying his own phone bill sometime – obviously he has not done so for a long time as the premium number ‘0898’ disappeared sometime last century.

He is a little economic with the ‘verité’. 0870/0845 is a scam since the notional local/national rates he quotes are way above what most people actually pay when calling normal numbers beginning with 01/02.

When you can make a four-hour call to normal 01/02 UK numbers for 2p and most European countries for 2-3p/min the 0870/0845 rip-off is nothing short of a scandal in which Ofcom and the  BBC seem complicit.

Want the truth? - check-out www.saynoto0870.com

When I started this subject in a previous thread no one replied!

wrote on Aug 25^th, 2005 at 11:37am:

When I started this subject in a previous thread no one replied!

How long ago was that?

There is a lot more activity here at present following publicity for this website in various newspaper articles and radio and tv programs.

Its also a matter of luck of the draw.  If no one spots your thread before it drops off Page 1 it may not get other people replying and then dragged in by getting emails telling them the thread has had further responses to their own posts.

If no one initially responds you could always make a second post to your thread to try to keep it on the front page for a while.

Not sure that Private Eye is really too relevant on this.  The cat is already well and truly out of the bag on the 084/7 story but what we need is heavy weight condemnation of this scam in the The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Mail - all pointing to the existence of this website so as to find alternative geogrpahic numbers.

Unfortunately because many of these papers run such numbers 084/7 themselves they seem very reluctant to give the matter the publicity we would all like.  They attacked the Met Police bombings 0870 number but don't seem prepared to broaden the attack.

I should know as I am regularly copying in journalists on several national newspapers who have previously published something on the issue.  But getting them to publish any more seems very difficult indeed.

wrote on Aug 25^th, 2005 at 11:37am:

When I started this subject in a previous thread no one replied!

Hmmm,

Your other post in the thread that you started did in fact get two replies:-

http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1124357366;start=0#

But then it must have fallen off the front page and so this new thread got started as well.

Congrats on getting the letter published in the latest eye.

wrote on Sep 1^st, 2005 at 11:28pm:

Congrats on getting the letter published in the latest eye.

Thanks. I just ordered my Batman cape this morning  ;D - if anyone has journo contacts it might be worth pointing out the correspondence to them as a story idea...

Whoah there panel.....

Must leap to the defence of Private Eye here. (Subscriber for many years).

In common with most magazines they sub-contract subscription services. I had a very productive conversation with them commencing in September 2002 when I noted 0870 on my renewal form. It was the sub contractor who started using 0870.

When I emailed and complained I got this reply from the sub-contractor
+++++
Thank you for your e-mail.

Be assured I have passed this to the relevant people.

You can contact us 01795 414500 or I can take the order over e-mail. Alternatively you can fax your order on 01795 414 555.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.

++++

Then when the number was still there in August 2003 I contacted Private Eye who replied

++++

You are correct that we moved our subscription management to Galleon last
year and began to use 0870 numbers

My understanding is that all calls to Galleon on the 0870 number are
charged at the standard national rate. However I have contacted the MD
at Galleon today to ask for her confirmation that this is the case.
Galleon use 0870 numbers as it allows them to use a system called
"Servicecall" which generates repoorts used by Private Eye to monitor
their level of call centre performance

I will contact you as soon as possible to confirm the position.
++++

Had further dialogue and then in 2004 they said
+++++

We did spend some time looking into this with Galleon our subscription
fulfillment house. The bottom line is that the use if these numbers was
part of our contract with them which we signed up to without giving the
issue enough thought. We are also rather attracted by the idea that the
number is portable if we ever choose to leave them

Its something that we will think through more carefully when our
arrangement come up for renewal.
+++++

I found them full and frank and very interested in what 0870 really meant.

Now in 2005 the geographical is shown (albeit a bit smaller but still there and pretty prominent.)

So far they are the only company I deal with who have taken remedial steps in this way.

I reckon this is a good result and perhaps we should be applauding them

RBJ