O2 have launched an Intl Help Line but yes you guessed it they are using an 0870 number
08705 214000 which you cant always reach from overseas!!!

See http://www.o2.co.uk/help/usefulnumbers?ref=quicklink_fun

Cuts down their requirement for call centre staff then.

But aren't 02 the company which generally doesn't charge their own mobile customers extra for calling 084/7?  You would have thought they of all people would have realised that using an 0870 was inappropriate. :o

If the number had been chosen by Vodafone, the king of mobile phone call cons (see its disgraceful submission to Ofcom on NTS Way Forward) then we would have known that there was no mistake. ;)

I notice they have even started using 0871 numbers for sales. See http://www.o2.co.uk/productsservices/tariffs/paymonthly_anytime/0,,113,00.html

O2 ar highway robbers!  I am too lazy to switch to a better provider.  I am a Pay and Go dolly and have been told that Vodafone are a better deal.

Bety Boop

bettyboop wrote on Jan 7^th, 2006 at 8:09pm:

O2 ar highway robbers!  I am too lazy to switch to a better provider.  I am a Pay and Go dolly and have been told that Vodafone are a better deal. Bety Boop

Vodafone are better in the respect that they now have a deal called Stop the Clock off peak (Mon to Fri evenings and all weekend) where you pay for the first 3 minutes of a call (landlines and any mobile but not of cours 080, 084 or 087) and get the next 57 minutes free.  Also because they now have Vodafone Passport which you can register for free and where if you are on holiday you only pay 75p for the forwarding cost of any incoming call no matter how long it lasts.

On the other hand Vodafone are actually an utter disgrace on Pay as You Go in terms of failing to have any mechanism to automatically top up your credit when it falls below a certain level (very inconvenient when you are abroad and if you are in a remote uk area and run out of credit) and because there is no way to check the value of calls you have made if you feel your account balance has fallen drastically for no good reason.  Compare this with Fresh from the Carphone Warehouse which operate true Postpay (a system widely operated in other European countries) where you have no  monthly line rental but do receive a statement of the amount of calls made that month and for £1 a month extra can get a fully itemised bill.  More importantly the value of calls made is simply debited monthly from your credit card so there is no tedious account balance to have to keep topped up and that may run out.

The refusal of Vodafone to provide even online billing for Pay as You Go free strikes me as a deliberate attempt on their part to hide from customers the real costs of 080, 084 and 087 calls.  And as we know from Vodafone's submission on NTS Way Forward the thought of ending their current opportunity to scam customers on 080, 084 and 087 NTS calls leaves Vodafone howling in utter fury.

The fact that almost all prepaid services don't provide online billing implies to me that it is a service with pared down costs and resources - and why would it be necessary when the balance is available via the phone?

Vodafone do allow you to top up abroad; you can use the top-up vouchers of affiliated networks.

Does 202 not work from abroad? - I've never tried. I'm sure I've received texts at some borders advising about calling home, but can't remember what the O2 ones said.

andy9 wrote on Jan 8^th, 2006 at 1:39am:

The fact that almost all prepaid services don't provide online billing implies to me that it is a service with pared down costs and resources - and why would it be necessary when the balance is available via the phone?

The refusal to provide any form of ability to review call cost history is in my opinion done (a) to deliberately hide from PrePay callers the exorbitant 084 and 087 call costs applied in the main and most excessively to PrePay callers on most uk networks and (b) so as to make PrePay customers feel that they are using an inferior service to encourage them to upgrade to contract.  In other EU countries like Spain PostPay (where there is no contract but your credit card is docced each month for the calls you have made without all the nonsense with the vouchers and the manual topups) is extremely popular but not in ripoff uk where the cartel of the big 4 players refuse to offer it and only Fresh from CPW provides this service.

If Ofcom weren't as weak as water when it comes to stopping all telecoms scams they would have made it compulsory for all online networks to provide individual call cost info for PrePay via Online statement, by phone touch tone menu (at least for the last 10 calls) and by itemised paper bill (the last only in return for a monthly charge such as 50p or £1 to cover paper, envelope and post cost).  Why would you need these things andy9?  Why to work out why your call balance might have gone down £20 suddenly contrary to your expectations, especially if you were roaming in another country and taking incoming calls.

Do you come across any supermarkets or car servicing centres in the UK that don't give you a fully itemised bill andy9?  No of course not because it is illegal not to provide fully itemised bills for these services.  I would have thought that surely you of all people would have realised that the whole reason that most uk networks charge far more excessively for 084/7 on PrePay is precisely because they know the customer will never see an actual bill with the cost of that call on it.  As an opponent of 084/7 scams andy9 I don't see how you can be in favour of customers not being made easily aware of the actual costs of these calls on PrePay mobiles?  If customers had easy access to individual call cost they would soon become aware.

wrote on Jan 7^th, 2006 at 10:52pm:

On the other hand Vodafone are actually an utter disgrace on Pay as You Go in terms of failing to have any mechanism to automatically top up your credit when it falls below a certain level (very inconvenient when you are abroad and if you are in a remote uk area and run out of credit) and because there is no way to check the value of calls you have made if you feel your account balance has fallen drastically for no good reason.  Compare this with Fresh from the Carphone Warehouse which operate true Postpay (a system widely operated in other European countries) where you have no  monthly line rental but do receive a statement of the amount of calls made that month and for £1 a month extra can get a fully itemised bill.  More importantly the value of calls made is simply debited monthly from your credit card so there is no tedious account balance to have to keep topped up and that may run out.

I much prefer to receive a bill for such services and don't see why I should have to 'top up' in advance. Even if this were one which is purely online, it would cost my provider less than sending a hardcopy through the post.


andy9 wrote on Jan 8^th, 2006 at 1:39am:

The fact that almost all prepaid services don't provide online billing implies to me that it is a service with pared down costs and resources - and why would it be necessary when the balance is available via the phone?

PAYG providers should be forced to provide such services. That 'cost saving' is just another reason why reverse-charged premium rate SMS scams go unnoticed, and when the subscriber does suspect something, there is no way of telling for certain how much these theives have taken. It could be £1, £10, £20 or more, who knows. The one thing for sure is that that money cannot be used to pay (proper) bills, put food on the table, save up etc. It has been taken without consent and the billing company (the mobile operator) says they can't do anything about it!

So ultimately, that 'cost saving' is only rewarding the networks by providing more traffic that they can make a profit on. It does not benefit the public one iota.

Dave wrote on Jan 8^th, 2006 at 8:53pm:

So ultimately, that 'cost saving' is only rewarding the networks by providing more traffic that they can make a profit on. It does not benefit the public one iota.

There is in any event no cost saving to the mobile phone companies in not offering an online call history to Pay As You Go customers since the online billing interface is already made available to Pay Monthly line rental customers and the technology involved to display Pay As You Go charges is also basically identical.

The only cost of offering online billing is the lost opportunity to scam customers who by definition generally make calls on their mobiles less often so are far less likely to be aware that certain types of call are even more horrendously expensive on a mobile than on  a landline.

I callenged Vodafone on their lack of an online billing facilities in a series of emails to their CEO's department and basically all their responses were utter baloney and flannel.  In practice there was no explanation other than that by PAYG customers not being aware of the cost of individual calls they were more likely to spend more than if they had access to such accurate call cost history. But as the telecoms regulator is as weak as water and in dereliction of all their delegate OFT and Competition Commission duties basically the mobile phone companies are allowed to continue with the scam.  Ofcom's philosophy seems to be that if the scam is too complicated for the average consumer to be aware of then it can be allowed to continue totally unhindered.

I didn't say I was a supporter of the policy - but pointing to possible reasoning

Do they have 0870 scams in other countries? How many languages should the online billing be presented in? Polish, Slovakian, Lithuanian - I'll manage without thanks.

I still don't think that the policy is aiming to hide call charges, but run a simplified service - the car servicing analogy is too complicated - think of car parking; yes it would be more efficient if post-paid just before exit, but many still have prepay with its drawbacks

O2 sends the credit balance automatically after each call, in my limited experience so far.

O2 may well send the balance after each call.  Vodafone does not.  In fact it does nothing whatsoever to let you know what your call charges have been.  It doesn't even state its 084/7 PAYG charges anywhere on its website and I even have an erroneous letter from a customer service executive there saying the charges are the same as for 01/02 calls.

Your car parking pay and display analogy doesn't follow as the charges you have to pay are quite clearly stated in advance on the sign by the machine and are also obvious from the amount tof time you get from the money you put in.  Although I would agree that it is a scam that you can receive the same £60 fine for overstaying a few minutes in one of these car parks as you would get for parking on a yellow line.  The overstay fee should be proportionate to the car park charges but certainly no more than £10.  Of course if you overstay more than 1 hour then levying the full £60 fine probably is fair.  When GPS road tolling technology comes along all car parks and meters will then be able to be pay on exit.