A staff member from YourCalls.net (going by the forum name macminiuser) posted this in the Geographical Request section here.  To save the thread going off-topic, I've created another thread for anyone wishing to discuss or has queries regarding this.

The post from macminiuser as mentioned in Geographical Requestion section:-


Quote:

Hi guys - I work for Yourcalls.net.  I thought you might be interested to know that the geographic number for Yourcalls.net is 01903 703411. Thanks for the heads up on the brackets around the 0845 number on the contact us page, Dave - I'll get that fixed ASAP by our webby people.  That was actually my fault, as I proof read that particular copy from our copywriters, so my bad for not spotting that one. Why do Yourcalls.net have an 0845 number you ask?  Two reasons: 1.  At £4.99 for Anytime UK calls, our prices/margins are so low, we can't afford to give our customers an 0800 number, but we're not so greedy as to have an 0870. 2.  It's for contingency - if, for instance, someone flew a light aircraft into Premium House, we could relocate the next day and repoint the non-geo number to our new premises without having to inform all existing/prospective customers of the new geographic number, and without having to reprint all our stationery etc.  Yes, we could always do an admin divert or whatever, but again there are costs associated with that. If for any reason someone does fly a light aircraft into our building and we have to relocate, rest assured I'll post the new geographic number here for you guys! If anyone has any other Yourcalls.net related enquiries, please don't hesitate to ask; I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Going by your website, I noticed you only charge £4.99 for all-inclusive geographical calls.

Do you take customers who choose not to take your linerental with you (ie CPS customers)?

If you do take CPS customers then I'm sure you would get a great deal of more customers as many forum readers here and at MSE like to keep their linerental with BT as this ensures we can free Caller Display, etc.

SkyTalk costs £5 and is available for CPS customers only but unfortunately you do have to be a Sky subscriber.

The next cheapest all-inclusive is from a company called Euphony who charge £7.25 and is also available via CPS.

Surely the cheapest 24/7 geographical  call supplier at the moment is Euphony EUTalk + which averages out at £4.33p a month over 18 months. It also includes inclusive calls to 28 intl destinations.(Ok you do need to take out an 18 month contract).

bbb_uk wrote on Oct 27^th, 2006 at 1:36pm:

Do you take customers who choose not to take your linerental with you (ie CPS customers)?

Alas not at the moment.  However, we don't limit the use of the line in any way if you do 'transfer' it to us.  You can still use 1899, 18186, 18866, access numbers like Telediscount/Dialwise etc, broadband is unaffected etc.  Technically, you could CPS your calls elsewhere if you really wanted to - there's nothing to stop you from doing so (although we ask you not to in the terms and conditions, and we're not sure why you'd want to - we're pretty cheap!)

Furthermore, there's no contract, so if for any reason you want to go back to BT - that's OK with us.  We'll just be sorry to see you go.


bbb_uk wrote on Oct 27^th, 2006 at 1:36pm:

If you do take CPS customers then I'm sure you would get a great deal of more customers as many forum readers here and at MSE like to keep their linerental with BT as this ensures we can free Caller Display, etc.

I don't doubt that.  I'm sure in time CPS will be something we'll look at offering.  For now, though, it's all about the single-bill solution for the time being.

If Caller Display is important to you, depending on how much you use the phone you're probably best off sticking with BT.

Answer 1571 is still free with us, and regular call barring (i.e. not activated through the handset) to international, premium, mobile, local, national or any combination thereof is also free.  If you want the call barring you can control on-the-fly from your phone it costs £1.50 a month, not £9.99 as quoted by homephonechoices.co.uk; although that is our fault not theirs!)

acezing wrote on Oct 27^th, 2006 at 5:38pm:

Surely the cheapest 24/7 geographical  call supplier at the moment is Euphony EUTalk + which averages out at £4.33p a month over 18 months. It also includes inclusive calls to 28 intl destinations.(Ok you do need to take out an 18 month contract).

wow - that is pretty cheap... looks like a good deal, but like you say, the 18 month contract is a bit of a grim out.  They spank us on calls to Mobiles, as well - however, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a staunch 18185 man for calls to mobiles.  I wish them all the best.

the whole inclusive calls to 28 destinations thing gets on my nerves, though - who actually calls 28 international destinations on a regular basis?  we thought about this and found most people who regularly call internationally out of our 40,000-strong customer base, call a specific country - maybe because they've got family back home or kids who have emigrated - who knows.  anyway, we made a feature called the Golden Destination to cater to this kind of person which allows you to pick 1 destination and get Tier-1 calls at the cheapest direct-from-landline rate (i.e. no prefixes, access numbers, calling cards etc.) to that one destination, be it international or UK mobile.  For example:

South Africa
Euphony: 50p peak
Yourcalls.net: 3.87p peak

By all means use Dialwise or Telediscount or calling cards or Skype or whatever - but when you need to have an important conversation and can't be dealing with dropped calls and echoey scratchy lines, you won't have to sell your granny to dial direct from your Yourcalls.net line - that's where we're coming from.

Again, I appreciate that people calling one or more of those particular 28 destinations who aren't allergic to 18 month contracts will do well with Euphony.  We're not going to suit all of the people all of the time, but we're good value for money in the right circumstances, and we're nice to deal with.  (not that Euphony aren't - I'm sure they're lovely.)

oh yeah, you now know from our geographic number that our customer service centre is based in the UK (and more importantly, in-house; we don't pay a THIRD-PARTY call centre, of which there are many, to deal with OUR customers), which is important to some people.

I am not so sure that 18 month contract is that bad,lots of people sign up for them on mobi,s these days. At least you know you have a fixed cost of less then a £1 a week for next 18 month for your calls. :) Which is not bad if you make quite a few georaphical calls and call one or two of the countries they cover.Even if you dont call overseas its still a good deal.

If you are calling  one of the countries that are not included in their plan as they are a cps service you can override your calls via BT and get good rates using gateway numbers Eg South Africa from 2p. Or use the likes of 18185.

I had cause to Euphony last week,they have their own UK Call Centre based in Basingstoke,and they were also helpful.  Plus they dont use a ngn  ;)

I notice your people charge £9.99p a month for Call Barring and £ 9.99p  for Ring Back this is very high is
it not.?  https://www.yourcalls.net/Features/YourCallPlan.aspx

Do Your Calls have a min call charge if so how much,do they bill by minute or second, how long is their peak rate period.What are their charges for calling 0845/0870 numbers,do they charge the same as BT for calls to 0844/0871.

acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:19am:

I am not so sure that 18 month contract is that bad,lots of people sign up for them on mobi,s these days. At least you know you have a fixed cost of less then a £1 a week for next 18 month for your calls. :) Which is not bad if you make quite a few georaphical calls and call one or two of the countries they cover.Even if you dont call overseas its still a good deal.

The 18month contract may not be to everyone's liking although it does mean a really cheap all-inclusive calls with some international destinations included as free.  It is good value regardless but I personally don't like 18month contracts as you don't know what the market is going to be like a couple of months down the line.  I agree many people are signing up for them on mobile contracts but thats because in most cases its unavoidable because some phones (due to how expensive they really are) only come with 18month contracts so the networks obviously try and claim back more money from you over the longer period.  It is unusual to have an 18month CPS contract though.  For example, we're on Primus all-inclusive plan costing £3.49 per month (after rebate) due to an offer that was going at the time hence why I personally wouldn't sign up to 18month contract in case this or a similar deal came along.  We very rarely make international calls so that isn't a big deal really.


acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:19am:

I notice your people charge £9.99p a month for Call Barring and £ 9.99p  for Ring Back this is very high is it not.?  https://www.yourcalls.net/Features/YourCallPlan.aspx

Funny you should mention that, macminiuser has already said they charge £1.50 in reply #3 above (last paragraph).  Although they should really change that image as it does give the impression they are the most expensive provider for those wishing to block calls  ;)

It's just a shame Yourcalls.net don't offer that inclusive plan via CPS as that would make them the current cheapest (without being subject to an minimum term) and I do think they would get many, many more customers especially once it is mentioned on MSE.

Prices might go up ,after all we have seen recent increases by BT,TT,1899, and Cable.So approx 99p a week for 18 months might be a winner  in the long term,providing of course you make enough calls to justify going on it. Or if you cant be bothered to use access numbers,get a dialer,or want decent line quality(unlike 18185 these days).

I see  macminiuser mentions call barring , but how about Ring Back at £9.99p a month.How can that price be justified?

Does the Your Calls offer have a min term ?

acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:19am:

Plus they dont use a ngn  ;)

Ouch!  Good for them.


acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:19am:

I notice your people charge £9.99p a month for Call Barring and £ 9.99p  for Ring Back this is very high is it not.?  https://www.yourcalls.net/Features/YourCallPlan.aspx

Sorry, Ring Back is also £1.50 per month - that damn screenshot has caused me no end of grief.  I'll get it fixed ASAP.


acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:19am:

Do Your Calls have a min call charge if so how much,do they bill by minute or second, how long is their peak rate period.What are their charges for calling 0845/0870 numbers,do they charge the same as BT for calls to 0844/0871.

Minimum call charge is 5p for chargeable calls including VAT.  Obviously free inclusive calls do not have a minimum call charge.
Billing is per second.

Peak Rate is 8am-6pm
Off-Peak Rate is 6pm-8am
Weekend Rate is Midnight Friday-Midnight Sunday

All calls between Yourcalls.net customers are free inclusive at any time.
All weekend UK geographic calls are free inclusive on any tariff, up to 60 minutes per call, after which you are charged from the 61st minute onwards (not the whole call)
Our Leisure Saver Tariff at £1.99 per month includes Evening UK Calls capped at 5p up to 60 minutes per call, after which you are charged from the 61st minute onwards (not the whole call)

0845 is a wallet-bursting 5p per minute peak, 3p per minute off peak
0870 is a coronary-inducing 10p per minute peak, 5p per minute off peak
The price of calls to 0844/0871 varies greatly from number to number (as a reader of SayNoTo0870 you will know this already) but should be the same price as advertised by whoever owns that number.

However, we recommend you use Call18185.co.uk to call 0870 numbers for 4p per minute peak and 2p per minute off peak, and you can use Dialaround.co.uk by dialling 0844 462 34 34 before the 0845 number you wish to call and call for 2p per minute peak.

I think that covers everything...

... oops - missed these ones:


acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 3:53am:

Does the Your Calls offer have a min term ?

No minimum term - you can leave at any time.  No questions asked.  Well, actually, we might go, "Oh." before pulling a sad face, then asking, "Why are you leaving?  That makes me a sad panda."

If that doesn't convince you to stay, you're free to go.


acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 3:53am:

Prices might go up ,after all we have seen recent increases by BT,TT,1899, and Cable.  So approx 99p a week for 18 months might be a winner  in the long term,providing of course you make enough calls to justify going on it. Or if you cant be bothered to use access numbers,get a dialer,or want decent line quality(unlike 18185 these days).

Even having an 18 month contract with Euphony wouldn't protect you from price increases if, for instance, the overall cost of providing telecommunications services went up, due to Clause 4.2 of their Terms and Conditions (http://www.euphony.co.uk/downloads/tandc.pdf):

"4.2 We reserve the right to increase or decrease our fixed charges and/or introduce new fixed charges from time to time. If we increase any of our fixed charges or introduce new fixed charges, we will give you reasonable prior written notice..."

Yourcalls.net have a similar clause:

"... We may change our prices (upwards as well as downwards) but will endeavour to inform you at least 14 days in advance of any change we are making..."

Any telecoms company will reserve the right to alter their prices, because if the wholesale price of calls doubled overnight (or even went up by 10% the margins in this business are so low), as a service provider we'd have two options -

1.  Review our prices accordingly, or
2.  Go out of business.

But given we have no notice period, we'd be very foolish if we put our prices up; all our customers would leave!  We have no intention of playing the cheeky "BT/TT/1899 call connection charge" game with our customers.

macminiuser thanks for your helpful detailed reply.

acezing wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 11:37am:

macminiuser thanks for your helpful detailed reply.

You're welcome, my friend  :)  thanks for the questions and the heads up on that dodgy screenshot with the incorrect pricing!

bbb_uk wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006 at 2:01am:

It's just a shame Yourcalls.net don't offer that inclusive plan via CPS as that would make them the current cheapest (without being subject to an minimum term) and I do think they would get many, many more customers especially once it is mentioned on MSE.

It sure is - leave it with me, I'll see what I can do.   :)

Hi I am a new customer to Your Calls and I would like to say I am pretty impressed so far with the service I have received! The real test for companies like this is when the customer has a major fault on the line and as I was nolonger with BT I was worried about how long it would take to fix?!

We had a vandal scale up our BT pole and he stole 30 foot of copper wires to sell on so we were told by the Police! This guy caused major damage to the phone lines. I was only cut off for four days and Your Calls were pretty good at keeping me up to date. My only negative commet so far is I asked them to direct my calls to a mobile whilst the line was being fixed and I was told they could divert them for a charge!! We all know BT do this free of charge. But hey can't have cheap calls and a free service can we x

thanks for your kind words, ruthhart.

thought you guys might like an update, if you haven't been following the thread on MSE:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=413320


Quote:

well... there's good news and there's bad news.  the good news is the new sign-up process has been deployed: https://www.yourcalls.net:443/Features/SignUp.aspx It looks lovely, and is much more helpful than the old application form... however, one of the directors at the last minute decided they were going to pull the plug on the CPS option - you can see on the first section of the signup page where there is clearly meant to be more than one option - it's all there, ready to go but the guy in charge made the decision to switch it off.  (from what I understand, it could be switched on again relatively easily - all the infrastructure is there and has been tested). So, basically I lose.  Sorry everyone, but I give up - I've pushed as hard as I can at this end. If you're in the market for a no-contract CPS £4.99 a month anytime UK calls package, send an email for the attention of the decision maker, Ben Giddings: customer.services@yourcalls.net telling him you want the Anytime product but without the line rental. Clearly the powers that be aren't listening to me, but I'm sure with your persuasion, we can get him to turn it back on.

your welcome macminiuser!

we are all too quick to moan but never to say well done!!

I have stayed with Your Calls.net and still say the service is 100% my phone bill has reduced by over £20 a month. So I am very happy.

I can only say to anyone considering Your Calls give it a go!!!!! You won't be disapointed

Does anyone have any information on call charges, connection fee's, charges for calling features, any minimum term for moving linerental and whether they block likes of Call1899, etc about this company?

They're website doesn't display anything at all from my quick scan of it!!!

bbb_uk wrote on Apr 14^th, 2008 at 7:23pm:

Does anyone have any information on call charges, connection fee's, charges for calling features, any minimum term for moving linerental and whether they block likes of Call1899, etc about this company? Their website doesn't display anything at all from my quick scan of it!!!

I am a customer of yourcalls bbb_uk.  I'm on their £3.50 per month package for 01/02 calls up to 60 minutes free at any time.  I have told them their website is rubbish but they don't seem to have responded so far.  I did however get them to start including 03 numbers in call plans following my complaint to their Commercial Director copied to various people at Ofcom.  To be fair PostOffice Homephone (who I had just left in January) were also charging me g6 multimedia rate for my 03 calls and failing to make them free in the evening or at the weekend.

In answer to your questions.

1. There is No minimum contract with yourcalls.  You can leave at any time without penalty.

2. No blocking whatsoever of calls with 18185, 1899 or other similar providers.  One of their staff even previously posted in another thread on here to confirm this was so.  I use 18185 for mobile calls.

3. Stupidly the prices for Caller Display etc are only viewable in their customer area.  Here they are:-


Quote:

Caller Display                 £1.50 per month         Call Waiting                    £1.50 per month       Number Withheld                 £0.00 per month Call Diversion                     £1.50 per month Call Barring                    £1.50 per month Ring Back                      £1.50 per month Anonymous Call Reject    £1.50 per month Choose To Refuse           £2.49 per month

However I see BT only now charge £4.95 per month for Option 3 if I sign for 12 months and that their line rental is the same at £10.50 as yourcalls if I do direct debit and paperless billing.  Factor in Caller Display at £1.50 per month with yourcalls (free with BT) and you can see that I'm now 5p per month worse off with yourcalls, who don't open their Customers Services in the evening or at the weekend, than with BT. :( :'(

This isn't the fault of yourcalls.net.  It is the fault of corrupt Ofcom for allowing BT to behave in this outrageous anticompetitive way and to force what were formerly Option 1 customers to pay for free Weekend calls for other BT customers, even if they use a provider like 1899 or 18185 to make all their calls.  The whole BT game is to force you to sign for Option 3 (or whatever its now called) and 12 months contract so you can never leave them.  I refuse to return to BT because they would make me sign a 12 month contract to do so.  A matter of principle on my part now, even though price wise I really might as well now return to BT.  When I moved to yourcalls I was still saving £1.50 per month compared to BT and avoiding a 12 month minimum term.

Basically Ofcom have allowed the minimum call charge to go up 80% so people are now being blackmailed in to signing for an all inclusive calls plan and a 12 month contract as individual daytime calls are now so ridiculously more expensive.  This is what Ofcom calls increasing competition. :o >:( :'(

Thanks for that.

I may not bother moving because when you factor in caller display there isn't much difference compared to what I pay Sky now (linerental and NGNs are via BT).

I've generally not bothered complaining to Ofcon for some time because I believe it's useless however as yourcalls.net must be the worst company for total lack of pricing information, I'm going to, this once, make an official complaint to Ofcom.

bbb_uk wrote on Apr 20^th, 2008 at 8:10pm:

I've generally not bothered complaining to Ofcon for some time because I believe it's useless however as yourcalls.net must be the worst company for total lack of pricing information, I'm going to, this once, make an official complaint to Ofcom.

I'm only with yourcalls because of the disgraceful behaviour of Post Office Homephone 3 months ago in changing their customer services call centres from an excellent supplier with an 0800 number and open 24 hours to some bunch of cowboys in Northern Ireland who use an 0845 number but worse than that have call queues routinely of 30 minutes or more.  And the PostOffice HomePhone's free evening and weekend calls up to 60 minutes to 01 and 02 numbers did not cover these 0845 calls.

Then when I complained to them at CEO level about 0845 they avoided questions about 40 minute calls to the call centre and said the switch from 0845 to 0800 was part of PostOffice Core Brand Values (they then refuse to say what those Brand Values were).  On top of that they charged calls to the Ofcom 03 contact centre at g6 multimedia rate on my phone bill and dodged that complaint in my letter to the CEO too.

yourcalls.net were also charging for 03 but a complaint to their marketing director (admittedly also copied to Clive Hillier at Ofcom)had the matter investigated and remedied in two days.  Also since I have become a customer and after complaints about there being no complete price list they have added a facility in their customer area to lookup the cost of calling any number in the world on a per number lookup basis.  They still seem paranoid about publishing their full price list as a docment saying their competitors will then copy them.

I refuse to go back to BT on principle so long as they want me to sign a 12 month contract and I am not a Sky pay tv customer (I have Sky Freesat).

If you click on YourCallPlan on their front page they do show the cost of calling features.

https://www.yourcalls.net/Features/YourCallPlan.aspx

If you want to sign up with them you can get £15 cashback if you do it via

http://www.firsthelpline.com/homephone

Quote:

It is the fault of corrupt Ofcom for allowing BT to behave in this outrageous anticompetitive way and to force what were formerly Option 1 customers to pay for free Weekend calls for other BT customers

Have i missed something, how are BT Unlimited Weekend Plan Customers ( Formerly Option 1 ) paying for other customers inclusive weekend calls?

~ Edited by Dave: Quote box tidied up

oldharryrocks wrote on Apr 21^st, 2008 at 2:27am:

Have i missed something, how are BT Unlimited Weekend Plan Customers ( Formerly Option 1 ) paying for other customers inclusive weekend calls?

Because if you say make all your calls with www.18185.co.uk on a BT line you are still paying an extortionate line rental that props up BT to let them offer Free Weekend Calls out of the largest standing charge of any utility in the country by a factor of about 200% >:(

If you live in the country you can't have broadband without paying line rental to BT that subsidises a calls package you personally don't need to use if you could make your calls via Voip.

macminiuser wrote on Oct 30^th, 2006 at 5:36pm:

we don't limit the use of the line in any way if you do 'transfer' it to us.  You can still use 1899, 18186, 18866, access numbers like Telediscount/Dialwise etc, broadband is unaffected etc. Technically, you could CPS your calls elsewhere if you really wanted to - there's nothing to stop you from doing so (although we ask you not to in the terms and conditions, and we're not sure why you'd want to - we're pretty cheap!)

and


macminiuser wrote on Oct 30^th, 2006 at 5:36pm:

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a staunch 18185 man for calls to mobiles.  I wish them all the best

But after a recent issue with my outgoing call access being blocked by www.yourcalls.net due to them failing to take payment for a bill correctly since my outgoing call access was restored by yourcalls I find I can no longer make any indirect access prefixed calls (including using the BT 1280 code as well as 18185) and now get the message "sorry you cannot use indirect access codes from this line" as soon as I have dialled the 4 or 5 indirect access code digits.

I have therefore sent the following message to BT CEO, Ian Livingston about this:-


Quote:

-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Restriction of Indirect Access (18185) Availability With YourCalls.net by BT Wholesale/Global Date:      Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:17:34 +0100 To:      ian.livingston@bt.com CC:      hanif.lalani@bt.com, gavin.patterson@bt.com, colin.forward@comms-factory.com, mike.thornley@comms-factory.com, owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com, stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk, stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk, claudio.pollack@ofcom.org.uk, peter.phillips@ofcom.org.uk, ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeEngland@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeScotland@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeNorthernIreland@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeWales@ofcom.org.uk, acodp@ofcom.org.uk, anna.bradley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, dominic.ridley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, jonathan.may@oft.gov.uk, john.fingleton@oft.gov.uk, vivienne.dews@oft.gov.uk, david.saunders@competition-commission.org.uk, rachel.merelie@competition-commission.org.uk, igor.tracchia@finarea.ch, service@finarea.ch, info@finarea.ch, clive.hillier@ofcom.org.uk, gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk Dear Mr Livingston, Restriction of 18185 Indirect Access Code Availability and Barring of Use of All Other Indirect Access Codes With YourCalls.net by BT Wholesale/Global/Openreach on My Telephone Number - XXXXX XXXXXX - yourcalls.net account number - Y20**** I am writing to you as Chief Executive of BT (therefore the buck must stop with you on this issue and you cannot claim it is a matter for BT Wholesale, BT Global, BT Openreach or one of the other subsidiaries of BT Group) regarding my concern over BT's apparent new policy of denying use of indirect access codes to make calls to any telephone customers of Wholesale Line Rental Services supplied by BT's competitors such as www.your calls.net In my own case I joined www.yourcalls.net as a WLR customer in about January 2008 having previously been with Post Office Homephone for around a year before that and prior to that I was with BT Retail.  Throughout all this time and until Wednesday 3rd June I had been able to successfully make calls using indirect access codes from Finarea/Connect Telecom UK under brand names such as www.18866.co.uk, www.1899.com and www.18185.co.uk   In recent times I have only used www.18185.co.uk, mainly to make mobile phone calls and internationals calls that are not part of my Anytime calls plan with Yourcalls.net  Whilst Finarea is a Swiss company it appears to operate through its UK subsidiary - Connect Telecom UK - in terms of billing customers and its indirect access code rights with BT Global/Wholesale. In mid February yourcalls.net wrote to me as a customer to tell me that any calls I made to 0845 and 0870 numbers up to 60 minutes would now be free of charge as part of my Anytime calls plan but in mid April they then wrote saying this had been an error on their part and customers would only get inclusive 0845 and 0870 calls if they also switched their broadband service to Yourcalls.net.  They indicated that 0845 and 0870 calls therefore remained chargeable retrospectively but that they would graciously not charge for them in February 2009, even though customers had in fact made calls on the basis that 0845 and 0870 calls were not chargeable until mid April 2009.  At this point I changed my payment details on the yourcalls.net website to details that I knew would be refused and then contacted them to indicate I did not accept paying for any 0845 and 0870 calls between their first and second emails telling me they would be included in my Anytime call plan.  Although yourcalls.net eventually issued new bills making the calls free and although I then provided a new credit card to yourcalls.net to debit my account with for some reason yourcalls.net had a problem taking the payment on the card and so restricted service on my line at some point  after Monday 26th May (I was away from home from 26th May to 3rd June).

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On 3rd June I spoke to yourcalls.net and we ascertained that for some reason they had trouble processing the card payment, even though I have no issues with the Mastercard in question.  Following this and having now successfully taken the outstanding payment using the same credit card they then de-restricted my line so that it was again available for outgoing calls on their Anytime calls plan.  However when I tried to make a call last night (4th June) to a mobile number using the 18185 indirect access code I received a BT Global generated network message saying I did not have access to any indirect access services on my phone line and I should contact my telephone service provider for any further queries about that.  After calling yourcalls.net today and carrying out various tests we have also now established that I cannot use 1280 or any other indirect access code, even though they say they have changed nothing on their system to bar or restrict my use of indirect access services. I strongly suspect that the decision to bar my phone line access to indirect access services is not one that has been taken by Yourcalls.net customer service staff but reflects some change in contractual terms between BT Global (Wholesale/Openreach) so that any new customer for WLR access services has access to indirect access services automatically barred to them so that they are forced to make all their calls with their WLR telecoms provider.   This is no doubt sold to www.yourcalls.net (or their parent company Comms Factory Ltd of Premium House, The Esplanade, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2BJ.) on the basis that it is more profitable for them but the reality is that BT actually offers the service because it is good for it commercially because most customers with WLR providers who formerly used indirect access services will now be so furious that their indirect access services have been barred by their current telecoms provider that they will immediately feel like leaving their current provider and moving back to BT Retail (where BT is required by regulation to allow access to all indirect access code services).  Another of BT's longstanding little tricks in that regard is that if I have trouble connecting to another phone number because the call is misrouting to the wrong number and I ring 100 on my yourcalls.net line (or before that PostOffice Homephone) and allow the BT operator to connect the call (made necessary by a network defect) the next thing I find will be a £4 operator connection fee on my phone bill that I was not warned about.  But if I was a BT Retail customer and called the operator on 100 the call would be connected by the operator at normal rates and the discretionary operator fee would not be charge to BT Retail's own customers.  All of this amounts to a well established pattern of anti competitive behaviour by BT to try and force customers who have moved to WLR elsewhere to come back to BT Retail and become locked in to a 1 year rolling contract with BT as a result of doing so. As my service for making calls with yourcalls.net was only temporarily suspended due to an administrative error on their part in taking payment and as I did not change my contractual terms with them I would now be very grateful if BT Global (aka BT Wholesale, aka BT Openreach) could lift the bar to indirect access services on my phone number (XXXXX XXXXXX) that it has imposed without my own or yourcalls.net's apparent permission and without me being notified of any altered contractual terms that allowed such a bar on indirect access services to be imposed.  If this does not happen I intend to pursue the matter with vigour with Otelo and Ofcom as an example of particularly abusive anti competitive behaviour by BT Group designed to limit the success of its commercial rivals in selling phone services that make use of the BT Global Wholesale Line Rental platform.

This is the reply I have had from Ian Livingston, CEO of BT.   At least he has offered his help if www.yourcalls.net cannot manage to put things right through the usual channels.

However I am still awaiting a reply from www.yourcalls.net or any of their three directors. >:(


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      RE: Restriction of Indirect Access (18185) Availability With YourCalls.net by BT Wholesale/Global Date:      Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:16:08 +0100 From:      <ian.livingston@bt.com> References:      <4A2908DE.8050803@grenehurst.plus.com> Mr Shersby I received your previous email on this from earlier in the day. I am not aware of any such policy to block calls.  Your service provider, yourcalls.net, should contact their account person at Openreach to discuss the issue or I am happy if their CEO wants to email me to explain the problem as they see it. Ian Livingston

And here is my reply to BT CEO Ian Livingston containing some interesting information about Ofcom's document concerning the feature of Wholesale Line Rental that allows barring of calls using Indirect Access:-


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Unauthorised Implementation of Indirect Access Calls Barring By Yourcalls.net Date:      Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:08:54 +0100 To:      ian.livingston@bt.com CC:      hanif.lalani@bt.com, gavin.patterson@bt.com, colin.forward@comms-factory.com, mike.thornley@comms-factory.com, owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com, stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk, stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk, claudio.pollack@ofcom.org.uk, peter.phillips@ofcom.org.uk, ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeEngland@ofcom.org.uk, acodp@ofcom.org.uk, anna.bradley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, dominic.ridley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, jonathan.may@oft.gov.uk, john.fingleton@oft.gov.uk, vivienne.dews@oft.gov.uk, david.saunders@competition-commission.org.uk, rachel.merelie@competition-commission.org.uk, igor.tracchia@finarea.ch, service@finarea.ch, info@finarea.ch, clive.hillier@ofcom.org.uk, gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk Dear Mr Livingston, Thank you for your below reply to my email indicating that you are willing to assist the CEO of yourcalls.net in addressing the issue I am facing with the unwanted introduction of Indirect Access calls barring on my phone line if www.yourcalls.net are not able to achieve its removal in conjunction with their usual account person at Openreach. On further researching the matter I see that the announcement I now experience when I try to dial an Indirect Access code (“Sorry, you may not use indirect access codes from this line. Please contact your telephone Service Provider.”) is detailed in Section 2.19 IA - Call Barring on Page 16 of Ofcom's document to be found at www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/wholesale_line_rental/working_papers/wlr_e2e.pdf entitled Wholesale Line Rental "Industry End to End Process Description".  Also according to the document "Indirect Access Call Barring (IACB) is a network based feature which rejects any outgoing call attempt by an End User using an Indirect Access code."  Since yourcalls.net deliver their entire service using Wholesale Line Rental I find it curious that their customer service staff would seem to be totally unaware of the contents of this document or of a call barring message that they have possibly allowed to be introduced on to one of their customer's phone lines.  Nonetheless I feel sure that the technical ability to remove this restriction from my phone line ultimately lies with BT Openreach rather than with www.yourcalls.net Regards,

Following some phone calls I made today to yourcalls.net to chase up the issue I have now received this email from Owen Bloodworth, Managing Director of Comms Factory Group (the company now responsible for the yourcalls.net telecoms brand):-


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Your Direct Access Issue Date:      Mon, 8 Jun 2009 17:22:57 +0100 From:      Owen Bloodworth <owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com> CC:      Fleur Jarman <fleur.jarman@comms-factory.com> Dear Mr ________, Following your phone call on 5th June 2009 and subsequent emails with reference to your issue concerning the block on indirect access networks I write with the following explanation. When your card payment failed on 28th May with the reason 'Card Declined', the Credit Control department were unable to contact you and this resulted in an outgoing call restriction order on 3rd June.  A third attempt to collect funds was successful on 3rd June following your contact with us.  When the restriction on the line was lifted the block our network usually has for Indirect Access barring was activated.  As you were able to use an indirect access code before the restriction, this standard block could not have been properly active in the first place.  It is our normal process to actively block Indirect Access calls. YourCalls.net is only able to offer competitive line and call packages by operating efficiently and ensuring margins are achieved from the mix of all call types used by a customer. Our Terms and Conditions expressly forbid the use of allowing alternative suppliers to override or bypass our service.  (Terms and Conditions enclosed)  The relevant section 6.b:- (You agree) not to allow an alternative supplier to override or bypass our service either through the installation of equipment or through the BT OPENREACH local exchange. The action of dialling an alternative supplier's indirect access code routes your calls over another network via the local exchange.  We believe this to be in direct contravention of section 6.b of our Terms and Conditions. We have no option but to request you stop using these alternative suppliers and allow all calls to pass through YourCalls.net. If you wish to continue to use these indirect access codes we kindly request that you transfer your service to another supplier. We hope you are now clear as to YourCalls.net’s position concerning your query. I have just spoken to Colin and can confirm that we cannot bespoke your mobile rates and would like to point out that you can bespoke one of the main mobile suppliers by using your Golden destination. Regards, Owen Bloodworth Managing Director Comms Factory Group

And this was my reply to Mr Bloodworth:-


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Hiding Behind Terms & Conditions Re Indirect Access + Breaches of Ofcom General Conditions Date:      Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:32:21 +0100 To:      owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com CC:      ian.livingston@bt.com, gavin.patterson@bt.com, colin.forward@comms-factory.com, mike.thornley@comms-factory.com, stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk, stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk, claudio.pollack@ofcom.org.uk, peter.phillips@ofcom.org.uk, ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeEngland@ofcom.org.uk, acodp@ofcom.org.uk, anna.bradley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, dominic.ridley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, jonathan.may@oft.gov.uk, john.fingleton@oft.gov.uk, vivienne.dews@oft.gov.uk, david.saunders@competition-commission.org.uk, rachel.merelie@competition-commission.org.uk, igor.tracchia@finarea.ch, service@finarea.ch, info@finarea.ch, clive.hillier@ofcom.org.uk, gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk, chris.rowsell@ofcom.org.uk, fleur.jarman@comms-factory.com, colette.bowe@ofcom.org.uk, philip.graf@ofcom.org.uk, robert.thelen-bartholomew@ofcom.org.uk, hanif.lalani@bt.com, michael.rake@bt.com, tony.chanmugam@bt.com Dear Mr Bloodworth, Hiding Behind Terms & Conditions Over "Indirect Access" Availability Removal vs Repeated Breaches of Ofcom General Conditions by www.yourcalls.net I am in receipt of your below email in relation to the blocking of the Indirect Access facility on my phone line (telephone number ***********) by yourcalls.net and/or BT Openreach. I must say that I am very disappointed indeed by your response as it clearly represents the apparent easy way out for you without having to then bother to take the time and trouble to actually investigate how the block on Indirect Access on my phone line came in to effect and/or why I and many other longstanding customers with YourCalls.net have continued to be allowed to use Indirect Access regardless of what you now claim is in your Terms & Conditions.  However given that companies can change their Terms & Conditions at any time to a customer's disadvantage I am perfectly prepared to believe that you amended your Terms & Conditions to contain that clause just before you emailed me.  Why should I have any faith at all in what your company tells me when you are still in breach of an Ofcom General Condition related billing guidance by describing calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers on customer bills as being a  "National Rated Call" and a "Local Rated Call" when Ofcom has specifically told you that you must no longer make such claims about those numbers.  Even more incredibly you still describe 0844 numbers as being a "Local Rated Call" as you did for my call on 9th April 2009 at 12.27pm to 0844 2484951.  I am sure that if I actually called an 0871 number you would probably and try still describe that as being a "National Rated Call", despite them being no such thing and regulatory responsibility being imminently in the process of being transferred to PhonePay Plus. I find it a bit much that you refer me to abiding by your Terms & Conditions that you had not notified me, at any time in the last 18 months with you as a customer, that you had altered when you felt quite free for six or more months after August 2007 to breach Ofcom's amended General Condition requiring calls to 03 numbers to be charged at 01/02 rates (with yourcalls instead charging them at g9 multimedia rate) and then also felt at liberty to make a deliberately misleading price indication on February 18th 2009 by sending me an email telling me that my 0845 and 0870 calls were now covered by my Anytime calls plan only to send an email on 8th April saying that had been an error and that only customers who also switched their broadband service to you would get 0845 and 0870 calls included in their calls package (unlike BT customers who would get them without taking broadband from BT).  Then to add insult to injury you indicated you intended to only not charge for the 0845 and 0870 calls on which you had given customers a misleading price indication that they were now free between 18th February 2009 and 28th February 2009 and that you appeared to require us the customer to pick up the tab for your error from 1st March 2009 to 8th April 2009.  Only after a complaint did you agree to refund the cost of those 0845 and 0870 calls from 1st March to 8th April 2009 and your company then still refused to correct the invoices it had sent me to correctly show the status of those calls as being free calls.  So I don't think I need any lecturing in abiding by Terms & Conditions by your company when you seem to feel quite free to breach Ofcom General Conditions on a regular basis knowing that lethargic and telco friendly Ofcom will of course fail to impose any financial penalty at all for these flagrant breaches of their own rules by one of the companies that also pays the membership fees of their staff.

Continued/........

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You also have still have not answered why Yourcalls.net has now backtracked on the previous commitment given by someone who was or still is a member of your staff (known by the forum name of macminiuser) on the www.saynoto0870.com discussion forum to the effect that "we don't limit the use of the line in any way if you do 'transfer' it to us.  You can still use 1899, 18186, 18866, access numbers like Telediscount/Dialwise etc, broadband is unaffected etc.  Technically, you could CPS your calls elsewhere if you really wanted to - there's nothing to stop you from doing so" and "I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a staunch 18185 man for calls to mobiles.  I wish them all the best" and "By all means use Dialwise or Telediscount or calling cards or Skype or whatever - but when you need to have an important conversation and can't be dealing with dropped calls and echoey scratchy lines, you won't have to sell your granny to dial direct from your Yourcalls.net line - that's where we're coming from". (see Post Number 4 at www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1161955510/0#0)  The same member of your staff also made posts to this effect in the www.moneysavingexpert.com discussion forum's home phone calls section.  So can I therefore take it that as with your company deliberately misleading me on 18th February that my 0845 and 0870 calls were part of my calls package or still incorrectly describing the cost of 084 and 087 prefixed calls as Local Rated and National Rated calls that your company just thinks it can tell customers one thing and then do another thing without advising customers it has changed its policy? I have carefully checked the emails your company has sent me in the last 18 months and not one of them advises me of an alteration to your Terms & Conditions removing my right to use the Indirect Access service.  As BT Retail makes a profit while still allowing its customers to use the Indirect Access service (albeit that they are required to do so by regulation) then I cannot see why your company is unable to also do the same?  I take line rental, Caller Display and the Anytime Calls package from yourcalls.net each month for a cost of over £15 per month or £180 per annum but are you telling me that you cannot make a profit from me unless you also force me to make all my mobile phone calls with you at uncompetitive rates in the weekday daytime?  You could not stop me having a mobile phone with bundled minutes to call mobiles cheaply and avoid using your service that way so why should you be able to stop me calling them on a cheaper carrier than yourcalls.net on my landline using a service that Ofcom's predecessor OFTEL introduced with the very purpose of ensuring more competition in telecoms prices for the consumer.  But now no one seems to want competition in the telecoms industry and you all seem to want to try to lock consumers in to 12 or 18 months contracts in which the customer cannot shop around at all.  This may be justified on a mobile phone contract where an expensive new handset is given to the customer as part of it but how is it justified on a domestic landline where your company is making no up front capital investment in me as a customer whatsoever.  BT Openreach's own document on this technical facility actually confirms that the sole purpose for its creation is in fact anti-competitive.  See http://www.openreach.com/orpg/products/wlr/downloads/isdn2_specific/WDA_PRODUCT_OVERVIEW_190107.doc - "You are therefore able to ensure that all your End User’s calls are routed over the network of your choice, helping you to maximise your call revenues". Mr Bloodworth you had every opportunity to just rectify the small and quite simple problem I had with your company in it turning off Indirect Access on my phone line when I did not want you to do so but now due to your stubborn intransigence over this matter you force me to pursue with Ofcom the question of your deliberate and persistent breaches of their General Conditions over the description of 084 and 087 prefixed phone call costs on phone bills (for which your company clearly ought to be fined by Ofcom but inevitably will not be), your failure to make available to customers a full price list of all call types a customer can make on their phone line with yourcalls.net and your earlier failure to comply with Ofcom's amended General Condition requiring you to include 03 calls in call packages covering 01 and 02 calls for over 6 months.  There is also the matter of the misleading price indication about the cost of 084/7 calls given by your company on 18th February and your failure to refund most customers for the cost of those calls throughout the entire period of that misleading price indication unless they made a complaint to your company. Is the reason for your continued unwise intransigence on this matter therefore perhaps because BT Openreach now simply refuses to authorise any new connections using their WLR service for yourcalls that do not deny the customer Indirect Access functionality?  I strongly suspect that this is the real reason I cannot have my Indirect Access functionality back with yourcalls.net but that neither you or BT Openreach are prepared to admit that this is the case. I look forward to your further comments on this matter. Yours sincerely,

NGMsGhost - I have posted a reply to you over at MSE: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1596609.

Before you rip me a new one, I don't work for Yourcalls.net any more, having left on principle.  The principle being I didn't want to work for a bunch of cowboys, and that I was largely ineffectual in getting them to change any of their "a customer's happiness has no bearing on whether or not we expect them to pay" policies.

Although I now work for Verizon so I've somewhat jumped out of the frying pan and into... well, an even bigger frying pan.

macminiuser wrote on Jun 30^th, 2009 at 11:46am:

NGMsGhost - I have posted a reply to you over at MSE: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1596609.

Yes I have seen that reply over on monesavingexpert.com as I presume have certain members of remaining staff at yourcalls.net.  What took you so long! ;)


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Before you rip me a new one, I don't work for Yourcalls.net any more, having left on principle.  The principle being I didn't want to work for a bunch of cowboys, and that I was largely ineffectual in getting them to change any of their "a customer's happiness has no bearing on whether or not we expect them to pay" policies.

It seems that you and I both agree on the nature of the new reconstituted yourcalls.net and its primary business motivations but oddly their new MD, a certain Mr Owen Bloodworth, took great exception to our joint view that they are now trying to lock their customers down to only making calls with yourcalls.net as though they were TalkTalk without having any of the same compelling value for money propositions as the TalkTalk group.  Of course TalkTalk don't have those either on a non LLU'ed country telephone exchange like my own.


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Although I now work for Verizon so I've somewhat jumped out of the frying pan and into... well, an even bigger frying pan.

I rather suspect that you have not even bothered to try to post any corporate comments on behalf of your new employers knowing that any such comments could only be agreed by a Board meeting of your masters across the pond back in the US of A. :P ;D

Here are the lastest two emails I have received from Mr Owen Bloodworth, Managing Director of www.yourcalls.net threatening to unilaterally cut off my phone line without my permission (despite my not owing them any money), even though that would also affect my broadband connection that his company does not even provide:-


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-----Original Message----- From: Owen Bloodworth Sent: 15 June 2009 14:41 Cc: Fleur Jarman Subject: RE: Your Direct Access Issue Dear Mr ________, I note your comments in your Email 8th June 2009. I believe that the relationship between yourself and YourCalls.net has irretrievably broken down. Your insinuation/accusation that we would adjust YourCall.net Terms and Conditions before sending them to you is both preposterous and insulting. My staff and I are also not accustomed, and are not willing, to being referred to as incompetent scumbags. (MoneySavingExpert.com 9.14 5/06/09) As a result I would like to kindly request that you find an alternative Telecoms supplier. I look forward to receiving your new suppliers transfer request. Regards, Owen Bloodworth Managing Director Comms Factory Group E: owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com Premium House, The Esplanade, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2BJ

I was on holiday for most of the intervening period and Mr Bloodworth then sent this email:-


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      RE: Your Direct Access Issue Date:      Fri, 3 Jul 2009 16:14:00 +0100 From:      Owen Bloodworth <owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com> CC:      Fleur Jarman <fleur.jarman@comms-factory.com> Dear Mr ___________, Further to my email below I can see that you have transferred all your call traffic away but have left your line with us. My previous comments still apply and I request that you transfer your line to an alternative supplier. If I don’t receive a request to move your line to an alternative supplier I will, after 14 days, take action to cease your line. Yours sincerely Owen Bloodworth

I have now sent Mr Bloodworth this reply:-


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Threat to Unilaterally Terminate My Phone/Broadband Line Without My Agreement Date:      Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:13:42 +0100 To:      Owen Bloodworth <owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com> CC:      fleur.jarman@comms-factory.com, ian.livingston@bt.com, gavin.patterson@bt.com, colin.forward@comms-factory.com, mike.thornley@comms-factory.com, stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk, stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk, claudio.pollack@ofcom.org.uk, peter.phillips@ofcom.org.uk, ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk, OfcomAdvisoryCommitteeEngland@ofcom.org.uk, acodp@ofcom.org.uk, anna.bradley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, dominic.ridley@communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk, jonathan.may@oft.gov.uk, john.fingleton@oft.gov.uk, vivienne.dews@oft.gov.uk, david.saunders@competition-commission.org.uk, rachel.merelie@competition-commission.org.uk, igor.tracchia@finarea.ch, service@finarea.ch, info@finarea.ch, clive.hillier@ofcom.org.uk, gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk, chris.rowsell@ofcom.org.uk, colette.bowe@ofcom.org.uk, philip.graf@ofcom.org.uk, robert.thelen-bartholomew@ofcom.org.uk, hanif.lalani@bt.com, michael.rake@bt.com, tony.chanmugam@bt.com, enquiries@otelo.org.uk References:      <911D5CF54CAAD24F9222151C54D0579E77F14A72AB@ms01.ONEBILLTELECOM.COM> Dear Mr Bloodworth, Threat to Unilaterally Terminate My Phone and Broadband Line Without My Agreement I have only today read your email dated 3rd July 2009 as I have been away from home first on holiday and then for other reasons for most of the last month.  Your assumption that I had therefore transferred all my call traffic away from yourcalls.net was therefore completely incorrect as I had simply not been at home in order to make any further chargeable calls with your company for most of the intervening period, although I do recall making at least two chargeable mobile phone calls with yourcalls.net at some point in June as well as a chargeable (on my yourcalls.net bill) 0871 call that allowed me to make a mobile phone call more cheaply than at the rates charged by yourcalls.net as well. Ironically since returning home yesterday I now find that I can once again make use of the 18185.com Indirect Access calls service on my phone line, even though you claimed in your earlier email that being unable to use Indirect Access functionality on my yourcalls.net line was now one of your default new product features and also part of your company's revised terms and conditions. On the basis that yourcalls.net and/or its contracted wholesale line rental supplier (BT Group) has now restored my ability to use Indirect Access services I therefore now have no wish to move my business away from your company but if of course due to what I would tend to regard as being a rather immature fit of corporate peak you continue to insist that I do so then I would politely request that I be given a little longer to initiate such arrangements and that you do not under any circumstances give unilateral instructions to disconnect my telephone line.  Were my phone line and consequently my broadband service from another unconnected supplier to be disconnected by such action I would be forced to instigate the most vigorous form of complaint about your company's behaviour with both Otelo and with Ofcom.  I think an interesting legal dispute about my loss of broadband service with my contracted supplier (Entanet Group via www.adsl24.co.uk) would be likely to result if you were to take any such action.  A more responsible suggestion on your part would surely have been that you would arrange for my phone line to transfer back to BT by a certain date if I did not take steps to transfer it to another telecoms supplier. Of course perhaps you may tell me that you are not empowered to transfer my line back to BT if you no longer want my business instead of terminating my phone line without my agreement? With reference to your mention of posts about your company's new refusal to allow your customers to use Indirect Access services that may exist in threads on the www.moneysavingexpert.com and/or the www.saynoto0870.com discussion forums I think you ought to focus rather greater attention on why your company has now taken business decisions that directly contradict assurances previously given on those forums by one of your then members of middle management (a forum member by the name of macminiuser) when I brought my business to your company specifically on the basis of assurances given by that member of your staff that it was not your company's policy to block any customer's use of Indirect Access services.  Of course I note that you also fail to comment on other unacceptable actions by your company such as charging me for 03 calls that should have been part of my Anytime Calls package in direct violation of a revised Ofcom General Condition.  I find it a little odd that you should take such grave exception to my being dissatisfied as a customer with actions by your company that are in themselves inherently inflammatory and provocative but do not seem to think it was in any way wrong for your company to fail to implement an amendment to Ofcom's General Conditions on the date required by Ofcom.

Continued/........................

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When I originally moved my business to your company 18 months ago after Post Office Homephone annoyed me by charging me for 03 calls that should have been part of free off peak calls allowance and by replacing their 0800 customer service number with an 0845 number I did so because your Anytime Calls package was much better value than BT's but since then Ofcom have de-regulated BT pricing so that an anytime calls package and line rental with yourcalls.net is scarcely any cheaper or no cheaper than the same deal with BT for anyone who uses the Caller Display service (that is the vast majority of telephone customers).  In those circumstances when yourcalls.net are no cheaper than BT and then try to offer an inferior service to BT by blocking Indirect Access services it is surely small wonder that I should be upset by these actions?  I wonder how you therefore hope to be able to expand and grow your telecoms business in such circumstances? Dear Mr Bloodworth I cannot force you to let me remain as a customer of your company but I do not regard most of the currently available alternatives for line rental on my non LLUed exchange as being any more attractive or palatable and nearly all of them are subject to a 12 month contract requirement when I can foresee some circumstances when I may need to give up my home at this address within the next 12 months.  In those circumstances I would ask you to reconsider your decision to force me to leave you as a customer as I am entirely happy to remain with you as long as I can use Indirect Access services where I choose to. Alternatively if you still insist that I move my business elsewhere then I would politely ask that you extend your original deadline of 17th July to allow me to do so.  I am away from home again for a little over two weeks as of next Monday and as I am very busy between now and then I would appreciate it if you could allow a further two months for me to move my business elsewhere in the event that you do not wish me to remain a customer of yourcalls.net I look forward to hearing from you. Regards,

I have also sent this email to Steve Robertson, CEO of BT Openreach, who provide the Wholesale Line Rental call platform that delivers the underlying telephone service billed and invoiced by www.yourcalls.net


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-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Threat by Yourcalls.net to Unilaterally Terminate Phone/Broadband Line Without My Agreement Date:      Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:48:22 +0100 To:      steven.robertson@openreach.co.uk CC:      tim.barclay@openreach.co.uk, amy.chalfen@openreach.co.uk, anne.heal@openreach.co.uk Dear Mr Robertson, Threat by Yourcalls.net to Unilaterally Terminate Phone/Broadband Line Without My Agreement I thought that you and some of your colleagues might be interested in the below email dialogue with Owen Bloodworth of Comms Factory/YourCalls.net regarding the sudden denial of my ability to access Indirect Access functionality with services such as www.18185.co.uk on my domestic phone line for which the underlying delivery agent appears to be BT Openreach (via Wholesale Line Rental). The history is that staff from yourcalls.net formerly posted on the www.moneysavingexpert.com and www.saynoto0870.com discussion forums that it was not their company's policy to apply Indirect Access Call Barring to their customer's phone lines before I decided to join them as a customer in late 2007 after a disagreement with Post Office Homephone about their switch from an 0800 to 0845 customer service number and charging me for calls to numbers staring 03 that should have been within my free off peak calls allowance.  More recently I temporarily withdrew my payment mandate with yourcalls.net after they tried to charge me for 0845 and 0870 calls in March and April that they had previously indicated in an email were now part of my inclusive call minutes only to change their mind after the event and decide the calls were only free for those who also took broadband with them.  After this although I provided a new credit card number when the dispute was resolved yourcalls.net still failed to take a payment correctly then and temporarily barred all outgoing chargeable calls access on my line and after it was restored Indirect Access functionality for all Indirect  Access codes on my line was barred (previously Indirect Access functionality had been available).  I queried this with Mr Bloodworth and he maintained it was an intentional act by yourcalls.net and that I was breaching their terms and conditions by using Indirect Access.  But now after a few weeks away from home I return to my home to find that my ability to use Indirect Access functionality has mysteriously returned. Meanwhile Mr Bloodworth appears to have suffered a fit of peak and has threatened to disconnect my phone line if I do not place an order to move to another phone company by July 17th even though I am now happy to remain with yourcalls.net following restoration of Indirect Access functionality.  I think there are a large number of policy issues connected with a WLR operator threatening to terminate the line of a customer who does not owe them any money due to a personality clash when such an act would also disconnect the customer's broadband service and when the phone company  does not provide the broadband service.  I would have thought that if they no longer wish to keep as a phone line customer the most power they should have is to forcibly revert the customer's line to BT Retail unless the customer expresses a preference for an alternate telecoms company or notifies them that he wishes the line to be ceased.  I should also add that in all the circumstances I would go back to BT Retail were BT Retail not ludicrously demanding a 12 month minimum contract on a piece of wire they installed 18 years ago and where they are making no investment whatsoever in me coming back to them as a customer.  I do not want to be in that position as I may possibly leave this address (either by renting my flat out or by selling it) during the next 12 months.  In either circumstance I would not continue to be the BT customer and might not have a phone line of my own at the address I moved to. I think someone at BT Openreach needs to investigate if yourcalls.net is entitled to act in this way by threatening to cut off my phone line without my permission when I am not in debt to them and would consequentially also be disconnecting my broadband service that I do not even take from yourcalls.net/Comms Factory Group.  Perhaps you could also investigate why BT Openreach allegedly (according to staff at yourcalls/net who I have challenged this with) provides yourcalls.net with phone call cost information that causes them to give me misleading price indications under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 in my online phone bills by calling 0845 numbers calls "Local Rate" calls and 0870 numbers "National Rate" I look forward to your comments.

Welcome back from holiday, NGMsGhost. You are back on your usual form keeping us abreast of your plight and your usual non-succinct correspondence.

Having read through the e-mails you have posted today I am left wondering what it is you are actually moaning about. All telephone providers except BT can choose which numbers and access codes they allow their customers to connect to.

You are free to leave YourCalls.net if its service offering no longer comes up to that which you desire. This is the principle of a free market where consumers choose their provider, a process which you are often quick to champion for telecommunications services.

It is interesting to note that you regard the telephone line to your premises as yours. As someone who proclaims to have studied economics, I thought that you would understand that private companies have no obligation to enter into a service agreement with any consumer.

As the telephone line and the retail provider you pay for calls is private, it is laughable that you should be begging YourCalls.net not to give you the boot else BT Retail should accept you as a customer by default.

I think you should get over it and move to another provider.

Dave wrote on Jul 14^th, 2009 at 10:05pm:

Welcome back from holiday, NGMsGhost. You are back on your usual form keeping us abreast of your plight and your usual non-succinct correspondence.

Hi Dave,

I see my concern over your failure to properly take advantage of the unique opportunity you had to hit Ofcom and its representative (Gareth Davies) between the eyes during your Radio 4 interview a few months ago is still an issue and you are looking for any opportunty to score points in the opposite direction.  It seems a great pity that you are not able to deploy your razor sharp written wit in to verbal form when you appear on BBC National Radio. :P


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Having read through the e-mails you have posted today I am left wondering what it is you are actually moaning about. All telephone providers except BT can choose which numbers and access codes they allow their customers to connect to.

My complaint is that Ofcom's idea of competition in telecoms services is seemingly one in which consumers are enslaved by a single telecoms supplier with whom they must make all their POTS type telephone calls for the next 12 or 18 months unless that supplier is BT.  All other suppliers are allowed to hook you in with just one headline cheap call rate while omitting crucial aspects of their tariff that make up the call costs such as minimum call connection fee, their charges to NTS numbers, charges to 118 numbers etc, etc. One of my particular beefs with yourcalls.net is that they fail to publish a complete tariff of all their call rates to potential customers and also try to withhold this information from their actual customers once you join them.

Unlike gas or electricty telephony is a switched service.  That being so I see no problem with paying one company to maintain the phone line who will enjoy a monopoly while I am a phone line rental customer but being able to switch each and every call I make with whomever I please.  In my view a line rental charge of around £11 per month (the most expensive for any utility in the UK by miles) should be more than enough for the line rental company to make a profit out of supplying and maintaining the line in its own right.  It should not expect to derive further revenue from me also routing all my calls with it, even when some of its rates are highly price uncompetitive.  With petrol I buy Petrol at Tesco today, Shell tomorrow and Esso the next day.  I do not find Shell compelling me to buy all my petrol from them for the next year as a condition for crossing the threshhold of one of its forecourts.  With other utility suppliers (or at least gas and electricity) by and large you can cut and run when you like, albeit that Ofgem allows an unreasonable 6 weeks or so for the transfer to complete but with fixed line telephony Ofcom has simply provided an oppprtunity for the big boys to enslave customers on rolling contracts who find it near impossible to leave, even when they get bad service.  I fail to see why you have such an issue with me expecting the telecoms market to be fully competitive and me thinking it perfectly reasonable that all rental suppliers be forced to offer Indirect Access.  We all know that BT is the only actual installer and maintainer of the non cable fixed line phone line network.  Its not as though these other WLR providers actually go and install their own phone exchanges or own phone lines.  OK possibly they do to some extent in full TalkTalk LLU areas but I don't live in one of those and nor do people living on about 4.000 of the UK's 5,500 telephone exchanges.


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You are free to leave YourCalls.net if its service offering no longer comes up to that which you desire. This is the principle of a free market where consumers choose their provider, a process which you are often quick to champion for telecommunications services.

No I am only free to be enslaved by a new supplier on a minimum 12 month contract on an old piece of copper wire laid by BT 18 years ago in which all the investment costs are long since amortised.  How is it justified for the network owner's retail subsidiary (BT Retail) to require me to sign up to it for at least 12 months if I return to it from Yourcalls when there is a zero cost in me returning to them and they make no investment in me in terms of equipment etc.  Ofcom have allowed a cosy cartel to grow up where they do not make long contracts illegal except where there is physical investment in hardware to support new customers on the exchange.  Their system is to allow a land grab by TalkTalk et al after which it is near impossible to leave (think of the costs of returning to BT from TalkTalk LLU).


Quote:

It is interesting to note that you regard the telephone line to your premises as yours. As someone who proclaims to have studied economics, I thought that you would understand that private companies have no obligation to enter into a service agreement with any consumer.

The phone line is owned by BT who have a Universal Service Obligation and the line is usually also many years old.  I fail to see why the switching functionality is any different when I merely sign up for an enhanced convenience version of CPS with another calls supplier called WLR.  As far as I know BT Openreach still get the same cash for maintaining the phone line infrastructure and the WLR company is not doing it so why should I still not be able to switch my calls with whoever I please :-? :-/

NGMsGhost wrote on Jul 14^th, 2009 at 10:43pm:

My complaint is that Ofcom's idea of competition in telecoms services is seemingly one in which consumers are enslaved by a single telecoms supplier with whom they must make all their POTS type telephone calls for the next 12 or 18 months unless that supplier is BT.  All other suppliers are allowed to hook you in with just one headline cheap call rate while omitting crucial aspects of their tariff that make up the call costs such as minimum call connection fee, their charges to NTS numbers, charges to 118 numbers etc, etc. One of my particular beefs with yourcalls.net is that they fail to publish a complete tariff of all their call rates to potential customers and also try to withhold this information from their actual customers once you join them.

"Enslaved"; I like it! I have visions of a newspaper cartoon starring Pooh Bear and his honey pot shaped telephone with Ofcom, played by the devil (and accompanied by BT) trying to steal it.  ;D

In essence, I agree that there are alot of unfair and sharp practices going on in the telecommunications industry, and revenue sharing numbers is just one (albeit a large one).