[edit]The following posts were split from the Other e-petitions thread because they were off-topic[/edit]

......

To take the Passport example in detail, it was mentioned that it cost about £1 a minute to call a UK 0870 from abroad, and I suggested using it with a 18185 account off-peak could cost under 10 pence a minute [old Voda tariff, it is true]. I do not see how this can be described as stalking.

Since then, it appears that using O2 and a couple of other providers could allow these roaming calls (to 0870) to be made for as little as 3.3 pence a minute, or
by another method 6 pence peak, 4 pence weekends. That could be possible from a mobile in almost any country in the world, but certainly from nearly 100.

Clearly, my last post is now so edited as to be totally off-topic, but I cannot edit or delete it

It sometimes seems that remarks are unwelcome which point out that calling 0870 numbers from abroad is not as expensive as some people say.

I have asked one of the moderators to move that post to another thread.

There are plenty of other mobile tariffs that charge up to £1 per minute or more for calling 0870 though and treat them as non standard calls which you choose to continue to ignore.  Also most of your suggested cheaper methods involve avoiding calling with your phone provider's normal overseas tariff and so will not be used by 99% of those calling.

You may be able to call more cheaply with 01/02 dial through numbers with a service like 18185 (especially using Vodafone Passport where they will be charged at 75 per call instead of the normal Vodafone UK per minute charge on your tariff plus the 18185 call price per minute) but Vodafone may close down access to those dial through numbers at any moment and they are hardly the authorised normal calling route that most callers will use are they? ::)

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 25^th, 2007 at 10:52pm:

There are plenty of other mobile tariffs that charge up to £1 per minute or more for calling 0870 though and treat them as non standard calls which you choose to continue to ignore.  Also most of your suggested cheaper methods involve avoiding calling with your phone provider's normal overseas tariff and so will not be used by 99% of those calling. You may be able to call more cheaply with 01/02 dial through numbers with a service like 18185 (especially using Vodafone Passport where they will be charged at 75 per call instead of the normal Vodafone UK per minute charge on your tariff plus the 18185 call price per minute) but Vodafone may close down access to those dial through numbers at any moment and they are hardly the authorised normal calling route that most callers will use are they? ::)

Actually, there are no UK mobile networks whatsoever that have £1 a minute calls to 0870 when in this country

It was when the user 0870advice.com erroneously posted that 0870 calls cost as much as £1.20 a minute from mobiles here that I chose to correct that, in a post which pointed out that most mobile networks charge no more for 0870 than other landline numbers, and cheaper than other network mobiles;  the cheapest is OVP Virgin at 5 pence a minute after the first 5 minutes a day. There were several posts where bbb_uk and I discussed these tariffs

Then you introduced Vodafone Passport, saying that 0870 was not included, and did actuallly cost nearly £1 a minute from abroad, and I think I suggested 18185 right back then.

None of the methods I would suggest for calling from abroad involve standard roaming tariffs, but even these are almost all under £1 a minute from all EU countries, the cheapest being an O2 option at 25 pence a minute, or 35 pence without the option, or 3 roaming on a foreign 3 network is also cheap.

Anyone that pays attention to alternative methods of making cheaper roaming calls than the ordinary tariffs will have cheaper ways to call 0870 as well, so the bugbear is not really 0870 cost in these cases, but roaming.

But as I've suggested, I hope these posts will be moved elsewhere, and we might continue later, perhaps with more detailed suggestions.

Oddly, I've just discovered that the Finarea callback company ReturnCall has a 5 pence rate for 0870 at the moment, but 9 pence for 0845.

My comments all relate to the cost of calling 0870 from outside the UK although I do know that TMobile charge 12p per minute to all UK 01/02 numbers and mobile numbers at all times but 40p per minute to all 084/7 numbers at all times.  So your contention that 0870 is not always charged at a large premium on mobile phones within the UK is not always accurate.

As to calling in the EU you can call back to 01/02 numbers and mobile numbers with Vodafone for 75p per call on Vodafone Passport and then use your bundled minutes or pay from as little as 5p per minute on some of their Pay As You Go tariffs (eg SmartPlus) OffPeak and at weekends.  But calling an 0870 number will cost 99p per minute at all times.  Just 1p per minute less than £1 per minute.

So there is still major price inflation for these calls in many situations that cannot be justified by the underlying additional costs to the mobile operator concerned.  However you choose to find the examples where this does not happen largely because you appear to enjoy gainsaying people and trying to prove that you are cleverer than them.  Your contrasts are not balanced because they do not include all possible situations.

We have two choices - argue or try to find solutions

Whilst objecting to 0870 numbers, we might also mitigate the costs by finding the cheapest way to call them, from a range of places.

I think I said most, not all, and the previous discussion has the daft T-mobile 40p rate you mention.

The last remarks are unnecessarily personal and inaccurate anyway. Do we want to be clever at finding cheaper phone calls or ignore those to concentrate only on stronger objection?

andy9 wrote on Feb 25^th, 2007 at 11:46pm:

Actually, there are no UK mobile networks whatsoever that have £1 a minute calls to 0870 when in this country It was when the user 0870advice.com erroneously posted that 0870 calls cost as much as £1.20 a minute from mobiles here that I chose to correct that, in a post which pointed out that most mobile networks charge no more for 0870 than other landline numbers, and cheaper than other network mobiles;  the cheapest is OVP Virgin at 5 pence a minute after the first 5 minutes a day. There were several posts where bbb_uk and I discussed these tariffs...

We did.

They're currently no mobile networks (PAYG or contract) that charge anywhere near a £1 to call an 0870 whilst in the UK.

I believe the highest charge is 40p/min to call 084x/087x numbers from their PAYG tariffs.  T-mobile used to have a page for "specialised numbers" which is no more I'm afraid.  In my FoI requests, I point out that calls to 08x from mobiles can be upto 40p/min from some mobile networks.

Andy9 is also correct when he stated that it was originally 0870advice that incorrectly reported that mobile networks charge upto £1.

As for the cost of calling 084x/087x from outside the UK, I cannot comment on that as I have no idea how much is charged.

NGM, can you provide a link or something that states that mobile networks do charge nearly £1 for calls to 0870 whilst roaming?

Remember that the costs of roaming are high anyhow and is being investigated by the Eurpopean Commission (note how it's not being investigated by Ofcom or anyone in this country?)

Vodafone's web page for Passport suggests you will only be charged 75p flat rate per call plus your usual back home UK tariff rate for calling a UK number (including any bundled minutes that may cover the call).

See www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?do=cost.home&me=a1&nu=1&le=1&costs=true for Passport prices from Spain

However call and ask to speak to one of their technical experts and eventually on a dusty shelf not disclosed on their website they will find that 084/7 calls are excluded from Passport and charges at 75p per minute at all times.  It used to be 99p last year but I see they have reduced it to 75p per minute no doubt to tie up with the 75p flat rate for calling 01/02 numbers or perhaps just to keep Commissioner Reding a little less unhappy.

See www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?do=cost.home&me=a1&nu=1&le=1&costs=true for the price of calls for non Passport registered customers calling the UK from Spain or when calling numbers not covered by Passport (eg 080/084/087)

Outrageously nowhere on the Passport web page does it admit 084/7 calls are not part of the deal.  You have to call customer services and ask to speak to their technical department to find that they are excluded.  The initial call advisers in customer services are not trained on this matter and will usually give the impression that Passport does in fact cover 084/7. Even their main Passport page does not mention this:-

See www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?do=cost.passport&me=a1&nu=1&le=1&sn=s7

But tucked away on another link from the main Passport page are the more detailed Terms and conditions for Passport:-

www.abroad.vodafone.co.uk/index.cfm?do=cost.passport&me=a1&nu=1&le=1&sn=s7&tandc=true

Note especially clause 7 which says
Quote:

"Vodafone Passport applies to voice calls made back to the United Kingdom or within the visited country and excludes calls to other countries, premium rate numbers and all data transfers (including text messages)"

. But one imagines that most customers would wrongly not realise that 084/7 numbers are in fact Premium Rate as Vodafone quite clearly here reveals them to be.

Truly stunning that Vodafone can attempt to mislead their customers about the cost of 084/7 calls being charged at only a one off flat rate 75p Passport surcharge to this extent.  And I suppose no chance of complaining to the ASA as its on a web page. :o >:( :'(

When NGM first mentioned this, I wondered if and mentioned the possibility that the phone had roamed on to another network than Vodafone or its partner, partly as he also said something about incoming calls being charged when called from some sources.

Having spent a considerable time on the phone to Vodafone, including maliciously being put on hold for 10 minutes then connected to a fax machine, and a separate query about unpublished changes in terms and conditions that were misapplied and caused a payt SIM to be disconnected only a few weeks after the last charged call, I must say that I entirely sympathise with any observation that Vodafone is trenchantly opposed to dealing helpfully with queries about these numbers; two supervisors instructed call centre staff to tell me that I should ask the destination company to tell me Vodafone tariffs, and one idiot said I should ask the Government.

I have been told exactly the same as what NGM says, except additionally with a 75p connect fee even though this is not on a Passport tariff (it was the person I asked to explain this who zapped me with the fax machine at the end of my third period on hold). The trouble is that I have been told about four other things as well, mostly mutually conflicting like 35p, 36p, 43p, 75p, 89p (75 + vat).

Clearly this is mostly a Vodafone policy issue rather than inherent in 0870 numbers themselves, and I can't be bothered to decide if this obstructionism is deliberate or negligent, or waste more time getting answers that I'd have no faith in. I'd repeat the work-around advice on using 18185 or a calling card, not only for 0870, but also concatenating a series of short calls to save Passport connection fees.

Other UK network's roaming charges have been the same whether to landline, mobile or non-geographic numbers, but as these are now getting cheaper maybe some differences will start to appear - for example 3 can use contract or payg add-on bundled inclusive minutes when roaming on 3 networks, but 0870 numbers are not included.

Cheaper roaming possibilities apply as much to non-geo numbers as any other. On the Manx SIMs for example, 08... numbers are between landline and mobile tariffs, so it is worth looking at forwarding or callthrough 0871 numbers.

And using separate callback is cheaper with any of the global SIMs. For a trip of a couple of weeks or so, people might look at O2's My Europe Extra and exploit the free incoming calls by using it with callback

andy9 wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 1:30pm:

Clearly this is mostly a Vodafone policy issue rather than inherent in 0870 numbers themselves, and I can't be bothered to decide if this obstructionism is deliberate or negligent, or waste more time getting answers that I'd have no faith in.

It seems to be deliberate policy by Vodafone to have hidden massive charges that customers don't know about where they make a lot of their profit.   This also reflects badly on Ofcom and its ineffectiveness in enforcing the EU Misleading Advertising Directive or generally making sure consumers know the costs of all calls before they make them.  Vodafone know that Ofcom are a hopelessly inept poodle on this kind of issue and that nothing will happen if they try to pull a fast one.  Also one can try to email the UK CEO but the whole matter is simply fobbed off for reply to some clueless customer service adviser.  Its clear to me that in this case Vodafone is hiding its ripoff 0870 charges deliberately behind the general description of "premium rate", which most telcos, including Vodafone, normally maintain to the death that 084/7 are not.

Vodafone's enthusiasm for hiding call costs for a PAYG customer is pretty relentless and if your call credit drops £30 overseas in a way that does not seem related to calls made or received all they will grudgingly send is an almost indecipherable computer spew from their mainframe system where it is near impossible to make out the numbers called or the call length as its just one long spew of data separated by things like > and < signs.   There is no excuse for Vodafone not letting PAYG customers see online the cost of all calls they have made over say the last 3 months clearly itemised call by call.  This is all seems to be done so that PAYG customers don't know which call costs are higher rated and thus costing them most of their calling credit.

When I received a call in Spain last summer and the phone had temporarily roamed on to another network and so was excluded from Passport, and therefore charged at 99p per minute, there was no way to tell from the phone display at the moment of ringing (which only showed the incoming CLI) that the phone had roamed on to a  non Vodafone network.  Only very grudgingly after several calls to supervisor level did Vodafone finally refund me the £10 or so call cost.

I am sure Commissioner Reding would have plenty to say about this kind of blatant consumer misselling by these large faceless corporates.  Most of them say one thing about customer service and do another in my long suffering experience.

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 2:45pm:

When I received a call in Spain last summer and the phone had temporarily roamed on to another network and so was excluded from Passport, and therefore charged at 99p per minute, there was no way to tell from the phone display at the moment of ringing (which only showed the incoming CLI) that the phone had roamed on to a  non Vodafone network.  Only very grudgingly after several calls to supervisor level did Vodafone finally refund me the £10 or so call cost.

Without Passport, it does now look like the most expensive, but fortunately they extended the country range. Make sure the network is manually selected  

If you're planning more trips there, you might look at O2 as well, or local SIM cards.

O2's single-country Spain option means for a £5 a month fee, incoming calls are free, outgoing 25p. Then use callback for outgoing calls less than that.

Or amongst local SIMs, Vodafone has a 60 for 1 minutes option, useful with a calling card local access, Orange has a pack that includes its own calling card with very modest international calls, etc ...

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/spain.html

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1548

~ Edited by Dave: Quote box tidied up

The problem is that the game constantly changes in terms of the cheapest call method to use.  I got a Riing (now United Mobile) SIM but mobile call prices to Liechtenstein seem to creep ever higher and 10p per minute is now only available through the Dial Thru providers who in practice always cost more than the 10p per minute due to failed calls, especially as call routing to Liechtnestein mobiles is notoriously flakey and unreliable.

Its still impossible to use a notebook PC on a GSM or 3G connection in Spain at a sane price as far as I am aware unless perhaps you get a contract on a Spanish mobile network.  The only affordable method is to log on to unsecured wifi network access points, the legality of which is more than a little dubious.

This is very interesting now.  It seems the cost of ringing these numbers is unknown by Vodafone staff themselves.

In all fairness to Vodafone, I believe its probably the same across the board of mobile network providers.

The cheapest method by far would be to get a sim card from a network that operates in the country you're visiting then I assume?  This and telling people not to ring you whilst you're abroad and you'll ring them instead is the better solution?

My sister went abroad last year and instead of texting me, she actually sent MMS instead because it was actually cheaper to MMS (plain text) than to actually send a text message.  This proves that the mobile networks are deliberatly increasing costs more then they need to because the cost of an MMS is more than a text except for when you're abroad that is.  The reason for that is because mobile networks know that many people call/text than use MMS so they artifically increase the price of their calls/texts instead.

bbb_uk wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 9:27pm:

This is very interesting now.  It seems the cost of ringing these numbers is unknown by Vodafone staff themselves.

I believe it's not because they don't know, but because they have not been trained and/or are provided with relevant information and may well affect many telcos and not just Vodafone. The industry seems to be built on charging for things and not making clear what it costs at the outset. So you ring up and are told one thing. If you are lucky enough to have a hard copy of your calls, do many of those who have been lied to chase it up?

I also concur with andy9's suggestion that NGMsGhost probably either registered with a foreign network that doesn't support Vodafone Passport, either having switched it on and let it find the first/best network it can find or because it switched networks after it registered with the correct network. I therefore suggest that it's worth looking in the phone's menu under the network options.

Dave wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 9:33pm:

I also concur with andy9's suggestion that NGMsGhost probably either registered with a foreign network that doesn't support Vodafone Passport, either having switched it on and let it find the first/best network it can find or because it switched networks after it registered with the correct network. I therefore suggest that it's worth looking in the phone's menu under the network options.

I think that's probably whats happened as well.  Vodafone are very specific about which vodafone partners you can use with Vodafone passport and most people have their phone set to automatic.  I believe vodafone know this but it's not in their favour to ensure people set their phones to manual and therefore manually select the network which is compatible with Vodafone Passport.

Basically, another con to make consumers think they're getting a really good/cheaper deal but has a lot of (mostly unknown) t&c associated with it - main one being that it only works on very specific foreign networks (mostly vodafone I think as well).

bbb_uk wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 9:27pm:

In all fairness to Vodafone, I believe its probably the same across the board of mobile network providers. The cheapest method by far would be to get a sim card from a network that operates in the country you're visiting then I assume?  This and telling people not to ring you whilst you're abroad and you'll ring them instead is the better solution? .

To be fair to NGM, I think you guys are leaping a bit too far to say I might be right, as it seems impossible to be sure - that was my starting suggestion, but having spoken to Vodafone at length, the strongest possibility is that that is indeed the ludicrous way they charge these calls

But in fairness to the other providers, only Vodafone does this.

I know for absolute fact that O2 and Orange have charged the same for calls to landlines, mobiles, and NGNs, as I already said, and I am pretty sure that T-mobile will do likewise.

I would take 3 as a special case as where it has free roaming, call packages may be used which never included NGNs anyway, outside inclusive packages, calls are  25p, and I would expect that for 0870 as well.

As for what are the cheapest options .... in some countries, there are SIM cards with excellent rates for international calls, such as Blauworld in Germany, Lebara in a few countries. I don't know their tariffs for UK NGNs though, but my guess would be the same as UK mobiles.

Other places, you'd use a SIM with cheap local calls together with a calling card. But most of all, look into callback options whether with global roaming or local SIMs, or with any  new free roaming options that turn up, like O2 My Europe Extra

By the way, Vodafone has Passport partners now in all EU countries as well as the other foreign Vodafone networks, perhaps the most surprising being T-mobile Slovakia, which should be the clue that all the networks can and should cut roaming charges, as shown by 3 and O2 moves already this year.

andy9 wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 10:39pm:

But in fairness to the other providers, only Vodafone does this. I know for absolute fact that O2 and Orange have charged the same for calls to landlines, mobiles, and NGNs, as I already said, and I am pretty sure that T-mobile will do likewise.

So does this mean most other networks charge the same for NGNs as they do geographical calls whilst roaming or that they charge the same amount as they do for calls within the UK?

bbb_uk wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 8:08pm:

So does this mean most other networks charge the same for NGNs as they do geographical calls whilst roaming or that they charge the same amount as they do for calls within the UK?

I hope it's pretty clear that each of my posts in this thread is talking about roaming - so far, when abroad those networks have not had tariff distinction between UK landlines, mobiles and NGNs, just as UK-outward international calls on contract tariffs have not yet distinguished between landline mobile and reachable NGNs like France 0892

andy9 wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 9:12pm:

I hope it's pretty clear that each of my posts in this thread is talking about roaming - so far, when abroad those networks have not had tariff distinction between UK landlines, mobiles and NGNs, just as UK-outward international calls on contract tariffs have not yet distinguished between landline mobile and reachable NGNs like France 0892

My fault, I wasn't clear.

I'm aware that you're referring to prices whilst abroad but what I was getting at was are the prices from o2, etc the same as calling a geographical number whilst abroad (ie no distinction) or are they charged extra like NGNs are charged extra when called within the UK.

So far, the other networks have not had differing tariffs for UK-bound calls while roaming.

But if they want to get more competitive, it should surely be on the cards as a possibility