Had a surprising letter from O2 today, not addressed to any account holder in particular but stating that as from Sept 28th 08xx etc will no longer be covered in the inclusive minutes and all calls will cost 17p per minute. I rang O2 and they say that this includes all existing and new contracts.
I wonder how long it will be before existing domestic customers are also treated the same way.
No wonder so many companies have given up 0800 and moved to 0844.

Flutty wrote on Aug 28^th, 2007 at 10:12am:

Had a surprising letter from O2 today, not addressed to any account holder in particular but stating that as from Sept 28th 08xx etc will no longer be covered in the inclusive minutes and all calls will cost 17p per minute. I rang O2 and they say that this includes all existing and new contracts. I wonder how long it will be before existing domestic customers are also treated the same way. No wonder so many companies have given up 0800 and moved to 0844.

....and don't you just love the fact that the 0800 numbers are being charged the same price?

For the full tariff go to..

http://www.o2.co.uk/specialnumbers

Why, oh why are we being so stitched up?  >:(

There was a post on here not so long back saying that O2 normal monthly customers would not have inclusive non-geographic minutes. Obviously this is happening across the whole of O2...

Quote:

Why, oh why are we being so stitched up?

Because you all live in Treasure Island....... ;D

Flutty wrote on Aug 28^th, 2007 at 10:12am:

I wonder how long it will be before existing domestic customers are also treated the same way.

Already being told they will be charged. See:  http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1187347935

I daresay this has been said before but please bear with a newbie!....

From a purely business perspective, the situation with 0870 (and, to a degree, 0800) numbers is particularly irksome for mobile users who are forced to call many of these numbers.
As a heating engineer, I frequently need to call equipment suppliers, many of which use 087... probably for money-making reasons.  I also need to call National Grid (0800 111999) fairly often, sometimes in 'urgent' gas safety-related situations.
It's obviously annoying for me and my business that these calls are NOT charged on call-minutes, especially given that my phone tariff is carefully selected to give the 'right' number of call-minutes without any surcharges incurred.

I wonder whether any of my business partners will actually find any good reasons at all to adopt 03 numbers?  If so, I can't see what they are!

croydoncorgi wrote on Aug 31^st, 2007 at 11:57am:

... I also need to call National Grid (0800 111999) fairly often, sometimes in 'urgent' gas safety-related situations.

If you need to call freephone (0500/0800/0808) numbers from your mobile and they're not part of inclusive minutes, then use the dial through provider 020 0222 0700 or 020 0222 0900. These are normal London numbers and you should be able to program them into your phone's memory with the destination number, just insert a pause between the two. For example:

02002220900p0800111999

You might have to look in your phone's manual to find out which button is the pause. On Nokias you press * several times until 'p' appears.

croydoncorgi wrote on Aug 31^st, 2007 at 11:57am:

I also need to call National Grid (0800 111999) fairly often, sometimes in 'urgent' gas safety-related situations. It's obviously annoying for me and my business that these calls are NOT charged on call-minutes, especially given that my phone tariff is carefully selected to give the 'right' number of call-minutes without any surcharges incurred.

Why is this emergency number not part of the THA (Telephone Helplines Association) list of included numbers? (Come on you guys in Marshalsea Road, chase them up).