These seem to be under-reported yet they are easily confused with mobile numbers.  I inadvertently called one and was charged 68p for 19 secs.  Does anyone have any more info about them?

This site may help you understand the 070 numbers......

pickaweb.co.uk/070-numbers.htm

Already discussed here, here, here and here.

A previous consultation discussed here.

One of the things which reminded me about 070 numbers was an e-mail I received from Trufree today and I see someone has already cited them.  As they are a large organisation, last year they merged with Dietary Specials and Schar, it hardly seems legal that they are using this number.  I have alerted people to this on the gluten free message board too.

Hi Helen01, and welcome to the blog.

070 is an wicked number and looks to most like a “normal” mobile phone number.

This number has been allowed by the regulator and has grown into a lucrative number for fraudsters. Anyone with an ounce of common sense should have realise that this would happen and not produced such a number range. The regulator (Ofcom) are now proposing a “solution”, but as usual are taking ages to sort it out.

sherbert wrote on Sep 18^th, 2007 at 5:05pm:

This site may help you understand the 070 numbers.....pickaweb.co.uk/070-numbers.htm

Interesting how the icons used for the number ranges are the same as those at www.dmclub.co.uk

Do you suppose the two organisations are by any chance in some way related. ;) ::)

Helen01 wrote on Sep 18^th, 2007 at 3:49pm:

These seem to be under-reported yet they are easily confused with mobile numbers.  I inadvertently called one and was charged 68p for 19 secs.  Does anyone have any more info about them?

Helen,

The 070 "Personal Number"range is another example of the massive failure by the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, who are supposed to be there to look out for the best interests of the UK citizen and the UK consumer but in fact seem to behave like a trade association and to be in bed with the telcos to let them come up with endless wheezes to rip off the consumer.

070 numbers are clearly in reality a form of 09 premium rate number since they are charged at up to 50p per minute on a landline and heaven knows how much more on a mobile where some operators seem to think they can multiply the landline charge to a Personal Number by 3, even though the extra cost of letting you call on the mobile is surely only the landline personal number rate plus your normal charge on that mobile from a mobile to a landline.  These numbers are most notoriously used by a firm called Patientline to charge the relatives of sick people in hospital 49p per minute in the day to call them on their bedside phones.  And they even make you waste 2 or 3 minutes not talking to your relative having to queue to find out what extension they are on and be connected.

I'm afraid it gets worse as there are now companies like www.united-mobile.com who offer you a SIM card for your mobile with a +44 79 number that looks just like a UK mobile and that they sell as being a UK mobile number  on the basis that you can receive calls with no incoming fee in loads of countries around the EU and the rest of the world.  But what they don't tell you is that the number is actually  a Jersey mobile number so that if you use the number in the UK your friends will find calls to you are not in their bundled mobile minutes and are costing up to 50p or so a minute for a call they might think they were making out of their 750 minutes a month or whatever.  Again it is a disgrace that the regulator Ofcom does not force Jersey to have its own separate country code (as they do fro car registrations and even internet domains) and even if they are to allow a +44 mobile number they should have used un unallocated number range prefix like 04 or 06 so no one could possibly think they were calling a normal UK mobile.

The only way to get action is to write to your MP using www.writetothem.com pointing out how you lost out on 070 numbers and saying you feel Ofcom is failing in its principal duty under Section 3(i) the Communications Act 2003 to protect the interests of the UK citizen consumer.   Tell your MP you want to have your complaint against Ofcom referred to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for investigation.  Mind you in order to do that you need to complain to Ofcom first about the hidden extra 070 charges that they are not publicising and get one of their usual fob off responses and then after that you are entitled to go to your MP.

I hope this helps.  Good luck.

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 19^th, 2007 at 7:22pm:

Interesting how the icons used for the number ranges are the same as those at www.dmclub.co.uk Do you suppose the two organisations are by any chance in some way related. ;) ::)

The first is reselling the second, and not concealing the fact, as a click on the page would show


NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 19^th, 2007 at 7:40pm:

Helen01 wrote on Sep 18th, 2007 at 3:49pm: These seem to be under-reported yet they are easily confused with mobile numbers.  I inadvertently called one and was charged 68p for 19 secs.  Does anyone have any more info about them? Helen, The 070 "Personal Number"range is another example of the massive failure by the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, [...] 070 numbers are clearly in reality a form of 09 premium rate number since they are charged at up to 50p per minute on a landline and heaven knows how much more on a mobile where some operators seem to think they can multiply the landline charge to a Personal Number by 3, [...] I'm afraid it gets worse as there are now companies like www.united-mobile.com who offer you a SIM card for your mobile with a +44 79 number that looks just like a UK mobile and that they sell as being a UK mobile number  on the basis that you can receive calls with no incoming fee in loads of countries around the EU and the rest of the world.  But what they don't tell you is that the number is actually  a Jersey mobile number so that if you use the number in the UK your friends will find calls to you are not in their bundled mobile minutes and are costing up to 50p or so a minute for a call they might think they were making out of their 750 minutes a month or whatever.  Again it is a disgrace that the regulator Ofcom does not force Jersey to have its own separate country code (as they do fro car registrations and even internet domains) and even if they are to allow a +44 mobile number they should have used un unallocated number range prefix like 04 or 06 so no one could possibly think they were calling a normal UK mobile.

It's mostly history, rather than calculated rip-off, that has been overlooked for much too long now. When 070 numbers first launched, they were about the same 50 pence a minute as mobile calls, but they've been stuck in a time warp ever since.

In fact, I'm told there were mobile contracts available that still included them even as recently as under 3 years ago, though this was unknown to the network in question and an oversight carried through from earlier. I've heard of 50p though, rather than 3 times that as suggested, but I'm not doing any tests, and quite a few of them are actually barred anyway.

There isn't supposed to be revenue sharing, but anyone claiming that for Patientline would probably find themself confined.
__

As for the complete veer off-topic ...

Sorry, but complaining about United Mobile is over the top, and doesn't really belong on this forum. For nearly 3 years they've had free incoming roaming in plenty of countries, and much lower outgoing charges, and you've presumably taken plenty of advantage.

It's hardly their fault what the UK networks charge in proportion to the actual wholesale rates. It does come from some inclusive minutes. There are quite a few other UK mobile prefixes that the same questions apply to, but getting info from customer services is certainly difficult, and one or two aspects of the large companies' behaviour look unattractive.

But, NGM, as you'll know more about the tariffs available than the perhaps less phone-savvy people you'll give your number to, surely it would be quite sociable for you to tell those friends that it won't come from their inclusive minutes, or even set up for yourself the kind of call diversion you would presumably have had for the Liechtenstein number. As you could call home for pennies a minute, it won't be a hardship to incur that for incoming call diversions as well.

As for the suggestion that it's a disgrace that Jersey isn't a separate country for telecoms purposes ....... the best moment has gone, but perhaps +444 Guernsey, +445 Jersey, +446 Isle of Man could have been done quite easily when the rest of us had the leading 1s added or changed to 2something, conveniently even including the then existing landline allocations and allowing plenty of expansion for mobiles

If Jersey were totally split off now with a totally new country code as you seem to suggest, their landlines  would be out of range of much of the world for a while, hundreds of thousands of these SIMs might be redundant, and the best mobile rates might quite possibly soon have a run on them like other small countries - have you not noticed what has been happening to termination fees for Liechtenstein recently? AND, then they would certainly never come out of UK's inclusive minutes, whereas at the moment there is scope.

If you won't invest a fraction of your time explaining the product's benefits to people who have little idea what this bit was about, and telling people how to use it or call to it cheaply, instead of moaning off-target in this instance at Ofcom rather than the main UK mobile networks, then please leave it for the people who do want to use it.

andy9 wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2007 at 1:57am:

In fact, I'm told there were mobile contracts available that still included them even as recently as under 3 years ago, though this was unknown to the network in question and an oversight carried through from earlier.

I believe you're right. I vaguely recall having a One2One contract that included at least some 070 calls. The ones I remember were FlexTel numbers, perhaps beginning 07010 or 07020.

The key point is that we pay some very high salaries indeed to people at Ofcom to keep on top of the UK numbering systems and not to release price controls where there are anti-competitive forces in the marketplace and they have completely failed us on this matter.

Its clear those most consumers have not a clue about many obscure codes in the UK numbering system and are ripped off as a result.  This is the fault of Ofcom which controls the numbering system and has a duty to educate the public about it.  Again it is also Ofcom's fault that many PAYG mobile phone operators do not have to provide call itemisation to customers, even on line, where there would be no significant running costs.  Not making this information available allows the public to be ripped off on expensive calls they do not even know are costing them a fortune.

Ofcom has not even publicised the launch of the 03 number range as a result of which most companies are incorrectly publicising the call cost and/or are still failing to interconnect to it.

As to United Mobile my complain is that their marketing claims they are now offering UK 079 mobile numbers when they are not and are offering Jersey mobile numbers that attract a higher call charge in a variety of situations than a UK mobile.   Jersey is not part of the UK on almost any normal definition.  It does share an army and a monarch with the UK however (but then so does Liechtenstein with Switzerland and Monaco with France).

idb wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2007 at 3:01am:

andy9 wrote on Sep 22nd, 2007 at 1:57am: In fact, I'm told there were mobile contracts available that still included them even as recently as under 3 years ago, though this was unknown to the network in question and an oversight carried through from earlier.   I believe you're right. I vaguely recall having a One2One contract that included at least some 070 calls. The ones I remember were FlexTel numbers, perhaps beginning 07010 or 07020.

Yep, and someone told me that even when T-mobile stopped including them, it survived elsewhere for a bit.

When I first got a Liechtenstein mobile, for a few days I could see some prospect of using an 070 number to forward calls to there from inclusive minutes ....... but the number was barred.


NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2007 at 8:59am:

The key point is that we pay some very high salaries indeed to people at Ofcom to keep on top of the UK numbering systems and not to release price controls where there are anti-competitive forces in the marketplace and they have completely failed us on this matter. Its clear those most consumers have not a clue about many obscure codes in the UK numbering system and are ripped off as a result.  This is the fault of Ofcom which controls the numbering system and has a duty to educate the public about it.   As to United Mobile my complain is that their marketing claims they are now offering UK 079 mobile numbers when they are not and are offering Jersey mobile numbers that attract a higher call charge in a variety of situations than a UK mobile.   Jersey is not part of the UK on almost any normal definition.  It does share an army and a monarch with the UK however (but then so does Liechtenstein with Switzerland and Monaco with France).

No need to digress even more, about call itemisation and 03 numbers. Information on call charges is available all over the place. Ofcom is hardly obliged to send regular newsletters to the whole country.

It isn't hard for you to amke an effort when you tell your friends your new number, rather than invoke the ludicrously bureaucratic suggestion that hundreds of thousands of people change their numbers. The previous Liechtenstein number never came from your inclusive minutes anyway, but now people can for instance call you from a landline as cheap as 3 to 6 pence a minute.

Examination of information on the United Mobile website disproves your claims about their marketing. The product is for people all over the world, for whom these issues do not apply, so it is not so surprising that there is nothing whatsoever there that supports your allegations.

www.united-mobile.com/cms/website/index.php?lang=2&idcatside=27

and
www.united-mobile.com/cms/website/index.php?lang=2&idcatside=86


Quote:

Frequently asked questions Q: Do I really need to order a new card? A: We advise you to order a new card free of charge as the UM+ card allows you to make calls for 0.29 Euro. Q: What is an upgrade? A: The upgrade is changing your +423 number for +44, with the new UM+ card. ... Q: What are the advantages of a new card over the old one? A: Cheaper prices from 0.29 Euro and a more attractive +44 code. Q: Where (in which country) is my number located? A: +44 is the country code for Jersey/Great Britain

- ok, they don't specify +447937 or +447509 there , but ...


Quote:

Q: How much does it cost for people to call me on my United Mobile number? A: The costs for calls to your United Mobile number depend on the provider of the caller. For accurate information contact the provider and ask for the rates to call a mobile from Jersey/Great Britian.

NGM, I think that advice is as clear as it could possibly ever be (even with the typing error), and I suggest you follow it.

Please do not get so carried away with these flights of rhetoric as to claim that this company is withholding information or deceiving us. It looks rather more like you are doing that to this forum's readers.

As for the armies and monarchs of Liechtenstein and Monaco, your misapprehensions here are rather more obvious.

andy9 wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2007 at 10:29am:

No need to digress even more, about call itemisation and 03 numbers.

# Inflamatory content removed - again !! ~ DaveM

Your posting style?

Why don't you stop posting lies about this company?

I haven't posted any lies.

Their marketing material clearly states they are providing a UK mobile number when they are not.  They are providing a Jersey mobile number that merely happens to share the same +44 country code as UK mobiles but is not charged the same way in many circumstances.

I would anticipate call prices to these numbers will go the same way as Liechtenstein mobiles shortly as the call code can be differentiated and charged differently by UK operators. This will happen once they realise how much extra the calls are costing them.  Not least with 18185.

It does not. I have already posted links and direct quotes from their website which very clearly indeed say Jersey and recommend people investigate their own providers' call rates.

I cannot believe the fuss you are making about a product given to you free of charge, with a drop in both their own tariffs and the prospects for most people reaching them.

You adduce nothing but conjecture and guesswork.

Anticipation is not fact, and no such changes have happened in respect of similar other numbers for more than two years. Nor should they necessarily, and you have no knowledge of wholesale costs experienced by a range of providers.

But your proposal to change it to a different country would risk making the prospect much more realisable.

Please concentrate your displeasure on the right target and canvass your own network to include the calls in your inclusive minutes.