helloo.
i am new on this forum.i have been using this site for a long time.
i am annoyed today.i just got my phone bill[land line]/
not a lot of money,57 pounds.
i do ring ireland a lot.this explains the high monthly charge.
i am with cable,i pay £7 a month to have unlimited landlines calls within the uk.
i am finding more and more,i am having to ring these 0870 numbers.i always check here,but i appreciate this website may not always have an alternate number as they depend on information from the public.
why should i be forced to pay these unessessarry charges when i am suppose to have free or already paid for uk calls.
are these 0870s legal.
i am getting charged twice for some of my calls.
we live in the nth west area.
all the utility companies along with car insurance companies argos.
how has this situation come to be as such.
most companies we need to ring are charging us.
am i correct to say this is the only country in europe where this practice goes on.
i do know that it is non existant in ireland.
these type of companies over there generally have free phones, not the utility companies,but sales companies.
it is scandalous that it has come to this,we must pay twice for our telephone calls.
i am very annoyed tonight.

I'm afraid that you are incorrect in assuming that this practice does not exist anywhere else - the Republic of Ireland has 1850/1890 numbers that are charged at per call/"lo call" rate, and other European countries have "premium rate" numbers similar to 084x and 087x numbers here.

However, it is probably true that we are the only country where the use of premium rate numbers for general information and the such like by pretty much every company are so prolific.

strings wrote on Feb 15^th, 2008 at 12:08am:

i am annoyed today.i just got my phone bill[land line]/ not a lot of money,57 pounds. i do ring ireland a lot.this explains the high monthly charge.

Welcome to the SayNo forums strings.

Other than agree with you, I'm afraid I can't help you with 0870 numbers.

However, even with rip-off cable, you shouldn't be paying - see HERE - more than ½p per minute for your calls to Irish landlines.

strings wrote on Feb 15^th, 2008 at 12:08am:

am i correct to say this is the only country in europe where this practice goes on. i do know that it is non existant in ireland.

There are also non-geographic numbers in Ireland and many other countries, and they are also excluded from most landline and mobile inclusive minutes

For example, France has 0811 0820 0821 0826 0891 0892 costing from about 1.5 to 34 cents a minute. Fortunately, it's possible to use some mobiles here to  ring even the last one for 17 pence a minute.

Ireland's  1850 and 1890 numbers seem to be very difficult to call from outside the country; perhaps the best way is by using an Irish VoIP provider