I have been using 18185 for ages but recently have been having problems dialling mobiles. After getting the price message I get another message sayint "There are insufficient funds in your account to make this call" I am calling a UK mobile located in the UK. Has any oneelse had this experience?

~ Edited by Dave: Thread title amended

Yes - same here, Reggie

Also call quality on 18185 has recently been poor - long delays between dialing and ring tone, 'number not recognised' recording when I did dial correctly (stored number)

Any techie person know what's going on?

I wonder whether the fact that"moneysavingexpert" gave them a big plug on his TV programme last week means that they are now overloaded!

I wasn't aware of the problem but am glad my Orchid is programmed to use 18866 for UK 01/02/03 calls (although it still sends calls to Spain and our occasional calls to UK mobiles via 18185).

They are experiencing network congestion see last couple of posts in this thread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=90711&page=13

I had a very distressing case of a correctly dialled call to my Mum's mobile phone (she has recently been in hospital for a hip replacement) using 18185 misrouting to another telephone without me realising this was the case a few weeks ago.

Basically my Mum wasn't available on her home number but as she still couldn't drive after the op she was unlikely to have gone out.  She was out at 1pm which could still have been a friend taking her out to lunch so I tried again at 3.30pm.  No reply on the landline so I called her mobile with 18185.  The call rang and was answered by a rough sounding man but I asked if my mother was there by her first name.  He said "hang on" and put the phone down and then talked to a woman and she said "is that the son" and there was further discussion while what sounded like a huge slavering Alsatian or Rottweiler barked fiercely and constantly in the background.  At the same time the sound of Bloomberg television could be heard and this didn't tally at all with the very rough couple I heard talking to one another.

The chap left the phone on the table or something and there was then the continued sound of the fearsome hound barking.  For all the world it sounded like my Mum's house had been broken in to and they had knocked her over the head or tied her up while she was watching Bloomberg tv (which she does watch as a keen stocks and shares person).

In the end it was obvious the chap was not coming back so I hung up and redialled but the first time and all times after that the phone went on to my mum's voicemail.  I then checked what happened by calling my own mobile from my landline if the caller on the landline suddenly hung up while the mobile phone was still receiving the call - answer the call on the mobile immediately ends and returns to standby condition waiting for calls.  I tried my Mum's mobile again - still going on to voicemail .  In the end in a panic I drove to my Mum's house (an hour's drive away) fearing the worst to find her sitting in her chair in the living room watching tv.  It seems she had been out for a long lunch with friends.

I logged in to and checked my 18185 account.  I had called her number correctly as it was shown on the call history at the time I called with a 5 minute long call (the length of time I listened to barking dogs etc for).  But it had clearly misrouted to another mobile phone or possibly just another landline phone.  But with 18185 there is no way at all to get something like this investigated because they do not answer customer emails.

You have been warned.  If a 18185 call reaches someone other than the person you dialled it 18185 getting it wrong and not you!

reggie wrote on Apr 9^th, 2008 at 9:14am:

I have been using 18185 for ages but recently have been having problems dialling mobiles. After getting the price message I get another message sayint "There are insufficient funds in your account to make this call" I am calling a UK mobile located in the UK. Has any oneelse had this experience?

Were you calling a Virgin mobile, by any chance? Some people calling them from abroad have had this message, and I'm thinking 18185 may also be serving the calls from outside the UK.

I've also had a couple of the other problems described here, not from 18185 but from Voipcheap, sometimes connected straight away to somewhere I can vaguely hear voices in the background.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience to me with 18185, I dial a mobile number, a English speaking foreign voice answers, says Hello........a few seconds pass, says Yes........a few seconds pass, says Hold On.......and then you wait, you hear a TV in the background, dog barking and you wait........and wait..............at whatever the pence per minute charge is. This has happened to me 6 or 7 times now, I have started to say nothing when the voice answers the phone and the same "Hello Yes Hold On" is said.
The first couple of times it happened I presumed I had dialed the wrong number, then as my suspicions grew I started to press the redial button on my phone. When I press the redial button I always connected to the correct number I origionally wanted so I had not misdialed. This is clearly a recording designed to keep you waiting on hold at 6ppm. Somehow I think the calls are being misrouted but we are being charged. I am not saying that 18185 are doing anything underhand but something does seem suspicious, has any other 18185 users had a similar problem?
Many Thanks
Werlynne

Werlynne wrote on Apr 18^th, 2008 at 10:46am:

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience to me with 18185, I dial a mobile number, a English speaking foreign voice answers, says Hello........a few seconds pass, says Yes........a few seconds pass, says Hold On.......and then you wait, you hear a TV in the background, dog barking and you wait........and wait..............at whatever the pence per minute charge is. This has happened to me 6 or 7 times now, I have started to say nothing when the voice answers the phone and the same "Hello Yes Hold On" is said.

If you read the previous post I made two posts above yours you will see I had exactly the same experience as you with the same barking dog and tv in the background but the consequence was more distressing (thought burglars were in mother's house) and more costly (about £25 fuel and wear and tear on my car and 2 hours driving).

It appears that 18185 may be persistently misrouting calls to this same wrong number with the mysterious barking dog and blaring television.  If you check your online 18185 accouny history you can get absolute proof that you dialled the call connecting to the barking dog correctly.

Time for a complaint to 18185 but I give only a 1% chance of them bothering to reply. :o >:(

At this very moment I'm talking to someone on the phone, not a member here, who has had the same thing a few times, the dog, the TV in the background, etc

And I've seen comment in a couple of other forums to the  same effect

It's must be recording, but who knows why? Probably not 18185 themselves, but their suppliers, as I've had the same from Voipcheap

andy9 wrote on Apr 18^th, 2008 at 11:47pm:

At this very moment I'm talking to someone on the phone, not a member here, who has had the same thing a few times, the dog, the TV in the background, etc And I've seen comment in a couple of other forums to the  same effect

At this very moment Ofcom is pursuing new enforcement efforts against telecoms operators failing to comply with their requirement to belong to an Alternate Dispite Resolution Scheme (Otelo or CISAS) so in view of these alarming problems with calls via the Finarea call products to mobiles and their continued failure to ever reply to any customer complaints (even about serious matters like this) it is clearly high time to encourage Ofcom to take enforcement action against the Finarea group brands.  I did this previously with their then Director of Investigations (David Stewart) but Ofcom seemed to not bother to take any action.  Their latest announcement seems to indicate a more proactive program by Ofcom in enforcing this matter.

See www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2008/03/nr_20080331b

Now I expect andy9 that you will as usual conform to type and say that if these call routing methods are cheap you don't care about them complying with the law etc, etc but this is actually a very serious fault in their call routing system that is clearly affecting hundreds of callers a week and Finarea's consumer interface methods are sufficiently non existent that nothing is done about it.  The nearest alternatives for calling mobiles to Finarea do not cost that much more and if they can't comply with regulations while providing the service then they don't deserve to be in business.

I await the inevitable brickbat from the usual quarter in this forum. ::)

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2008 at 12:31am:

At this very moment Ofcom is pursuing new enforcement efforts against telecoms operators failing to comply with their requirement to belong to an Alternate Dispite Resolution Scheme (Otelo or CISAS) so in view of these alarming problems with calls via the Finarea call products to mobiles and their continued failure to ever reply to any customer complaints (even about serious matters like this) it is clearly high time to encourage Ofcom to take enforcement action against the Finarea group brands.  I did this previously with their then Director of Investigations (David Stewart) but Ofcom seemed to not bother to take any action.  Their latest announcement seems to indicate a more proactive program by Ofcom in enforcing this matter. See www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2008/03/nr_20080331b Now I expect andy9 that you will as usual conform to type and say that if these call routing methods are cheap you don't care about them complying with the law etc, etc but this is actually a very serious fault in their call routing system that is clearly affecting hundreds of callers a week and Finarea's consumer interface methods are sufficiently non existent that nothing is done about it.  The nearest alternatives for calling mobiles to Finarea do not cost that much more and if they can't comply with regulations while providing the service then they don't deserve to be in business. I await the inevitable brickbat from the usual quarter in this forum. ::)

Perhaps you could get Mr Stewart or any other Ofcom personnel to be more interested if you followed more conventional procedures and did not introduce off-topic information


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2008 at 11:15am:

Time for a complaint to 18185 but I give only a 1% chance of them bothering to reply. :o >:(

It would be getting ahead of the facts to make a pre-emptive report to Ofcom about a lack of resolution to a complaint you have not yet even made

Or just at the moment misleading to imply that you already have

It is possible that this fault, which I agree is inconvenient and potentially alarming for some callers, is not yet reported to the company in either detail or extent, so kindly send in a report first, before you try to close the firm down


As for your advice to use only slightly more expensive calls providers, this blindingly obvious suggestion, if used as a double-check at the time, might have saved your alleged travel expenses

andy9 wrote on Apr 19^th, 2008 at 7:40pm:

As for your advice to use only slightly more expensive calls providers, this blindingly obvious suggestion, if used as a double-check at the time, might have saved your alleged travel expenses

It must have taken you years of embitterment to perfect such a thoroughly acerbic posting style. :P

Rest assured 18185 have a lengthy report of this matter now but I would be prepared to wager a very significant sum of money that the silence in response will be truly deafening. >:(

On 17 April 2008 I asked 18185 to remove the charges for two calls I made which were routed to the dogs (which were to two different numbers I had for a builder). I plan to give them till 1 May to reply, and if I don't get a satisfactory reply, to complain to Trading Standards and Ofcom. I may also use the Direct Debit guarantee to insist on a refund of any direct debit payment which includes the calls to the dogs.
Somebody must have gone to some trouble to set up the dog recording. Although at present I have no evidence that would enable me to make any specific accusations, the possible suspects include Finarea itself, or one of their suppliers. One of their suppliers could presumably be charging Finarea, say, 5p a minute to deliver a call that is actually being answered by the dogs on a loop in their switch, or something. Can any techie reader comment further?

Nicholas43 - don't suppose you got any reply from them?


Just made a call to a mobile using VOIPDiscount (another Finarea company) and got the dogs/foreign man.

Just to further update the mobile phone calls with Finarea's UK call brands routing to the barking dogs scenario as follows:-

1. Tanya Rofani at Ofcom UK (who is conducting the current investigation in to telcos operating without belonging to an Alternate Dispute Resolution Scheme) and her boss Neil Buckley (Ofcom's Director of Investigations) have now emailed be me back to say that as this company is based in Switzerland and as they have not had many complaints about Finarea from UK based customers it is still not a priority for them to investigate Finarea.  They say they may review the matter if they receive more complaints from customers of Finarea based in the UK.  This is the same fob off response I also got from Ofcom's previous Director of Investigations, David Stewart, three years ago.  Translation - Ofcom only ever bothers investigating complaints made by big and powerful UK based telcos who also provide most of Ofcom's fee income.  In other words Parliament and the Uk citizen consumer unfortunately continues to be treated with contempt by OfCoN. :o >:( :'(

2. I emailed copies of my correspondence with Ofcom about Finarea's lack of an ADR scheme to the one person named as a Finarea member of staff in the current domain name registration for www.18185.co.uk to be found via www.whois.co.uk  That person is igor.tracchia@finarea.ch and I received auto responders to my emails saying he was out of the office for a few days but would reply to the emails on his return.  I also complained to Mr Tracchia about Finarea very recently sending me an email saying they were going to take 20GBP from my credit card when I owed them less than 3GBP.   As a result of this I have cancelled my credit card payment mandate for 18185 and replaced it with a direct debit payment mandate (as incorrect direct debit payments are much easier to get refunded).

3. To my surprise I have now received the following emails in response from Finarea:-

Firstly a read receipt from info@finarea.ch on 16th May 2008 at 13.35 and then the below email sent shortly afterwards from service@finarea.ch promising me a 20GBP credit to my account (not sure if this was the 20GBP petrol money and wear and tear for the barking dogs incident or a 20GBP refund for the 20GBP they have said they are going to shortly debit from my credit card incorrectly).


Quote:

-------- Original Message -------- Subject:      Finarea Telecoms Group Services to UK Based Customers Date:      Fri, 16 May 2008 14:59:03 +0200 From:      <service@finarea.ch> Reply-To:      <service@finarea.ch> 16 May 2008 Dear Mr _________, Thank you for your email. Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused. Call18185 utilises the most up-to-date technology to ensure top quality connections, however it may be possible that carriers overseas employ different quality standards. In order to undercut BT pricing a complex network of international carriers is being used and as soon as we notice a carrier is not delivering the quality required or routing calls incorrectly we immediately deliver calls via alternative carriers; still for these prices we unfortunately cannot always guarantee BT quality connections. We have added £20 credit to your account as way of compensation. Yours sincerely, Finarea SA

So it would seem that threatened with mention of their lack of a UK ADR scheme and/or possible reference to the Swiss telecoms regulator (also called Ofcom) and following an email sent to the personal email address of their one known employed corporate executive (with an email account that does work) that Finarea can be beaten in to responding, albeit extremely grudgingly.

So for anyone else the two relevant email addresses again are igor.tracchia@finarea.ch, service@finarea.ch and info@finarea.ch

Make sure to mention their failure to comply with Ofcom requirements to belong to an Alternate Dispute Resolution scheme (ADR)

Also mention that you have the contact details for the Swiss telecoms regulator - OFCOM

These are to be found at:-  www.bakom.admin.ch/index.html?lang=en

Gosh! Many thanks, NGM's ghost. I of course had no reply from 18185, and so far I've had no reply from Ofcom either. Until today, 18185 was connecting my (rare) calls to mobiles correctly, but today, 19 May, I got a recording, again. I hung up at once, and tried again. Second try connected correctly. My itemised calls list shows first, misrouted, call with correct number. I'll now ask for a refund from Finarea CH.

service@finarea.ch have emailed me that they will refund on my next invoice the charges for 3 calls that were misrouted to the dogs. And Len Martin, OCCtelecoms@ofcom.org.uk has emailed me that "It would appear that Finarea 18185 has not joined an Alternative Dispute Resolution Scheme.  Ofcom will take this up with them directly.  Unfortunately, this does not mean that we will be able to make Finarea 18185, take any action in relation to your particular problem.  

In instances such as this, if you are unable to pursue your dispute with Finarea 18185, we would have to suggest that you consider seeking independent legal advice."

"Legal advice" about suing a company based in Switzerland to recover a few pounds would of course be daft.

nicholas43 wrote on May 31^st, 2008 at 6:30am:

"Legal advice" about suing a company based in Switzerland to recover a few pounds would of course be daft.

Indeed so.  Another typically ludicrous and totally unhelpful response to a UK telecoms consumer by the so called UK telecoms regulator. >:(

A more practical approach would be to contact Ofcom's Swiss counterpart of the same name (www.bakom.admin.ch/index.html?lang=en) or Swiss trading standards if Swiss law has such a body and such a concept in law.

However the initial resolution of any complaint by a customer is meant to lie with the company and as Finarea seem to have belatedly woken up to the fact they are having technical problems and are now responding to at least some customer complaints and offering refunds there is no need to take the matter any further at a regulatory level.

Let us Finarea soon cure the barking dogs issue on a permanent basis.

Morning,

NGMs Ghost, I appreciate this is unlikely but was just wondered if Finarea ever came back to you with an explanation for the “Barking Dog” calls? As I understand it Finarea, based in Switzerland are the company who manage the 18185 service, which you used when first encountering this annoying miss routing scenario.

I have also experienced this problem when calling from the US, both direct from the office or using my mobile (without using the 18185 service). This happened when I’ve attempted to call a number of UK friends & colleagues, connected with a range of different service providers including; Vodafone, Orange and even a BT Landline.

With this in mind I expect the calls are being miss-routed at some point by an International Carrier used by the company where the calls are originating from (in my case Verizon). However I believe a number of international carriers could be used in these types of calls, but hoping Verizon, using my call records will be able to assist and investigate this for me with the aim of identifying at what point and WHERE my calls are being routed to!

Unfortunately as the calls are being miss-routed before hitting the UK Service Providers such as Vodafone, Orange and BT, They are unable to assist as no records are ever generated on there UK network.

So my question is has anyone else already logged a complaint with the originating service provider like NGMs Ghost did with Finarea and have they received a positive response indicating an investigation of some sort is being conducted to bring the scam to an end???

Update: There was no credit for the calls to the dogs visible on my latest on-line invoice. Finarea did not respond to my email pointing this out. However, they have taken a correct direct debit payment, equal to the call charges on the latest invoice, minus the previous charges for the calls misrouted to the dogs.
But given all the hassle, BT's anytime call plan, currently including reasonable charges for calls to mobiles, is looking quite attractive for everything except my (infrequent) international calls ...

Anyone still needing to make a complaint about misbilling by 18866, 1899 or 18185 may be interested in the following information that has just come to light.

1. The three indirect access codes of 1899, 18185 and 18866 are all listed by Ofcom in their current list of indirect access codes as belonging to Connect Telecom UK.

2. In a recent list of network operators PhonePayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) showed the following contact details for Connect Telecom UK including phone number and email address.

See www.phonepayplus.org.uk/business/NetworkOperators.asp :-


Quote:

Connect Telecom UK Ltd Ms Louise Philips: 0870 799 1501 enquiry@connecttelecom.uk.com

So anyone who feels that Finarea may still owe them a refund on any product in the 1899, 18185 or 18866 stables may therefore care to get in touch with this lady.  Some of you may also want to complain to Ofcom about the failure of Connect Telecom UK to belong to an Alternate Dispute Resolution Service (either www.otelo.org.uk or www.cisas.org.uk) as they are required to do under the terms of the Communciations Act 2003.