Today there was a report on a company that was having customer problems. The details of the issue for this forum are unimportant. But it was put to the MD that requiring people to hang on for 35 min on a premium rate 0870 number was really the last straw for angry customers.

The reply from the MD included the following:

a) They don't make money from the 0870

b) They wished OFCOM would make a low cost number available for them to use.

If I were a customer I wouldn't believe any of the other stuff this guy said with those 2 bits of misinformation!!!

I sent the following email to Working Lunch. I've taken out the company name from this post as I'm not sure I can remember it correctly


Well done for challenging the use of an 0870 number today for customer
complaints. I think the MD you were interviewing was from XXXXX
XXXXX.

Two parts of the MDs reply were very misleading regarding this:

a) He said they did not make any money from the 0870 number. 0870
numbers are revenue generating. Consequently he must have been
getting revenue in some form, whether it be several pence per minute per
call or a discount by their telcoms supplier. If they are not I wouldn't want
my funds with them as they must be appalling money managers.

b) He criticised OFCOM for not making available a cheaper alternative to
0870. Well there are several. He could be using the recently released 03
numbers which would be ideal and of course there is the freephone 0800.
Even the 0845 number which is also revenue generating is cheaper than
the 0870, but not ideal.

These were very misleading replies and as a consequence if I were a
customer I would be wary of the rest of the responses to the customer
complaints.

Keith wrote on Apr 17^th, 2008 at 12:04pm:

a) He said they did not make any money from the 0870 number. 0870 numbers are revenue generating. Consequently he must have been getting revenue in some form, whether it be several pence per minute per call or a discount by their telcoms supplier. If they are not I wouldn't want my funds with them as they must be appalling money managers.

The amount of revenue paid is down to the commercial agreement between the service provider (the company) and the 0870 telco. Choose whether his company is or is not receiving revenue is irrelevant. The point is the caller is still being charged the same and that is by virtue of the provision of the 0870 number. No revenue is simply a higher payment to the 0870 telco.

Does this person normally procure services for his business by taking accepting on of the less competitive offers? If a discount is offered on a particular service, would he accept and say that he didn't want the discount and be happy to pay full price?

Dave, I didn't understand your second para as it is a bit garbled. I assume you were not disagreeing with my criticism of the MD of this company?

Keith wrote on Apr 17^th, 2008 at 12:57pm:

Dave, I didn't understand your second para as it is a bit garbled. I assume you were not disagreeing with my criticism of the MD of this company?

I am in full agreement with you on this.

The point is that the revenue is effectively like a discount to the service charge which is nothing. Hence, the inclusion of the second sentence on the second paragraph.

I would avoid saying "he must have been getting revenue in some form" because he is likely to argue that no he is not. I feel he cannot argue against the points I made and they highlight his apparent stupidity in claiming that receiving no revenue is good.

His company chose to use the 0870 number and thereby accepted the charging arrangements.

Thanks Dave. Yes I find it very annoying when people claim they haven't got revenue but infact have got a discount which amounts to the same thing (higher income or lower expense). People who claim this are either stupid or deliberately misleading. I suspect in the majority of cases the latter. This has been typical of the Doctors using 0844 where they are not allowed to take revenue.

Please go to the new thread I have just started regarding a crucial meeting of the BBC Executive Board on Monday April 21st to decide whether or not to switch to geographic call rate 03 numbers for all of the BBC's normal contact telephone numbers for all its programs and all its radio and tv stations.

Your help in emailing members of the BBC Executive Board and BBC Trust to indicate your personal backing for a switch by the BBC to all 03 numbers would be very helpful in persuading the BBC to take the right decision as we do not know whether the BBC Board Members have been advised to choose the 03 option or to choose some other more undesirable alternative such as switching to all 0845 or all 0844 5p per minute phone numbers.

See my new thread on this topic at www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1208458341/0

Back in November when the suspension of the 0870 changes was announced, Working Lunch did a piece in which Ofcom promised that they would go ahead in the spring of 2008. Gillian promised "personally" to check that it happened.

See this post and the Working Lunch report here.

Dave wrote on Apr 18^th, 2008 at 1:55pm:

Back in November when the suspension of the 0870 changes was announced, Working Lunch did a piece in which Ofcom promised that they would go ahead in the spring of 2008. Gillian promised "personally" to check that it happened

Well done Dave on finding further confirmation of Ofcom's repeated bare faced lieing and deliberate and repeated attempts at purposely misleading UK journalists and the public about their real intentions on 084 and 087 numbers.

Perhaps Gillian would find it interesting to be referred back to Matt Peacock's Nov 2004 interview on You and Yours and Ofcom's total failure to deliver on any of those promises made by Matt.  I note the new PR man Eccles seems to keep his head totally below the parapet and never seems to get any interview based press or tv or radio coverage.  Perhaps he is too busy dreaming up  the latest dishonest spin doctoring press releases issued by Ofcom and doesn't like to take any difficult questions about them (techniques he will have honed to perfection at Sky who have much to fear from the press). :o >:(