Hi all, newbie here so please bear with me 'til I find my feet. I recently was sold an 0800 number for life (allegedly) for £150 + vat with 1000 incoming minutes per month. Now this deal seemed incredible enough, but what made me suspicious was the hard sell-if I got people to sign up then I'd get £25 per new customer. I 'phoned friends and told them all about it spelling out how concerned I was it might be a scam but we all agreed for the money we would take the risk. I can almost hear you all falling about laughing now!
Well, I rang OFCOM they didn't seem to know too much, and wondered if any of you out there know about this sort of thing? I'll try to get some details in the meantime! Cheers.

UK providers of telecommunications services are required to register with Ofcom and comply with its regulations.

Without the benefit of a crystal ball, the shape of a pyramid appears before my eyes. As always, those near the top do very well. If you have enough contacts (or friends you do not need to keep) or can attract enough people to call your 0800 number to buy into this, then you also may do well.

Please forgive the fact that my moral scruples prevent me from wishing you well if you pursue this venture.


You may have seen a recently repeated edition of "Dragon's Den" where an applicant began a pitch about a directory of 0800 numbers with the suggestion that businesses with 0800 numbers were bound to be seen as more attractive by other businesses. As I recall, he was dismissed with the suggestion that use of a 0800 number by an otherwise unknown business to attract new customers is an indication of something dodgy.

I can see the logic and tend to agree.

More generally, any marketing that includes the word "free", or any such reference, is to be viewed with extreme suspicion.

semmyroundel wrote on Sep 7^th, 2008 at 10:44pm:

how concerned I was it might be a scam

"If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

semmyroundel wrote on Sep 7^th, 2008 at 10:44pm:

I recently was sold an 0800 number for life (allegedly) for £150 + vat with 1000 incoming minutes per month.

I think Freud took over as you started typing this new thread - the first word you used was 'unbelievable'.

I notice also that you used the word 'allegedly' - so you're obviously highly suspicious of what you spent and persuaded your friends to spend £150 on.

The question which springs to mind for me is, "Whose life?"  Is it your life? (if so, how can the seller be sure to live as long as you?), is it the life of the seller? (if so, how do you know how long he or she will live?) or is it the life of the seller's company? (in which case, what's to stop him or her closing the business today or tomorrow?).

Yes, I agree to all above, however, I'm a sole trader (tradesman) and the advantage is not to businesses but to homeowners as I work solely in the domestic market. As to ethics, I would not normally pass on numbers to these salespeople to call, as I have a spine and don't fall for that sort of thing. I 'phoned friends and told them all my concerns about the scheme with the usual caveats and let them decide in the light of all the background investigation I had undertaken-so it was a case of at our OWN risk. They decided like me that it was worth the monetary risk that it was legitimate.
Now, I don't know if posting etiquette precludes me from mentioning company names here, but my post was to try and glean any info others may have about this.
What I can tell you is that a friend (associate) who gave my number to these people is happily using the service. I'm just holding back on advertising my number in case I find later, for example, that 0800 numbers are due to be made chargeable to land lines or something of that nature. Cheers all.

www.call08.com give you an 0800 number with 1000 included incoming minutes for £4.95 per month + VAT.  Once those are exceeded they charge 2p per minute (I'm not sure how much your provider charges if you run over the 1,000 free minutes per month).

So you seem to need the service you have paid for to still be in business in 31 months time (31 x 4.95 = £153.45) to be ahead of paying monthly with www.call08.com

Perhaps this is a new 0800 call vending business and typically they offer these Lifetime type packages (I have one on an advanced tv hard drive recorder called a Tivo that had a £10 per month sub or a £200 for "Lifetime" service option back in 2002 that I am now quids on after 70 months of Lifetime service for £200) in order to get cash in the door to help start up their business.  Later if they are successful they will only sell on the www.call08.com basis of a monthly fee.  Clearly if they sell too many of these lifetime 0800 deals and then don't get enough monthly paying customers later on they could go belly up and your lifetime 0800 number is then worth nothing.  In effect its something of a gamble.  You could end up very handsomely in profit compared to a www.call08.com deal after 5 years and there again you might not.

Don't forget that with more and more people switching to contract mobiles and then eventually calls on the internet via voip our useless regulator Ofcom has seen to it that calls via those means to 0800 numbers are not free.  I am sure calls to 0800 numbers from ordinary landlines and BT Payphones will remain free but both means of making calls are in decline so ultimately the number of incoming 0800 call minutes per month you receive will gradually decline with the passage of time.

On the other hand if you run a business from home and also give all your friends and family the 0800 number you can clearly do everything possible to maximise the number of incoming 0800 call minutes per months you receive.

It all depends how long the firm you bought the number from stays in business for at the end of the day...............................

As to Ofcom and them not knowing too much about your issue sadly that is an all too typical description of almost of any form of interaction between the general public and the bored, clueless and telecoms disinterested staff who Ofcom have employed to work in their so called Contact Centre.  What a pity that the telecoms regulator seems to find communication to be such a difficult art to master. ;) ::) :'(

Thank you for your replies, I suppose the worry that I had was if the number was lost for whatever reason, having included it in my advertising, and I need now to find out what safeguards there are for that. Any suggestions as to who I should ask and what questions I should ask (after first asking the person who sold me the number, obviously)?

semmyroundel wrote on Sep 16^th, 2008 at 10:28am:

Thank you for your replies, I suppose the worry that I had was if the number was lost for whatever reason, having included it in my advertising, and I need now to find out what safeguards there are for that. Any suggestions as to who I should ask and what questions I should ask (after first asking the person who sold me the number, obviously)?

As calling 0800 numbers from mobiles is usually not actually free but instead usually excluded from bundled minutes and charged at a premium penal rate and as a similar problem arises from overseas on both mobiles and landlines in any of your advertising you should be quoting both your 0800 number and your underlying geographic number (probably in the format +44 1xxx xxxxxx although no real harm if you quote it just as 01xxx xxxxxxx) and then people can call the 0800 number on a landline and the normal geographic number from their mobile.  If the 0800 number ever stops working for some reason they can then call your normal number instead.

One obvious point is that more and more people on landlines have inclusive call packages with unlimited calls at all times or certain times to landlines so that the value to many potential customers of you having an 0800 phone number rather than a regular 01/02 phone number is slowly reducing.  Obviously what you should not have is an 084 or 087 number which costs everybody far more to call.

I disagree with those above who suggested that they saw companies with 0800 numbers as in some way dodgy or desperate for business.  Instead I always see them as pro customer and putting the customer first and always try to deal with companies who use 0800 numbers for sales in preference to those who do not.

Even if your current 0800 number provider ever went bust under Ofcom's non geographic number portability arrangement you should still be able to move the number to another telecoms provider.

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 16^th, 2008 at 10:57am:

Even if your current 0800 number provider ever went bust under Ofcom's non geographic number portability arrangement you should still be able to move the number to another telecoms provider.

Is that right? Surely you need a donor network operator in order to "port" a number?  :-/ :-/

Dave wrote on Sep 16^th, 2008 at 8:11pm:

Is that right? Surely you need a donor network operator in order to "port" a number?  :-/

I presume that if a network operator goes out of business there is some kind of contingency position for Ofcom to release the numbers to another operator.  How else would all those NEG doctors surgeries etc, etc carry on tomorrow if we found that NEG had gone in to administration?

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 17^th, 2008 at 12:42am:

How else would all those NEG doctors surgeries etc, etc carry on tomorrow if we found that NEG had gone in to administration?

*prays they all have to revert to 01/02 numbers... better yet, prays they all move to 03!!*

jgxenite wrote on Sep 17^th, 2008 at 12:48am:

*prays they all have to revert to 01/02 numbers... better yet, prays they all move to 03!!*

Yes one hopes so but it wouldn't happen overnight and meanwhile every leaflet and phone book entry will still be showing the old 0844 number.

The point is that it must have happened that a telecoms operator has gone bust and there must be a way for the users of the numbers to still carry on using them or we would have heard about this problem by now.

jgxenite wrote on Sep 17^th, 2008 at 12:48am:

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 17th, 2008 at 12:42am: How else would all those NEG doctors surgeries etc, etc carry on tomorrow if we found that NEG had gone in to administration? *prays they all have to revert to 01/02 numbers... better yet, prays they all move to 03!!*

Some would pray for it to be Carphone Warehouse, the parent of Opal telecom, which is the actual provider of the 0844 numbers in question, who went into administration.

As the surgeries are mostly debtors to NEG, which is why they need the revenue share income (to pay for "free" equipment), its demise could perhaps help to resolve the issue.

(The latter comment is based on a understanding of only the principles of the relevant precise contractual arrangements, it is likely to be more complex in reality.)

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 17^th, 2008 at 1:10am:

(The latter comment is based on a understanding of only the principles of the relevant precise contractual arrangements, it is likely to be more complex in reality.)

Surely the administrators/receivers might sell the right to collect the debt under the contract to another party as it would clearly have a value to it?

And aren't you supposed to be in bed by now SCV? ;)

I don't think this is right place to discuss anything else besides for 0870 etc.
but I must take the oppurtunity to tell you all about an AMAZING deal I received on Vodafone.

Unlimited Landlines
900 minutes Mobile calls any network any time
500 texts
Nokia 6300

The regular price for this is £40 per month on an 18 month contract, but now you can get this for just £20 a month for 15 months and the last 3 months you must still pay £40. This is an average of £23 per month.

This is available for both old and new customers, and if after 15 months you decide to stay with Vodafone you can immediately be upgraded to an even better deal and you will not have to pay the £40 for the last 3 months. In that case you'll be paying just £20 per month.

Vodafone does NOT advertise this deal, chances are that the operator will not agree to give it to you, you can either ring back or you can tell him that a friend of yours received this deal and you will then be able to get it.

+ Every customer you bring, an extra £50 is deducted from your bill. (I myself have recommended 5 customers and I therefore pay Vodafone Zilch)

There is an alternative option of paying £30 per month for the same deal and you will receive 1500 mobile minutes instead of 900.

One operator even told me that if eveyone will take this deal Vodafone will close down.

This deal has being going on for the past few months, i dont know how long it will last so quickly get it done.

0208meir wrote on Sep 26^th, 2008 at 3:36pm:

I don't think this is right place to discuss anything else besides for 0870 etc. but I must take the oppurtunity to tell you all about an AMAZING deal I received on Vodafone.

Hello, 0208meir, I can move this post of yours to the "Call Providers" section of the forum.