Hi All
A friend of mine used 08442005005 to ring India through a switchboard and they charged her £6.644 for 16 minutes call. They announce 0.5 pence for the call and charged this much amount. Switchboard gave her a bill and said that they cant do anything for this. They also said that BT is charging this amount to the switchboard. Any help in this matter is most appreciated.

Gudman,

What switchboard are you refering to? A work based on, a Hotel? Did you friend call this number from home/work?

All I can guess at this stage, is he/she called the number from a Hotel or somewhere simmilar.. who add their own surcharges.  Generally speaking calls to 0844 cost around 5p per min plus a call set up fee. This depends on where it is called from, and the network your call it from, and what charge that network makes to call that number.. As you can see many variables.

:(

Have a look here

http://www.telepest.co.uk/08442005005

This tells you what the charge should be

Thanks CJT-80 for your reply. My friend lives in a Private Hospital accomodation. She was using 0844 numbers to make overseas calls without any trouble. As all other numbers increased their charges, she used this number found from MSE to make calls and recieved this shocking bill from the hospital switchboard. They are saying that they cant help, BT charging them this amount. Gudman

Private hospitals have their own calling charges as do Hotels... it's down to the hospital how much they charge, but it's almost alway's more then a BT call for example.

does you friend have access to the internet?

why not use SKYPE

all the details are in that link.

:)

gudman wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 8:12pm:

Thanks CJT-80 for your reply. My friend lives in a Private Hospital accomodation. She was using 0844 numbers to make overseas calls without any trouble. As all other numbers increased their charges, she used this number found from MSE to make calls and recieved this shocking bill from the hospital switchboard. They are saying that they cant help, BT charging them this amount. Gudman

What a load of absolute twaddle!

What has this got to do with BT? The number prefix is allocated to Connect Telecom UK Ltd and your friend made their call with another provider.

The cost from BT is immaterial. If you shop at a supermarket other than Tesco, is it relevant what price Tesco charge? Of course not!


What system is it (the name please)? Is it one of these bedside telephone systems?

Dave wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 8:25pm:

The cost from BT is immaterial. If you shop at a supermarket other than Tesco, is it relevant what price Tesco charge? Of course not!

As I understand it the provider in question says that they bought the goods from "Tesco" and are just passing on their charges. This may be twaddle, however it may be a little early for us to judge.

The rate charged by BT is set by regulation to 0.5p per minute for this particular type of 0844 number. (This regulation only applies to BT.)

If BT has applied an excessive unregulated call set-up fee to this call, then that should be the subject of a complaint to BT.

It is possible that the dial-through mechanism was not properly set in place, so the call to India could have been dialled directly. The cost is however a little high against BT's published rate of 28p per minute for calls to India.

There is the possibility that the charge is that set by the switchboard, rather than by BT.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 9:14pm:

There is the possibility that the charge is that set by the switchboard, rather than by BT.

That is exactly what CJT-80 is suggesting in reply# 4 ::)

sherbert wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 10:16pm:

That is exactly what CJT-80 is suggesting in reply# 4

Indeed, I am sorry if my endorsement of that suggestion, when also mentioning two others, has caused confusion. I feared that if I did not mention this possibility then it could have been thought that I was dismissing it in favour of the alternatives.

SCV, no problems... if you reply was in relation to what I had answered...

the reason for my somewhat cryptic reply was to try and find out where the person was calling from... so that we could establish who was charging them, and therefore how they were being charged...

it seems this has now been established..

thanks

:)

Thank you all for your reply. Now I am quite sure that the switchboard is the one charging this extra money. They have got their own billing system and the software is supplied by a company called Tri-Line Network Telephony Limited. May be they have set their system to charge this rate. Thank you all once again. Gudman

gudman wrote on Apr 29^th, 2010 at 10:16pm:

Thank you all for your reply. Now I am quite sure that the switchboard is the one charging this extra money. They have got their own billing system and the software is supplied by a company called Tri-Line Network Telephony Limited. May be they have set their system to charge this rate. Thank you all once again.

I think that this is the company you refer to: [url=www.tri-line.com[/url]]www.tri-line.com[/url]

The website explains that it provides call logging software. I gather that they itemise calls made by hotel residents and bill them according to the prices they have set for each number type.

I can only suggest that your friend puts this down to experience. Whether a particular 0844 international dial-through provider is worth using depends on the call charge imposed by the caller's provider and whether it's cheaper than calling the international number directly.

Just a quite re visit to an OLD post

perhaps this may be of help depending what network you are on.


:)