Readers may be interested to view an item to be broadcast on BBC "Watchdog" this evening.

A media release on the topic may be viewed here.

When the item has been viewed, there may be some points for discussion.

I watched this, and found it very interesting - nothing that I didn't know already, but it's nice that the public are finally being made aware about the high cost of calling these numbers.
Especially with the mention of HMRC & DWP.

samwsmith1 wrote on Oct 21^st, 2010 at 10:03pm:

I watched this, and found it very interesting - nothing that I didn't know already, but it's nice that the public are finally being made aware about the high cost of calling these numbers. Especially with the mention of HMRC & DWP.

I think it was a good piece. It mentioned 08 and 09 numbers and also 03 numbers.

HMRC said it doesn't make any revenue from its 0845 numbers. But as we know, that makes no difference as ALL 0845 users receive benefit from calls just the same. HMRC just chooses to take all the support in the form of services in kind.

I watched that tonight and it was a shame they didn't mention that you can find alternative numbers online. They didn't have to name the best place (here) but inform the viewers netherless.

I'm glad they covered this pressing issue, it showed exactly how bad this situation is. Watchdog said there is approximately 3 million local (aka ripoff) 08-- numbers in use today. These shouldn't be used for typical consumer contacts.

If people can't afford to ring these numbers, then make use of the email options (its treated with less priory than mail and not protected as much by the Data Protection Act) or write them with your phone number so they can phone you. Or if you get though to them, take their name and get tell him/her to phone you straight back - this assumes the person your speaking doesn't have memory loss or suddenly incapable of dialling your number, etc.

Luckily, my local GP doesn't have a 0845 and has remained geographic since it first opened many, many years ago.


Just a note on the link in the first post: "Asda claims that its customer service number - 0844 481 5000 - is charged at "local call rates". This never was true, not even before 2004..."

I thought 0845/47, etc was classed as local rate (local national rates at 5/10p min) but I know they meant the much cheaper geographic numbers that are 01/02. Bit of a difference between saying local/geographic numbers. I'm not having a go or rant, just trying to clarify that point.

wteSmithy wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2010 at 2:11am:

... Just a note on the link in the first post: "Asda claims that its customer service number - 0844 481 5000 - is charged at "local call rates". This never was true, not even before 2004..." I thought 0845/47, etc was classed as local rate (local national rates at 5/10p min) but I know they meant the much cheaper geographic numbers that are 01/02. Bit of a difference between saying local/geographic numbers. I'm not having a go or rant, just trying to clarify that point.

Asda says that it has had the 0844 number for five years and that it is charged at "local call rates".

The distinction between the rates for local and national geographic calls was removed in 2004.

The rate for 0845 calls used to be tied to the distinct rate for local calls on BT, and other landline providers followed this principle. The same applied to 0870 and the national rate. Perhaps someone else can help us with the date when this link was removed. It may have been in 2004, or perhaps before.

The rates for 0844 calls from BT have never been linked to any other rate, they are fixed by regulation in absolute terms for bands of numbers, i.e. 5p, 4p, 3p, 2p, 1p per minute etc., with others as a fixed fee per call. (Nearly all examples are found to be on the first of these.) BT is free to add its call setup fee and other providers may charge whatever they like.

The other piece of nonsense from Asda (as forecast) is the claim that they will be offering a free to call number. This was broadcast, unchallenged and even claimed as being a victory!!

(A full digest of the broadcast errors is being compiled and will be reproduced here shortly.)

I do not normally copy correspondence to the forum, but there follows a list of points about the "cost of complaining" item on BBC Watchdog, which I am planning to send to the production team. In many cases they were briefed on these points in advance.

Text and some further material, as well as the clips can be viewed on the Watchdog blog item Pay to protest? Thats hard to digest....

There are also points to raise from this blog posting. I will wait for members to perhaps suggest additional points that I may wish to add.

A consumer "watchdog" should bark whenever it sees “false claims”, “bodge jobs” and “poor service”, it should not perpetuate or practice them. Does "BBC Watchdog" just do what it says in its titles?

The points that follow are in sequence from the item.

The film

• The distinction between 0844/0845/0871 as against 090 was well drawn, but poorly explained. You can make a clear profit from running a service on a 090 number, whereas you can only subsidise your costs from the others. There is however no question that users gain a financial benefit in all cases.
  
  
• Why mention 0870 as one of the ranges covered; it confuses the issue. Since August 2009, no user of 0870 numbers has benefitted from the high rates that are still charged by some providers.
  
  
• I am not sure where the idea of being able to call a 0844 number from a mobile for only 17p a minute came from. I am not aware of any that low. This does not fit with the suggestion that 20 hours of calls costs around £17 (that would be less than 2p per minute).
  
  
• I strongly suspect that the involvement of Otelo in the AOL case was purely related to the underlying issue, the disconnection of telecoms services – not to the use of a 084 number, as was implied. The order to pay compensation would have applied to whatever costs were incurred. (Otelo can only get involved in disputes with telecoms providers, not airlines or supermarkets who use expensive numbers.)
  
  
• 10 seconds to mention the 1,000 GPs using 0844 numbers, and NHS Direct on 0845, would have perhaps helped the item. (The DWP was mentioned with no reference to complaints.)
  
  
• “A proportion of the profit can go to them” understates the financial benefit which users of 0845/0844/0871, rather than 03, numbers receive. Their telephone company invariably receives money (an enhanced termination fee) on every call. The only users who do not benefit in some way are letting their telephone company rip them off – I know of no case where this has been alleged or proved.

The live commentary

• The fact that government departments choose not to classify the financial benefit they receive from use of 084 numbers as “making revenue” is utterly meaningless. Callers pay a premium and the costs which HMRC and DWP incur are thereby subsidised, Watchdog is simply allowing them to play with words by announcing that they do not “make revenue”. The statement may be true in an irrelevant technical sense, but it conveys a totally false meaning to most viewers and is allowed to undermine the essential point of the item. This "no revenue" claim is a very old trick; those who fall for it show themselves to be very naive.
  
  
• The cost of an average duration call which EasyJet attempts to give is the minimum. This applies only applies to BT landlines, and is therefore artificially low due to the regulation which applies only to BT - Phonepay Plus demands only that BT rates be quoted. The figure given is in fact inaccurate; for a call of between 6 and 7 minutes it should actually be 82p, not 62p. The suggestion that 62p is the average cost of a call is blatantly false when this is supposedly (but actually less than) the minimum. I cannot understand how a watchdog could broadcast this nonsense without challenge.
  
  
• AOL packages do include free calls, but not to 084 numbers. I cannot understand how a watchdog could broadcast, without challenge, a totally irrelevant statement, which conveys a false impression - given the reasonable assumption that it is directly relevant to the matter under consideration.
  
  
• Asda cannot “scrap charges” by offering a telephone number that is free to call – there is no such thing. I cannot understand why a watchdog would announce this lie without challenge, and even describe it as a “good result”! Anyone who would seriously entertain the suggestion that may be telephone numbers which are free to call must look a little foolish.
  
  
• I have no idea if Ofcom was asked to confirm that a public consultation on proposals to improve the transparency of this mess will be launched shortly. It may be that a follow up piece, mentioning this (possibly claiming another victory for “Watchdog”) would be worth broadcasting in one or two weeks time when the consultation is published.

---

These comments should not detract from the fact that many good and valuable points were made in a generally well-produced piece of entertainment.

Dave wrote on Oct 21^st, 2010 at 10:11pm:

samwsmith1 wrote on Oct 21st, 2010 at 10:03pm: I watched this, and found it very interesting - nothing that I didn't know already, but it's nice that the public are finally being made aware about the high cost of calling these numbers. Especially with the mention of HMRC & DWP. I think it was a good piece. It mentioned 08 and 09 numbers and also 03 numbers. HMRC said it doesn't make any revenue from its 0845 numbers. But as we know, that makes no difference as ALL 0845 users receive benefit from calls just the same. HMRC just chooses to take all the support in the form of services in kind.

Going slightly off topic, I have been having a 'run in' with the Inland Revenue and yesterday I called 01355 359022 which is the Inland Revenue help line that I found on the database. It was answered straight away as 'The Inland Revenue Help Line', put automatically through to a very helpful chap and ten minutes later they have solved my problem. (hopefully!!)

It is interesting to note the different published responses from HMRC and DWP as quoted on the Watchdog Blog (found at the very bottom). The broadcast summarisation stated that both had given exactly the same response.


HMRC makes no reference to not benefiting financially. It also refers to the possibility of "short term" options for its numbering strategy. It acknowledges the fact that there is an "issue" for some, notably "disadvantaged groups and / or those who use mobile phones"

This is no promise of action, however it indicates a proper awareness of where the problem lies, and hints at the possibility that something may be done before a wholesale revision of numbers is undertaken.


DWP, by contrast, misses the point completely.

The quoted extract is the follow-on to a statement about the proper resolution of the situation with 0800 numbers. That good work was done a year ago, has no relevance to the situation with 0845 and cannot be dragged up every time, as if in mitigation of the failure to deal properly with the 0845 numbers.

There is a reference to "using taxpayer's money effectively", which is bizarre in the context of further comments. The familiar claim not to "receive any revenue" from use of 0845 numbers is repeated, challenging any relevance of taxpayer's money. It is stated that those with a concern over the cost of the call (which is all those not calling through BT from landlines, i.e. the majority) will receive an "offer to call them back". The cost to the public phone bill and in the time of agents undertaking this unnecessary activity is a most ineffective use of taxpayer's money.


It is hard to beat a simple lie. "These calls are charged at the standard rate for landlines and mobile phones" is the most blatantly dishonest piece of nonsense. (It is much worse than any reference to "local rate", because that could only ever be thought to apply to calls from landlines.)

The only rate which represents any form of standard and "can vary from different operators and contracts" is that for calls to geographic numbers. This is set as a standard in the regulations covering 03 numbers, by the requirement for the rate for 03 calls not to exceed it. It is also seen in practice to represent a standard, in that it is these calls alone which are invariably those covered by "unlimited" packages, at a standard monthly rate regardless of the number of calls made.

I know of no significant case where the charge that is made (ignoring cases where no charge is made) for 0845 calls is at the same rate as that for calls to geographic numbers, or anything else that could conceivably be described as a "standard". It is not that the statement could be true in some cases, but is subject to exceptions; the statement is simply and totally false, without exception.

Dave wrote on Oct 21^st, 2010 at 10:11pm:

HMRC said it doesn't make any revenue from its 0845 numbers. But as we know, that makes no difference as ALL 0845 users receive benefit from calls just the same. HMRC just chooses to take all the support in the form of services in kind.

I don't take an enhanced salary from my car expenses. That dosn't stop HMRC from treating such expenses as salary.

Stoday wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2010 at 2:54pm:

Dave wrote on Oct 21st, 2010 at 10:11pm: HMRC said it doesn't make any revenue from its 0845 numbers. But as we know, that makes no difference as ALL 0845 users receive benefit from calls just the same. HMRC just chooses to take all the support in the form of services in kind. I don't take an enhanced salary from my car expenses. That dosn't stop HMRC from treating such expenses as salary.

It was actually Watchdog which got this wrong. HMRC seems to have stopped the silly "no revenue" word games, whereas DWP continues playing.

Perhaps we should ourselves avoid getting into the semantic differences in a general or specific, technical or legal, context between "salary", "allowance", "income", "benefit in kind", "gain", "revenue", "profit", "subsidy" etc., not to mention "costs", "charges", "expenses" etc. and what is and is not "taxable", assessed for tax or shown on a tax return.

Unless they are being ripped-off by their telephone company, every user of a 0845 number benefits financially over the alternative of using a 03 number, all things being equal. That is the point at issue, and I do not believe that there is any disagreement on this point. I am ready to get involved in discussing at least three distinct meanings that could be applied to the term "revenue" in this particular context, should it become necessary, but I would rather not. I do not see much value in introducing lots of other terms to a semantic debate.

sherbert wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2010 at 7:40am:

Dave wrote on Oct 21st, 2010 at 10:11pm: samwsmith1 wrote on Oct 21st, 2010 at 10:03pm: I watched this, and found it very interesting - nothing that I didn't know already, but it's nice that the public are finally being made aware about the high cost of calling these numbers. Especially with the mention of HMRC & DWP. I think it was a good piece. It mentioned 08 and 09 numbers and also 03 numbers. HMRC said it doesn't make any revenue from its 0845 numbers. But as we know, that makes no difference as ALL 0845 users receive benefit from calls just the same. HMRC just chooses to take all the support in the form of services in kind. Going slightly off topic, I have been having a 'run in' with the Inland Revenue and yesterday I called 01355 359022 which is the Inland Revenue help line that I found on the database. It was answered straight away as 'The Inland Revenue Help Line', put automatically through to a very helpful chap and ten minutes later they have solved my problem. (hopefully!!)

Called the child benefit helpline overseas number as found here and on HMRC, and first time it rang for around 5 mins then a rather helpful lady answered who dealt with the query very quickly, however, had to phone up a week later on the overseas no and got a very rude chap who point blank insisted that we must ring the 0845 number.

Another thing not made adequately clear in the piece is that each of these groups of numbers costs a DIFFERENT amount to call...

- 0800/8 (not free from mobiles)
- 0842/3/4
- 0845
- 0870
- 0871/2/3
- 090
- 091
- 098

... and that there are also a range of charges WITHIN some of the groups.

That is, just because you know the price of a call to one particular 08 or 09 telephone number, don't assume that a very similar number will cost the same amount to call.

Asda has now replaced its 0844 numbers with 0800 ones.