Hi All

I sent an email to Choice about the use of 0870:

I wrote:

I would  appreciate an explanation why you feel that you telephone you about this requires me to use a premium rate 'phone number (0870), don't
you make enough money from catalogue sales? Please don't tell me it's a national rate call, it is a prmium rate call earning you between 1 - 4p a minute in revenue

Remember most of your customers are not particularly wealthy, including myself, so it's not fair to try and make more money in such a deplorable fashion, after all your APR for extended credit is already high enough.

Reply:
With regards to your enquiry about the 0870 phone number, I can confirm it is a national rate telephone number and not a premium rate as I'm sure your telephone network supplier will advise you.

I wrote:
Many thanks for your reply. I think you will agree with me that most people in the UK use BT to supply their telephone service. As from July 2004, all BT residential customers will be placed on a package called BT Option One. Using Option One, a call to a standard land line number will cost 3p a minute for daytime calls anywhere in the UK, there is also Option Two and
Three available which offer greater savings and even free calls, but these charges only apply to what are known as geographic numbers, calls to 0870
numbers are about 8p a minute and calls to 08701 numbers are 10p a minute

Now, let's be absolutely clear about this, as far as I'm aware, it is not possible to obtain an 0870 line, what happens is, the 0870 number is purchased from a supplier and is pointed or ported to a standard line number but of course, the user of the number keeps the real number a secret and only publishes the 0870 number 'cos the 0870 number always carries an
element of revenue. You say it's not a premium rate number, well let's look at this, let's take the example of CPC - CPC is an electrical wholesaler in Preston. If I calll CPC using their published 0870 number I'll be charged
around 8p a minute, if I dial their 'secret' real land line number I'll be charged 3p a minute, 8p - 3p = 5p, now when I went to school, and took my English 'O' Level that could be described as paying a premium of 5p a
minute, I think you'll have to agree

The use of 0870 and 0845 numbers is not universally liked, there is a web site that looks at this in greater detail - http://www.saynoto0870.com/

You may also care to try searching google uk for 0870 number, you will be amazed at the number of companies offering the numbers and the message on
their sites is always the same - get an 0870 and make money

I took forward to your comments

I will keep you posted

Hi Clayman

Thanks for that

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