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http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money-savers/article.html?in_article_id=398189&in_p...

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Is the number up for 0870 helplines?

Simon Fluendy, Mail on Sunday

20 February 2005

TELECOMS regulator Ofcom is considering a plan that would effectively end costly 0870 helplines.

As Financial Mail revealed last month, these numbers cost Britons £1.25bn in 2003 as consumers listened to messages assuring them of the importance of their call.

Even Government helplines for pensioners and doctors' surgeries are 0870 numbers, which charge up to 10p a minute.

But leading charities, such as the RSPCA, could lose a valuable source of revenue if Ofcom goes ahead with plans to ban revenuesharing between the telecoms service provider and call centre owners. This would remove the economic incentive to use the numbers.

Many believe that keeping callers on hold is a deliberate ploy by some of the biggest financial institutions to fleece long-suffering customers.

An Ofcom source said: 'The clear consensus from consumers and organisations representing consumer rights is that revenue-sharing should end.'

BT told Financial Mail it would back ending revenue-sharing, but George Kidd, director-general of Icstis, the premium-rate phone number regulator, warned there could be a hitch. 'A lot of charities depend on income from 0870 numbers,' he said.

The RSPCA's cruelty hotline would be one of those hit. A spokeswoman for the charity said: 'We plough this revenue into funding our service.

'If the situation changed, we would have to find money elsewhere that we would rather spend on animal welfare.'

It's not the charities that should worry, it's the 0870 operators, they rake in more than the charities. If ALL the 10 per min went to charity I would have a little more sympathy.

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Whilst I don't have much sympathy with them, they do also operate legit freephone and 09 premium rate numbers for companies. What happens if they go under and what effect will this have on the service providers who are using these numbers? How is this a sensible way to run a telephone network?

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Exactly. Whilst 087 and 084 are rip-offs, true premium rate is even more exploitative. What should happen is that all premium rate services should be opt-in. Why haven't Ofcom and ICSTIS enforced this? Because they are incompetent and are not interested in consumer protection. ICSTIS complains that it hasn't sufficient resources to accommodate current complaints - well tough - make these scam numbers opt-in and its life will be much easier. The UK numbering system must be the easiest in the world to exploit through scams. No wonder that many of the providers that ICSTIS fines (but rarely collects from) are located all over the place. They must look at the UK and think - yes there's another rip-off we can exploit, courtesy of nice Mr Ofcom and Mrs ICSTIS. Laughable, but it's usually the poor and vulnerable that suffer.

Charities could also have the argument that using 0870 numbers might discourage people calling in and giving them money.

Once more people realise that 0870 is just as much a con as premium rate, then they won't consider charities as friendly and wouldn't want to spend a few quid calling them.

I think the majority of people if wanting to give to a charity would rather give £11 instead of £10 and spending a quid on a phone call.

Is there ANY obligation whatsoever on those advertising  0870 numbers to advise the cost of the call or is this completely stealth charging ? ( and of course a GREAT idea by the OFCOM 'Public Servants')

How did they make their money before the 0870 scam?? In fact, how did any company make their money before this???  Mmmm, must have been difficult..... especially for banks, but for government offices, well we all know they rip us all off one way or another before this scam came along. That's why I'm moving out of this place... at least I will be able to phone on a geographic number and it will be kosher!!

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One of the consumer helping proposals in the Ofcom NTS Options for the Future document is that these tariff messages should be added to all 084/087 calls but some of the leading commercial respondents have said it is totally impractical and impossible for them to do.

Strang then that a twobit operation like Darren Thomas/Blue Telecom's Call 188866 service should be able to afford to do it when they only charge 1p for each call.  Why not email darren.thomas@bluetelecom.co.uk to ask him how Call18866 manage to offer this call price announcement
and still make a profit.