Hey NGM,

You may have hit upon it! That is the real reason the Police are so keen on these Premium numbers. Just imagine the improvement in undetected crime figures which will be a direct result, because so many people will be detered from reporting crimes if it is going to cost them.

I think that is such a good point that  I think you should deliver it to Michael Howard or Charles Kennedy to give political publicity to at this crucial time.

I have read back a fair while before sending this:
Does anybody know who is coining it with regard to the police?
It is well known that NEG are in bed With the NHS, could it be that the police are similarly tucked up?
I know that NGM said it has nothing to do with the NEG scam. But..
Are you sure?

juby

NGM, in reply to your earlier point, I doubt whether even all of those who suffer or witness a crime and believe that there is a good chance of the police detecting the perpetrators will call, when they know it is now a disguised Premium number they have to call, which will cost them for being a public-spirited citizen.

So even if only some do not I still believe the overall effect will be fewer crimes reported, therefore fewer crimes for the police to solve and an apparent reduction in the crime rate resulting from this which the government will claim is because of their efforts in reducing crime!

It is all smoke and mirrors. but this is particularly attractive to government and police because it offers both an apparent reduction in the level of crime and a stealth tax!

NGM,

That's another good point!

It shows you just what a real scam this all is. Out of what is predominantly deceipt and extortion they turn all of the resultant effects into apparent statistical advantages to deceive those fooled into paying.

What better way is there to milk fools of their money?

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Dorf,

I wonder how many regular contributors to this site either work from home or are retired or part retired and so actually have to pay most/all their own phone call costs?  I suspect the vast majority of regular contributors to this site fit this profile?

The problem is that the typical busy media person has all their phone call costs, including those on their own behalf to 0870/0845 numbers, paid by their business either via the use for personal calls of their business fixed line numbers or via their business mobile phone for which the entire bill will be paid by the business - in this case the BBC.

Because they don't pay their own phone bill and don't see the huge difference for call costs to 087x and 084x numbers like we do they don't seem to believe the scam exists.  This in turn is mainly because over the last 10 years BT and Cable & Wireless's salesemen have maliciously and cynically peddled a lie of quite breathtaking proportions which the useless Kipping folk at OFTEL and now Ofcom actually allowed them to perpetuate.

The cynical lie was that these 0870 and 0845 calls were ordinary local and national rate calls and because the lie is being told even now most unquestioning members of the public (that is about 92% of them) just take it all at face value.

The lie here is almost as breathtaking in its success as the lie perpetrated by Saddam Hussein, Stalin, the Generals in Argentina or Hitler about what happened to all those missing people.  The fact is that if you tell a lie often enough and repetitively enough with the full backing of the government apparatus (in this case OFTEL) that in the end you will be successful in making most people believe your lie.  This is quite clearly what has happened in this case.

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Given that Working Lunch is another BBC program one can only assume that the journalists and/or producer on Working Lunch are much more careerist types wanting only to please the 0870 profit seeking senior BBC management instead of embarassing them.  And as we know the BBC is one of the worst abusers of 0870 numbers out there.

Clearly You & Yours does not give much of a damn but then they operate with the input of the redoubtable John Waite who is reknowned for his independence of mind and extremely hard hitting consumer reports.  Also the whole of Your & Yours seems to be built on asking politically incorrect questions that no else in the media dares to ask.

There was a time when You & Yours seemed to lose its way be endorsing all forms of aggressive speed enforcement but I think we probably have some of the female presenters of the program to thank for that.

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Coolsparx,

Sorry to correct you but it is not the cheap call carriers who are the source of the 0845/0870 ripoff.  The villains are BT, Cable & Wireless and the ever complacent and incompetent Ofcom.

The reason that the other call companies charge even more than BT for 087x and 084x calls is because Ofcom recently changed the rules to let BT and Cable & Wireless charge their rivals even more for terminating calls to their customers running 087x and 084x call centres than they charge their own BT Residential customers for these calls.  This was apparently done in the name of deregulation and light touch by Ofcom.

The reason that 0870 and 0845 aren't available any more cheaply anywhere else is because the call recipients get a rake off of up to 4p per minute and all of the rest of the extra profit nearly goes to BT and Cable & Wireless who terminate 90%+ of calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers.

If someone like 18866 could find a way to carry calls to 084x/087x cheaper than BT does and yet still make a profit on it I am quite sure that they would be only too delighted to do so.

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4.6p per minute you say Dorf?  That means poor old BT may have to now make do with only 3p per minute for carrying the call compared to the mere fractions of a penny for the whole call they would earn if I routed a call to one of their customers via a geographic number with call18866.  Unless of course the call is from a Phonebox to an 0870 in which case BT Wholesale gets over 6p per minute for their trouble, even at the weekend.  For 0845 the BT Wholesale Phonebox rakeoff is probably around 9p to 10p per minute.  This is due to a highly anticompetitive contract between BT Wholesale and BT Phonebox division.  Sadly BT Phonebox division who provide the boxes doesn't seem to get any of the extra financial benefit of these quite exorbitant 0845 and 0870 charges.

Regarding Ofcom I get the distinct impression that Geoff Brighton, who is coordinating the work on NTS Options for the Future, could well be a former BT employee.  Of course I could equally be quite wrong but as Ofcom don't post their senior staff CVs on their website I can't actually be sure either way.