And - probably more to the point, what sort of ethics does the "call handling company" have stealing - yes, STEALING - the additional NGN revenue from a charity since there is no mention of the charity getting any revenue from the calls (and I'd lay London to a brick they don't!)

Following my exposure of a subsidiary of a very well known charity who uses 0870. (And denies any profit therefrom.)

Here is another one. I have received the following e-mail from another company that quotes the Reg. No. of the charity - in the business of collecting unwanted clothes from the public. This charity is in most High Streets.

[email]Thank you for your email of 15 April 2005 regarding our 0870 number that is printed on our van packs.

I can confirm that we have checked with our call handling company, who set up the 0870 number for us, and I have listed below their reply.

BT charges are 8.1 peak rate (8 am to 6 pm) for an 0870 number and this includes VAT (6.9 p + 17.5%).
A national call (eg London to Glasgow) would normally cost 6.39 p + VAT which = 7.5 p.  There is a slight difference in using a non geographic number (i.e. 0870 number ) but it's certainly not double!
If callers are calling from a mobile the charges may well be more, depending on their mobile company).

I trust that this information will be of help to you.  Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Yours sincerely[/email]

I'm beginning to think that our American friend is right!

juby

Dear Mrs J Kingston

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.

I regret, however, that I find the content of your reply very sad for three reasons.

1. The information given to you by your 'call handling company' contains a number of blatant lies (I will explain below, please continue reading).

2. Nobody within your organisation realised that you were being duped.

3. Your 'call handling company' are making so much profit at your expense (clearly, without you realising it) instead of your worthy charity making same.

On 1/7/2004, BT forced 99% of its domestic customers (your charity's potential contributors) to migrate from what had been called their Standard Rate to BT Together Option 1. 

That migration changed the cost of renting a BT line but, more importantly from this discussion’s point of view, dramatically changed the price paid by domestic customers for their UK calls.  In particular, it eliminated any differentiation between the cost of 'local' and 'national' calls (i.e. calls to UK geographical numbers - those commencing 01 and 02) and that resulted in a call from Cardiff to Glasgow now costs the same as a call from Cardiff to Cardiff.

On the former (Standard Rate) tariff, charges were:



Since 1/7/2004, the new BT Together Option 1 tariff has been:



As is obvious from the above, your 'call handling company's' statement "" apart from conveniently omitting the crucial words 'per minute' after each price, used the OLD (Standard Rate) tariff.  Using the new (BT Together Option 1) tariff, a national call (eg London to Glasgow) now normally costs 3p per minute including VAT.

The cost of calling an 0870 number during the day is now 7.51p per minute including VAT.

Hence, the statement that dialling an 0870 number from a residential landline costs more than double what it costs to dial an 01 or 02 number is totally accurate (in fact, 7.51p per minute as opposed to 3p per minute means the call costs more than 2½ times as much).

I hope I have been able to explain how you are being duped by your 'call handling company' and that you will now be able to reconsider your use of a rip-off disguised premium rate number.

Kindest regards.