Hi a frequent viewer now a newbie...

Just noticed that the Citizen's Advice Bureau have now gone to 0870!!!!

There is even a message on one of the old numbers advising you to ring the new 0870 number.

It's getting worse!

If we had the power to act just like those violent and empty-headed animal rights extremists, we would have eliminated Non-geo numbers in no time.

Having a need to contact the above, I tried my local one with a geo no but this is permanently engaged, has no message facility & does not reply to emails (it is supposed to be one of the best so what did I expect?!)   I then tried to get numbers for other nearby offices, Cambridge & Braintree, to discover that the former has an 0844 no & the latter an 0870!   I was appalled.   The woman at the regional office in Cambridge was unaware of the cost implications and shocked when I told her and said she will pass it on to senior managers.   How can this fit with guidelines about public organisations, particularly those such as CAB which are frequently the only option for the poorer members of society, and how do they justify what are premium rate numbers?   What about COI guidelines or do they get out of it as they are technically, I believe, a charity not a government department?   I did mention this website but felt I should just ensure forum users are aware & can perhaps add their protests as I could not find any other threads on this subject.

Interesting explanation about one of the possible uses of donations to the CAB (from their website):

Quote:


They claim it is costing them £15,600 a year to maintain the 0845 number, (assuming it operates 5 days a week)!

Any comment out there considering that the person who takes the average 13 calls a day is almost certainly also a volunteer?

In less than 6 months, the cost of calling 0870 numbers will be the same as calling geographical numbers.

Watch 'em join the "We're moving to 0871 xxx xxxx to enhance the service we provide" brigade.

zenla wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2007 at 9:19am:

It is the intention of the national umbrella charity, Citizens Advice, to set up a single national telephone number. Citizens Advice doesn't appear to be publicising a single number at this time, nor is there any indication of the code that might be used, and there is no indication that this is intended to replace numbers for individual Citizens Advice Bureaux - that wouldn't make any sense, citizens often need to speak to the advisor at their local bureau that is dealing with their issue.

A cursory check shows that for individual Citizens Advice Bureaux the situation hasn't changed over the past few months and is still a mixed picture. Some use 0870 numbers, some use 0844 numbers, and others use geo numbers. I note that in some cases neighbouring bureaux share an 0870 number, which indicates that it was adopted for the routing facilites. If you think that they opted for the 0870 - and might change to an 0871 - for revenue generation, one would ask: for whose benefit, given that the bureaux are operated by volunteers? The inconsistent approach indicates that individual bureaux do not have the benefit of centralised advice on the issue and may be unaware of the cost implications. Citizens Advice says:

Quote:

so there may be the opportunity for those with the knowledge to support the bureaux with their expertise.

Quote:
Mine suggests it is.

Cambridge	0844 848 7979
Newcastle-under-lyme	0870 126 4049
Hillingdon	0870 126 4021

Please check the name of this site.

Quote:
Do you have any evidence for this?

I was reading a Post on this site about the LibDems 'Faceless Britain Campaign.  At one major meeting, a 'sympathetic attendee was the Citizens Advice Bureau.  Imagine my surprise to find that when I tried to ring my local CAB..... it has only an 0844 number to contact them.  Admittedly their minicom number is a local Northampton number but this, in my view is disgraceful.  If it wasn't so sad it would be hilarious.