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Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre (Read 42,245 times)
bbb_uk
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #30 - Sep 11th, 2005 at 8:58pm
 
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But I suspect that local JobCentres may be at the top of the list by still claiming these calls are Local Call Rate when they of all people should not be costing their callers a premium rate call...
When I put in my FOI request asking for geo's for their job searches and new claims line, I specifically mentioned that calls cost a lot more than the proper local rate and is upto 40ppm from mobiles and therefore they can't expect the jobless to ring them if all they use is a mobile. I'm still waiting for a reply on that FOI come to think about it.
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« Last Edit: Sep 11th, 2005 at 8:59pm by bbb_uk »  
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #31 - Sep 11th, 2005 at 9:01pm
 
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I entirely agree NGM. That is where the full responsibility for the confusion over the cost of these calls lies, and it is increasingly clear that this is very intentional and deliberate!


Dorf,

Are you aware of Ofcom's Statutory Duties (all of which involving protecting citizens and consumers and not the business interests of telecommunications companies) which they appear to be in total and utter flagrant disregard of so far as 084/7 is concerned.   They are also in breach of these duties in terms of their decision to allow the abolition of BT Standard Line Rental.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/sdrp/

We should all complain to our MP to get them to ask a parliamentary question to ask why Ofcom is not putting the interests of citizens and consumers first in its actions as it is meant to.
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« Last Edit: Sep 11th, 2005 at 9:03pm by N/A »  
 
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RBJ
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Reply #32 - Sep 14th, 2005 at 4:05pm
 
I would like to nominate Alliance and Leicester Business Bank.

Abusive not in the sense of staff being unpleasant (they are pretty good) but in the sense of predatory over incentivised management who ferociously defend their perceived right to rip their customers off using 0870.

They have steadily closed every loophole with staff being instructed not to put callers to non 0870 through to requested departments.

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Say No! To 0870.
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Alliance and Leicester Business Bank
Reply #33 - Sep 14th, 2005 at 4:22pm
 
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They have steadily closed every loophole with staff being instructed not to put callers to non 0870 through to requested departments.


Then why not close your account with Alliance & Leicester Business Bank and move it to the nice people at Nationwide who do everything in the customer's favour.

Then send an email to the managing director of Alliance & Leicester and the Business editor and personal finance editors of every major national newspaper saying just why you have taken your business away from them.  Oh and copy it to all the other directors and senior managers of Alliance & Leicester:-

http://www.alliance-leicester-group.co.uk/html/general/board.asp

You might also appreciate the sentiments expressed in this customer review of the said bank:-

http://www.reviewcentre.com/review135053.html

Don't Nationwide offer business banking?  I am a customer of 23 years standing with NatWest and 2 years standing with Nationwide and believe me the difference is just massive.  I have never been cross with Nationwide on anything and I am cross with NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland about almost all of their 101 different ripoffs and scams.  These go much wider than just using 0845 and 0870 numbers
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RBJ
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #34 - Sep 14th, 2005 at 5:46pm
 
Wow! A dialogue with Non-geographical Man. I'm not worthy....

Many thanks for your suggestions.

1. The commercicial banking sector is not as competitive as that for personal accounts and I'm now on my 4th and 5th commercial bank accounts in 10 years. They all try to use 0870/0845. I'ts a very complex charging matrix out there and Nationwide do not do Commercial accounts.

2. A&L are the best bank for paying in cash and their merchant services operation was very competitive but is increasingly coming into line with the others.

3. By modifying my account behaviour I have managed to reduce my call frequency to  a 2 minute call on a saturday morning once every 5-6 weeks. They don't get a lot of 0870 money from me but that's not the point. They want the 0870 money badly and I'm cross that I can't beat them.

4. It would be a bit pointless to move to one of the others just to pay a lot more in other charges. I've fought a long battle on this and only had to admit defeat a few months ago when the last of my back door routes failed. If my customers stopped using cash I would close the account tomorrow.

5. Your comments on RBS are interesting. I use A&L to pay money in. Bounce it across to RBS who I use to pay it out. No problems with RBS. Most done on the web and a geographic number to call when needed.

6. Agree with you on Nationwide but they are not quite as goody goody as they like to make out. Top Dog is paid shed loads of money a la the predatory PLC banks. 0845 is widespread. Claims number for their travel insurance is 0870. I forgot to pay a £6.50 credit card bill and got slugged with a £20 charge. Their credit card is very very good though.

All I want to do is to control my own phone charges. With the superb resources on this site I do so. A&L is the only one to have , I hope temporarily, beaten me. However at less than 10p per month it's a modest defeat.

RBJ
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Say No! To 0870.
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #35 - Sep 14th, 2005 at 6:28pm
 
I did check on Nationwide after my post and realised that they didn't offer business banking.  May be that is what makes them a "building society" then apart from obviously their mutual status?  As a personal customer they seem to offer just the same facilities as NatWest but a lot more cheaply and efficiently.

NatWest have dreadful rates of interest on their online savings account and appalling fees for withdrawing cash on the credit or debit card or making purchases with the said cards overseas.  Withdrawing cash on a Nationwide Visa blue debit card is fee free overseas but costs 4.65% with Natwest subject to a £2 minimum.  Even using a credit card in a store with NatWest costs you 2.65% foreign exchange rate levy.

As to calling 0870 with Alliance & Leicester you can call a bit cheaper with http://www.dialaround.co.uk/rates.php and their 5p per minute 0844 number for dialling "national rate" 0870 numbers - 0844 566 7676.  You waste may be 15 extra seconds of call time having to  call via this number but still a good saving of 2.5p per minute on say a 15 minute call.

Or set up an account with www.18185.co.uk which costs 4p connection plus 4p for the first minute to 0870 numbers and then 4p per minute thereafter.  This makes them cheaper than dialaround if the 0870 call lasts 5 minutes or more.

I can't believe there isn't a geographic number for A&L Business banking somewhere?
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #36 - Sep 14th, 2005 at 9:12pm
 
Quote:
I did check on Nationwide after my post and realised that they didn't offer business banking.  May be that is what makes them a "building society" then apart from obviously their mutual status?  



Yes they do.

I have had my business account with Nationwide for the last 13 years. It is called a BusinessInvestor Account and is excellent if you fit the right profile for the account. There isn't an overdraft facility and provided you don't write more than 6 cheques a month there are no charges so although hopeless for some businesses it knocks the spots off all other providers if you can comply with these restrictions. I've found the service excellent, BUT the non-banking status does present some limitations. Happy to talk off-line if you want more details. I would definitely recommend if you don't go overdrawn and make limited numbers of payments,
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #37 - Sep 15th, 2005 at 10:32am
 
NGM,

I have only just noticed that I did not respond to your point to me concerning Ofcom's duties: " Are you aware of Ofcom's Statutory Duties (all of which involving protecting citizens and consumers and not the business interests of telecommunications companies) which they appear to be in total and utter flagrant disregard of so far as 084/7 is concerned.   They are also in breach of these duties in terms of their decision to allow the abolition of BT Standard Line Rental."

Yes I am of course aware of their responsibilities under the Acts which they themselves are so fond of referring to; but  although they spend considerable time and effort referring to these obligations placed on them they never comply with them. This is clearly because they have not so far been accountable, since Parliament has not undertaken its statutory duties in respect of them. I believe it is the responsibility of Parliament ultimately to censure them for these failures, particularly within the Parliamentary committee system.

There have been a number of specific instances where Ofcom's failures in respect of the Acts have been raised by Parliamentary committees, for example the Public Accounts Committee. Generally however no actions have been taken by any of these committees to bring Ofcom to account, or to take any punitive action with respect to their failures and thus the failures of senior figures within Ofcom.

As we have discussed before this is probably principally due to the fact that Ofcom is ultimately controlled by the government, and the government do not want to rock the boat, particularly in their current predicament of fiscal problems, with diminishing revenue and increasing expenditure. (The present revenue the government obtains from the scams helps them in this predicament.) The committee system is thus somewhat muted at present.

I have indeed continuously referred to these responsibilities under the Acts and their continuous failure to fulfil them in my communications with Ofcom, my responses to their consultations, letters to my own MP and MEP, and communications to various other MPs with a stated concern about these failures and to various Parliamentary committee chairmen. All of this has of course been to absolutely no avail and Ofcom and their senior figures continue to be uncensured for these blatant failures under the Acts.
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Ofcom are completely ineffectual
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #38 - Sep 15th, 2005 at 11:23am
 
Dorf,

I didn't realise you were also fighting the battle on so many different fronts.

The whole reason Ofcom don't act properly on 084/7 is because it seems to be a key plank in the overall New Labour policy of massive rises in stealth taxes (that range from 084/7 to swingeing MOT, driving license and passport fees to massive council tax rises caused by cuts in central government funding of local government) so that they can claim not to have raised Income Tax.

Yet all of these stealth tax rises have the greatest impact on those on low incomes who one would have thought were amongst the core of traditional New Labour supporters.

Any how I have sent you a Private Message about some of this stuff.

NGM
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dorf
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #39 - Sep 15th, 2005 at 4:28pm
 
Yes NGM, they are the people most hit by all of these. It is certainly the root of the government's desire for the scams to continue, with as I am always trying to emphasize QUEUING on revenue generating numbers, which is how all the really big money is being made.
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Ofcom are completely ineffectual
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #40 - Sep 15th, 2005 at 4:33pm
 
Quote:
Yes NGM, they are the people most hit by all of these. It is certainly the root of the government's desire for the scams to continue, with as I am always trying to emphasize QUEUING on revenue generating numbers, which is how all the really big money is being made.


Dorf,

Sadly Ofcom's latest survery for the NTS Options for the Future consultation has already concluded there is no relationship between the length of the call queues and the amount charged by the telcos for the call.

They obviously use the same people to carry out customer surveys as Dell Computer Corporation. Shocked
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #41 - Sep 16th, 2005 at 10:43am
 
Well NGM,

We are hardly surprised are we? This "conclusion" was inevitable if the government's total revenue in from all their perpetrations of these scams was to continue?

It is quite clear that a "consultation" to Ofcom is a matter of: "Don't confuse us with the FACTS. Our mind is already made up!" Send us your opinions anyway (on our appropriate form please) so that we can appear to be undertaking a "consultation" and considering consumers' views, which it is our duty to do, so as to protect the interests of consumers. (It's OK though, because even if in the end we do not observe our responsibilities under the Acts there is no one who will censure us!)
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Ofcom are completely ineffectual
 
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #42 - Sep 16th, 2005 at 10:58am
 
I just find it very disappointing that a major uk regulator can be this cynical, manipulative and devious

Even the FSA have heavily fined those insurance companies involved in the major pensions misselling scams.

Ofcom's excuse is that it only costs most telecoms consumer another £50 or so extra on their bills a quarter or £200 a year (actually they pitch it rather differently in terms of it only being a few pence a call extra but this is in fact what it typically adds up to).  So nothing to worry about then?! Shocked Roll Eyes

The fact that the whole NTS industry is worth over £1 billion a year and these calls are around 25% of all uk call volumes seems to rather elude them.

Obviously changing the revenue share and the tariffs is a big deal and would take time and a study and negotiation but Ofcom are so useless that over 15 months after BT Standard Line Rental was abolished they haven't even passed a regulation stopping BT using the terms Lo-Call and NationalCall to sell and bill calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers.  Now if that doesn't say that Ofcom are a bunch of BT poodles then I don't know what does.
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Re: Your Vote for Most Abusive 0870 Call Centre
Reply #43 - Sep 28th, 2005 at 12:30pm
 
I too am on the quest for a geographical number for Alliance & Leicester Small Business Banking. There seems to be an access route for other customers.
regards
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