OK, back to the increased connection charge which still isn't reflected on the large graphic on their website - isn't it still cheaper to use 18866 instead of a CPS carrier such as TalkTalk who will charge 5p min then per minute?

NGM,

In answer to your earlier question, I am quite sure this problem has nothing whatever to do with my computer. I checked and my message had been posted correctly on the forum. I checked in again some hour or so later - it was still there visible on this forum.

Some hours later when I checked in again the posting had vanished. I would remind you that on your own admission in another topic this has occurred with more than one of your postings.

Dorf

Quote:


Neither 18866, Finarea or Connect Telecom are members of the Otelo  (www.otelo.org.uk) ombudsman complaint scheme and thus I have filed a complaint with Ofcom about 18866 not properly notifying their price increase, not answering my email of complaint about this and not belonging to an alternate disputes resolution scheem such as Otelo.

I would suggest that any other 18866 customer reading this thread should also call Ofcom on 020 7981 3040 to make a complaint about 18866's behaviour and their failure to belong to either the Otelo or any other complaints scheme.

I have just had a very unsatisfactory call back from a lady at the Ofcom Contact Centre on this issue as a result of which I have sent this email to Ofcom's Chief Operating Officer, Ed Richards.

-----Original Message-----
From: NonGeographicalMan
To: ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk
Cc: stephen.carter@ofcom.org.uk;  matt.peacock@ofcom.org.uk;jackie.caspary@ofcom.org.uk
Subject: Failure to Take Action Against Finarea Over Non Membership of Otelo or other Alternate Disputes Resolution Procedures

Dear Mr Richards,

Complaint 2530078 - Against www.18866.co.uk/www.finarea.ch for Lack of Alternate Disputes Resolution Procedure over Unannounced Call Price Increase

I have today tried to lodge a complaint with the Ofcom Contact Centre regarding the behaviour of a telecoms company called Finarea (www.finarea.ch) that provides indirect call access routing on my phone line via their www.call18866.co.uk and www.1899.com telecoms brands.  The company also operates a raft of other telecoms brands selling service to customers on uk phone lines including www.18185.co.uk, www.dialaround.co.uk, www.dialwise.co.uk, www.telesavers.co.uk, www.voipbuster.co.uk and www.voipcheap.co.uk

My complaint is that Finarea increased the connection charge on their 18866 service on 5th September without sending an email to me or any other customers to inform us and without making clear in their so called call price announcement before each call (which states that the call cost is 0p per minute but does not notify the 3p connection charge) that this change had taken place.  Also my understanding is that although after 5th September they showed the new connection fee in one part of their website they did not show it in their main call price list.  Furthermore 18866 have always previously been in the habit of emailing customers immediately to notify them of any reductions in their calling prices.

I have tried to complain to the company itself via its online web complaints form but so far it has chosen not to reply and there is no telephone number one can call to complain to either here or in Switzerland, where the parent company, Finarea, is based.

I lodged this as complaint number 2530078 in your contact centre this morning and the lady concerned said she would call me back once she had investigated the matter.

She then called back a few minutes later to say that Ofcom is aware that 18866 is not a member of an alternate disputes resolution procedure and has been trying to pursue this with the company for some time, but also fairly clearly from what she said these attempts had thus far been unsuccessful.  She then went on to say that my only course of resolution over the matter was therefore to enter into litigation with the company under the terms of the contract.  To say that the manner of the lady in the contact centre was fairly offhand and unsympathetic is to put it mildly but she was no better or worse than the generally appalling call crunching skills deployed by most of your so called contact centre staff.

Aside from wishing to indicate my continuing discontent at the manner in which calls from members of the public are handled by the Ofcom Contact Centre (where in essence the stock answer is that Ofcom cannot deal with almost any consumer's problem and that they should go away to Otelo, the telecommunications company concerned, to lawyers or to anywhere else that will save Ofcom having to do any work) I would like to know specifically what powers you have under the various Telecommunications acts to take action against an operator like Finarea and its many sub-brands to force them to join an alternate disputes resolution procedure?  Also what powers do you have to take action against them if they refuse to respond to emailed customer complaints about billing and pricing and do not have a telephone number for customers to call?

I find it totally unacceptable that a regulator who has the primary mission of working on behalf of the citizen and consumer in terms of its statutory remit always chooses to hide behind its so called "light touch" methods of operation to do almost nothing that ever shows any form of action in the public interest.

I would therefore appreciate your comments on this specific matter before I take it up with my member of parliament as an example of Ofcom's general failure to make satisfactory use of its powers.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

NGM

I agree that Call18866 and their sister companies should have warned us about any price increase (a week at least) and I can't say I'm not surprised that they haven't registered in any ADR scheme but has anyone thought about the what will happen when (if) they do register with an ADR scheme such as Otelo?  It will have to increase its call charges from the 3p per call to something higher because I can almost guarantee that registering with an ADR scheme will cost a lot of money and probably not even a one-off fee but an annual fee.

A normal telecoms company can easily take it out of their profits but we all know that any profits Call18866/1899, etc make can't be that high at all.

I agree with you and you are right if they would have bothered to email us, and respond to your email (or other emails) about this then you wouldn't have needed to complain to OfCOM about them and especially about not having an ADR scheme.

Basically what I'm saying is when they sign-up to an ADR scheme then don't be surprised if call charges are increased again to pay for it.  This will also apply to Call1899 and the other sister companies as well because it is extremely unlikely they could do this out of their profits (if any).

Remember that because of the way the termination payments work then Call18866/1899, etc all have to pay BT (or whichever landline company the call terminates at) so much per minute and hence the reason why all other telephone providers charge x amount per minute. This ensures they don't lose too much money.

I have often wondered how they could survive on just charging a connection fee and having no specific maximum call length before a ppm charge applies.

Quote:
I had an interesting conversation with MSE forum member Bunking_off who appears to work in the telecoms industry and he said that BT still charge a per minute termination fee even to geographical calls.

I mentioned this in this post earlier on (post #12) and it includes a link to the relevant MSE forum page where we discussed this.

I've no idea on termination fees payable for VoIP calls.

In my opinion then no matter which carrier you use BT always seem to gain!

Quote:
I agree but majority of calls unfortunately end on BT due to their monopoly.
Quote:
I understand that Telewest, etc do charge a termination fee just like BT.  It doesn't really matter how much the termination fee is - what matters is that Call18866/1899, etc could be losing money on that individual call depending on its length.

There is an hour limit on calls for those stupid enough to go on BT option 3, or TalkTalk 3 packages.

I think the per minute termination fee is possibly reason why OneTel are in debt (due everyone making use of the free evening&weekend unlimited minutes) and possibly reason why TalkTalk have a pathetic limit of 70minutes for their so-called free calls. That way for those that forget about the 70min then TalkTalk haven't lost as much money on that call.

What is weird is that TalkTalk to TalkTalk calls have about 3 hours (or something similar) before call becomes chargable which probably means that part of the deal of TalkTalk using CPS (and paying the extorniate CPS fees) is that possibly calls terminating to a customer who uses TalkTalk as their CPS provider means that BT may not get there per minute termination fee but just possibly a connection fee or something otherwise why else would TalkTalk have a much higher limit call length on TalkTalk-2-TalkTalk calls but not on ordinary geographical calls, not even on their Talk3 package?

Were these telecom companies may lose money on a certain call they hope to gain it on other calls like the expensive NGN, etc or going over your time-limit (in the case of BT and TalkTalk).