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I find it unbelievable that the university can be using an 0871 premium rate number for impoverished students.

Have you thought of going to the MP for the area your university acommodation is in and getting him to write to the vice chancellor of the university about this obscene ripoff.  He should also write to Ofcom about it.

You might also want to go to your local council's trading standards department to make a formal complaint if the university is claiming that 0871 is BT National Rate.  0871 has never been BT National Rate.  You could also consider trying to get your local newspaper interested.

You can obviously try quoting the following to these people:-

Leicester County Council Trading Standards - Click Here

See Para 1.3 saying that anyone claiming 0870 is national rate is committing an offence under Part III of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.  For 0871 they would be doing much worse than that.

COI Contact Centre Guidance - Click Here

See page 33 or Para 3.50 onwards.  Although the University is not an official government contact centre as a public sector educational establishment its obligations on telecoms policy and accessibility should be very similar.  Anything worse than an 0845 is totally out of order.

ASA Stop the Call Confusion Guidance - Click Here

Specifically are the university making it clear that it can cost students relatives 10p per minute or £6.00 an hour to call an 0871 number on BT Option 3 compared to a call to a geographic 01 number being free of charge on BT Option 3?

Parliamentary EDM Against 0870 Numbers - Click Here

Lastly it might help to point out the above recent Parliamentary Early Day Motion signed by 21 MPs condemning the use by government of 0870 contact centre numbers.

I hope this helps.  Whoever arranged this in your university is obviously eithe a total moron or a total charlatan getting a backhander from the telecoms company.

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I think you should particularly concentrate on the angle that no other university running this scheme is using anything worse than 0870 and that 0870 numbers only cost 1.5p per minute at the weekend whilst 0871 still costs 10p perminute.  And the weekend is when your relatives are most likely to want to call.

You may also find this site helpful which shows that BT does not market 0871 as being Nationa Rate but only as a Contact Call number.

On a more practical level that helps you more immediately if your university provides wireless 811b/g internet access you could get yourself a free geographic number for incoming calls from your relatives from www.sipgate.co.uk and make your outgoing calls using some kind of voip handset or headset on your computer free of charge to any 01/02 uk phone number using www.voipbuster.co.uk

I hope this helps.

Dave, Thank you for the reply the number is; 08717007***

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Can you give us some more information?

Is this number unique to someone's room or is it a system where you dial the above number and then when prompted dial an extension number?

Can you give us a weblink about the system or tell us who operates the system?

I presume that if you dial an outside number it gives a withheld number. Try prefixing the outside number with 1470. On a normal line this will release the CLI (Calling Line Identification: the number on caller display or 1471). I doubt it will work, but worth a try.

The above number is charged at 10p/min at all times from a BT landline.

It was allocated to Telewest Communications in February 2004. Telewest have the following prefixes in the Plymouth (01752) area code:

• 01752 43 Allocated 05/2004
• 01752 58 Allocated 12/2004

Assuming that there is a geographical number that the 0871 goes to (there isn't forced to be, which is why some more info on the system would be useful) and that it is an 01752 number (that's not forced to be so, Southampton Uni's numbers are Winchester ones!) these may be the prefixes.

Hi. I have tried the link provided by NonGeographicalMan to the site ending /leicester to find Para 1.3 stating that "calling 0870 is national rate"is an offence, but this link is no longer supported and there is too much for someone of my limited knowledge to try and find this gem which I'd like to print out and give to customer service desks to try to convince them of their misleading ways.
I try and promote this site as often as I can, but it would be really useful to have a page that could be printed to summarise the typical 0844/0845/0870/0871 call costs and what these can legally be described as (with supporting links) and whether they have to state the call cost, as despite reading many topics here, I'm still unsure of the legal requirement for each.
Thanks. Bill

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Dave now I have picked up on how to do these hidden URL links from you I have further corrected this to make it even easier by putting Click Here in the links to make it obvious.

I also added one for the recent Parliamentary Early Day Motion.  The above references really ought to go in some kind of sticky message in the Geographical Numbers Chat section.

I wonder what happened to Jo Fish?  Perhaps one of the geographical alternatives you gave has turned out to work?

Hi,
Yes, this may well help make them really aware that the position is untenable, they (the uni) say that its a system they took over and can't change!!!!!!! However we shall see, thank you for all your help I will keep you updated as and when we have further developments.
Jo