And 55 pages of bamboozle from UKCTA in two different documents demanding that the scamming be allowed to continue in the name of so called free commerce and marvellous value added services to the consumer.

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nts_forward/responses/sz/UKCTA.pdf

and

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nts_forward/responses/sz/UKCTAIndepenreport.pdf

Outrageous stuff but one would expect it from this outfit.  By contrast CPW's position on this whole deal as a so called low cost fixed line consumer telco is far more reprehensible.

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 14^th, 2005 at 9:47pm:


How about using post if you don't like emailing or having to pay to use the phone?

tripleeight wrote on Dec 14^th, 2005 at 9:59pm:


Yes, because the companies who promote 0870 numbers and have incompetent email handling, will respond to a letter of course.

I sent a letter to one of these 0870 companies, as I wanted a written reply to my question, I even sent it recorded delivery so they couldn't deny receiving it. Did I get a reply a month after it was confirmed delivered by Royal Mail, did I F&*K

So I sent another recorded delivery letter, and predictably a month after it was confirmed received by Royal mail, still no response.

What was your point again, oh yes, I remember now, you didn't have one.

Cheers, Des.

Dave wrote on Dec 15^th, 2005 at 5:05pm:


What is so especially disgusting about all these call centres and the telcos who are in bed with them is not just that they wish to charge very large amounts for what should be a nearly free ordinary customer service phone call (although I do find that decision in itself highly offensive and not something they would tolerate in for instance the USA) but that they wish to continue to deceive customers that its a perfectly standard local rate or national rate call through the abusive link that will always exist under the current 084/7 codes.

They try to suggest that they are in favour of more price disclosure and so on but we all know perfectly well that if they are allowed to continue to use 084 or 087 numbers of any flavour for revenue share (even 0844 or 0871) they will tell their staff (in my view under threat of the sack even though the cynics who run these call centres will of course claim it was just due to a lack of personal knowledge by the staff that they give out the wrong prices) they will to continue to tell any customer who complains that "its only a local rate call" or "only a national rate call" "Sir/Madam".

They say that we at SayNoto0870 want to stop all their revenue share and that is why everything must in fact stay just how it is now with no change.  But the reality is that we are happy for them to have whatever revenue share they like as long as there are compulsory call price announcements and compulsory publication of call prices in any adverts for the numbers.  What we won't tolerate is the continued use of the disgraceful 084/7 local/national call rate lie.  Without that lie this disgraceful scam industry would never have built up to its current level.

But incredibly these charlatans have the nerve to claim it is we who are mad and that they provide special services and fantastic innovations that could just not be delivered as ordinary geographic calls.

Utter poppycock the lot of it.   These people are the sort of individuals who would sell their own grandmother for the sake of a nice little stack of £50 notes.

It gets even worse:

<<
Question 1: Do stakeholders consider that these proposals are reasonable and are likely to be effective in improving the information available to citizens and consumers about PRS? UKCTA certainly agrees that consumers should have access to the information they need to make informed choices; and this certainly includes appropriate information about NTS charges. However, the main issue is to ensure that consumers read and familiarise themselves with such information.

Question 2: Do stakeholders consider that these proposals are reasonable and are likely to be effective in improving the information available to citizens and consumers about NTS call prices? As explained above, many communications providers already provide such information, and this can only be effective if customers take the time to read all the information currently available. We do also have concerns that simply increasing the types of information which must be made available may lead to information fatigue. Fundamentally, we believe that consumer information should be as simple as possible.
>>

Translation: we do not want the public to have any improved understanding regarding how much we are scamming out of it.

Quote:

I'm a consumer and I find that the vast majority of companies don't want to enter into any conversation about whether revenue is generated or not.

The only company who I have experienced who were upfront is Shoosmiths Solicitors who provided a list of geographical alternatives.

I ask the UKCTA, just what sort of 'service' deserves 7.51p/min to be held in a queue? There are no figures to go on, appart from for particular companies, so we can only speculate on how much they actually get. Of course, the point that these cretins cannot understand is, what can be represented as a simple algebraic equation:

x = 7.51 - r

where r is the amount of revenue they receive and x is thus the amount of the telephone call itself, the amount left for the telcos (as a whole) as it were.

These must be the sort of people who are not aware that, at most, a call to a UK geographical number is 3p/min. Therefore we should expect the revenue, r to be equal to or greater than 4.51p/min during the weekday daytime. Somehow I doubt that this is the case.

tripleeight wrote on Dec 14^th, 2005 at 9:59pm:
Simply because the same thing would apply.  I could write to them and if I'm lucky they'll answer my question(s) fully but if they don't then that means waiting ages for a reply and then having to write to them again pointing out they never really answered my last letter.

Only if the query a consumer has with a company/gov department is straight forward yes / no type response do you not need to email/write back to them again and ask for a more clear explanation or even for them to just read the email.

A phone call, due to its nature, is better simply because if they become vague with your query or don't answer it fully then you could ask them more questions until they do, or they put you in touch with someone that does know.

Just imagine what would happen if companies/gov depts had to provide an announcement that they are "making x pence per minute"?  The simple answer consumers would become aware that revenue sharing actually exists and would complain for being kept in a queue for over 20+mins before someone answered.  Eventually, after enough people complain, the companies/gov depts that are earning thousands/millions from these calls would be forced to use geographical numbers or something similar otherwise lose potential customers (if applicable).

Before this consultation, many companies were saying they only used the 08x numbers for their features like call routing but going by the responses that I've read most are worried over losing their revenue.

Any company that is genuinely interested in an 08x for its advanced routing features has no need to complain about loss of revenue simply because these features would still exist on the 0870 numbers if ofcom's preferred proposal is adopted.  Basically, 0870 would likely cost the same as geographical (and possibly be included in inclusive mins, etc) and companies could still use the 0870 for its additional features.