The Guardian's Saturday Money has rightly been castigating the growing use of 0870 numbers, especially by public sector organisations; it has given publicity to saynoto0870.com and to the interest now being shown by Ofcom in the matter. How, therefore, does the paper justify the use of 0870 numbers by two of its own offshoots - Guardian Books (0870 836 0749) and Guardian book service (0870 836 0875)? No-one else seems to have raised this yet in the forum.

callender wrote on Dec 4^th, 2005 at 10:44am:


Interestingly, this is the same code used in the Opal Court student residences in Leicester. Clearly there are no internal extensions beginning with a 0, so this range of numbers could have been allocated to a different company entirely.

Numbers in Opal Court of the form 0870 836 xxxx become 0116 214 xxxx
It's at least worth a try!

The Guardian Offers website lists a handful of 0870 836 0xxx numbers. This page lists suppliers who all have an 0870 836 0xxx number. Perhaps The Guardian has aquired these 0870s to point at its suppliers' geographical numbers, rather all the calls going to the same office.

Very sneaky 0870 practice!!

It's certainly one thing companies using their own 0870 numbers to advertise in the Guardian, but I think you are right, and the Guardian has acquired the 0870 numbers, and the suppliers don't see a penny or any benefit to the 0870 number, but probably have to put up with complaints about it!!

It is of no use to the company to have the Guardian's 0870 number pointing to them, but it could harm their business if people complained about them, and chose not to call.  At least when a normal company has their own 0870 number, they cream the profits, and have made a choice to use the number despite it being against the interests of their customers.

In this case the businesses have not made a choice to use 0870 numbers, but another company who is advertising them has chosen to use them, rather than the companies own numbers.  The companies concerned have already paid the Guardian for advertising space, and now the Guardian claws back even more from the readers, and probably loses a few sales and increases the complaints in the process!!

Unless of course, the companies have entered into an agreement to accept calls from these numbers, so the Guardian can charge on a per call basis for advertising!!  If this is the case, it is even more important to circumvent the 0870 numbers and find a geo number instead!!

Adam wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2006 at 12:05pm:

Does the original article have a journalist's name / e-mail?
If so, could be worth raising the issue directly with him/her.