I am sad that you have contempt for me - such a strong emotion when you know nothing about me, or what I do or what I give to whom.  I can hold my head up when my day of reckoning comes.

My reason for objecting to 0870 so strongly is simply because I hate to see 'freeloaders' making advantage from these calls - especially when human tragedies occur.  If you cannot accept this then you would be advised not to visit this site, which has a very clear title!

To give to charities is commendable and I'm sure I speak for most site contributors when I say we give as much as anyone else, but I won't give by phoning 0870.

A list of organisations was on the TV screen last night and only the DEC had an 0870!!  So my cash goes through the alternatives.

So, MR A, you are not held in contempt by me, life is too short for such overblown predjudices against persons unknown.  Have a good life.

wow you have contempt for me. Im so Honoured you have time to have feelings like that for me. Im also an "ordinary Joe Blow".

Now I dont have to explain myself to you... but as for July 7th, people from abroad couldnt ring those 0870's.
"regular people like you and me" yep just people being paid 6 figure salaries and who are ex teclo anyway.

I recently had bad service from NTL, and if it wasn't for this site, I would have had to pay 0870 rates for holding on for half an hour.  Instead I called their freephone number.

Why should we have to pay to complain.  I would much rather have had internet access with no problems, but instead I had a message saying that the number cannot be recognised.

However NTL's attitude was that I should be paying 25p per minute to report this to technical support.  So next time you have a problem with bad service, if goods you order don't arrive, if your ISP won't let you connect to the net, if your brand new cooker or washing machine breaks down, I take it you're more than happy to call a premium rate number to make your complaint, and of course be left on hold whilst waiting for the call to be answered.

Or maybe you'd prefer not to whinge, and upset these lovely companies who are so worthy of our hard earned cash, and to show your appreciation, let's order some more goods from these companies, and if they don't arrive, we'll reward them with our custom again!!

Alternatively, if you send some money to my paypal account, I will send you a mystery gift, and if it doesn't arrive, then I take it you won't whinge, but if you do want to whinge, I'm happy to provide an 090 number for you to do so!!

I like to think of myself as having an open mind.

Now I, like everyone else, agree that the london bombing was terrible but why should the government, C&W and the mobile companies that charged upto 40ppm make a profit from such tragedy?  And they must have done.  In my opinion, no one should have profited from this tragedy whatsoever.

Due to forum members on this site (and maybe others) the government announced they would use a freephone and a geographical god forbid it should be needed again.  Now I personally don't expect the government to have to fund the 0800 number as this would actually cost the government money which in turn means more tax for us so a geographical is all that I was expecting but the use of an expensive 0870 number was not needed/necessary.

C&W who supplied the number for the london bombing offered cheaper alternatives first but the government chose the 0870 instead.  Why when it didn't need to?

I believe it also shows the lack of knowledge that the government has because as soon as they were aware of the high costs involved they released a geographical number.

And only after it was aware of the excessive call charges did MP Hazel Blears, after investigating it, asked the networks if they would kindly donate the profit they made from those calls for which I believe they did.

My problem is I hate to see people being ripped off and being unaware of it.

Do you watch rogue traders, watchdog, etc?  Specifically those companies that go into houses and claim things are broke when they're not and purposely taking longer than necessary just to rip off people.  They do this because most joe public are unaware.

A similar thing exists about NGN's (especially 087x).  Most people are not aware of the costs involved (ofcom admit this) and this is likely because they are still described as local or national rate which obviously they not.  Now some companies using them are purposely using them to gain revenue without the customer knowing about it.

As mentioned on another thread, Ofcom have been aware of this for ages and their last consultation confirmed the dislike of the public because they had over 100 respondents and took over 9months for a result which turned out to be another consultation.  Basically it is being dragged on and on and on.

Not to go too much off-topic I can see where Ofcom are coming from on some of their points and I don't personally expect them to immediately announce that revenue sharing will end.  I believe this is unfair and for those companies that want to continue to ripping us off then a time scale is appropriate.  I think 1 year is over the top and would say about 6months is fair to allow all those companies time to consider what they want to do and make the necessary amendments like letterheads, business cards, etc.

Now going back on-topic, look at the following scenario:-

You have 2 companies that are in direct competition with each other.  Both operate tel support but one operates an 0870 that unfortunately is generally known as national rate and the other one operates a 09x number but this 09x number is charged at exactly the same rates as that of the 0870.

Which one is going to get more business?  Obviously the 0870 company because people aren't aware of the costs involved in ringing and are definitely not aware that the company they are calling is actually gaining revenue from the call (ofcom admit this).  Whereas most people are aware that an 09x number is premium rate.

Now if 0870 was described as premium rate same as this 09x number then people would be aware that they are paying over the odds for the call and that the company gets a cut of the call charge in return (as happens now).

There is no difference between either the 0870 or the 09x except certain 09x numbers cost more.  The problem is that most consumers are unaware of the real costs involved in these NGN's.

Another example is AOL's decision to use an 0870 number.  AOL aren't cheap compared  to some of the other ISPs and AOL must get more money that most other ISPs simply because their 'content' has adverts all over it.  I know someone who has uses AOL and these adverts are all plastered all over the place when you log-on.

Why didn't AOL use a 09x number that costs the same amount as the 0870?

Same reasons as above and that is everyone would know that 09x is a premium rate number and avoid them whereas using the 0870 number then most people aren't aware of the costs involved and more importingly that AOL gain revenue from the calls they receive.

In fact if I had no choice but to call AOL on their 09x number that costs the same as a 0870 or their 0870 then it would actually be cheaper for us to call the 09x simply because call charging whilst in a queue are not allowed therefore holding for 30mins on an 09x number then I wouldn't get charged until they answered and I spoke with a human being.  Completely different for 0870 and AOL would actually get more money using an 0870 due to the lack of ofcom to admit that they are premium rate numbers albeit not as high as some of the 09x numbers.

I still stick to my original theory that Mr Asaboa is a senior employee of Ofcom, even though he now attempts to cover his tracks by pretending he is not.

The attitude that we are over excited about something that costs only a few pence per minute (when these calls are in fact worth £1.5 billion per year and constitute 25% of all uk calls by value) and is trivial is one I have persistently encountered from certain senior ex telco Ofcom and especially Oftel senior personnel.  It is also to be found throughout their consultation documents.

Mr Asaboa says he simply stumbled across this site but he then went out of his way to attack the integrity and impartiality of several active forum contributors.  He spends long hours studying all the posts.  Comeon pull the other one.  This person is either a senior call centre scamming person, a telco person or an Ofcom person.  And some of the attitudes expressed are a virtual dead ringer for the Mr Angry face of a senior Ofcom employee who tries to play Mr Niceguy until he realises he is not going to ever ensnare you in the Ofcom way of thinking. The vitriolic critcism of us for daring to talk about 0870 when there has been a major earthquake is exactly how that person thinks.  I have already had that person under his own name suggesting that we have a disproportionate interest in what is merely a telecoms tariff and that everything going on in Iraq etc is far more important.

Now that Mr Asaboa (obviously some clever intellectual play name worthy of a Times crossword man and standing for something else when decoded) has been rumbled he strangely seems to have lost his enthusiasm for posting any further.

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Good point Shiggaddi.  I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Even more reason to believe Mr Asaboa works at senior level for Ofcom, a telco or a major uk call centre.  He did seem strangely angry and upset that we spend so much time pursuing an issue which he still wants us to see as being only a few pence per minute extra on each call instead of a multi billion pound ripoff industry.

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How wrong can you be?! I'll start by telling the origin of my user name. I'm a Millwall fan and we recently signed a striker called Carl Asaba. But one of my mates thought we'd signed "some bloke called Asaboa", which I thought was funny, hence the user name.

I actually agreed with the principle of your argument, ironically enough until I came on this site and saw the things listed above which p1ssed me off (eg, saying you words to the effect of you wish Ofcom had been blown up in the 7/7 attacks).

Honestly, I'm proud you think that I'm the CEO of Ofcom, but truth be told, I'm 19. So if I can hit CEO level at 19 then I've done pretty well.

Tbh, I think your conspiracy theories are quite hilarious. You are not that important. You are just the sort of people who are never happy unless you are whinging.

So what if you have to pay 40p a minute to donate. So what? It only takes a minute to donate money over one of those helplines.

I'm a barman, and all day I have to put up with people whinging and complaining, and it really makes me laugh to think that some people are never happy unless they're whinging.

But anyway, I'm too busy for this. I've got a regulatory body to run.