Quote:
Tell Ofcom what you think of 0870s and you could save up to £150!!!
Have you noticed how more and more companies are using 0870 and 0845 telephone numbers these days?
Landline calls to these so-called non-geographic numbers can cost up to eight times higher than a call to a geographic number (beginning 01/02) and calls to these overpriced numbers amount to an astonishing 25% of all UK calls by value!!! Many people are either unaware of this or are simply confused as to what charges apply. Worse still, these excessive phone charges apply when you are simply waiting to get to through, for example, to speak with an organisation's customer services department. Meanwhile this underhand means of gaining revenue is then shared between the company you are calling and telecommunications company involved in making the call.
Ofcom is aware of the public's widespread dissatisfaction with these arrangements and is currently consulting on the issues but the deadline is the fast approaching 6 December 2005.
You can read the many hundreds of responses by the public so far:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nts_forward/responses/Why don't you spend just a few minutes on having your say by emailing ofcom on nts@ofcom.org.uk
now! And please do forward this email to many more people so to give them the opportunity of responding.After all, ending revenue sharing on non-geographic numbers could save on average up to £150 in annual telephone call costs!
For further information and/or to seek advice from their active and helpful forum then click below:
http://www.saynoto0870.com/consultation/ For what its worth and to help get the ball rolling on this issue I've set out above my ideas on the shape of a mass e-mailout to forum members (and I've taken the stats from various threads on this forum - hope they're accurate
). The idea being to try to encourage even more people to respond. I've also emailed this to Dan.
Even though I'm still a newbie, I believe its getting late to argue the toss on phrasing and emphasis of such an email (and I'm sure we could come up with as many versions of this as there are forum members!). We just need to get the damn thing out asap (!) although I think some kind of SAYNOTO0870.COM logo ought to be included to make it look more professional.