This morning I had an 0870 experience that convinced me that legislation is needed that forbids companies from profiting from their non-geographical numbers.
I had a letter from parcelforce about an item I'd ordered from the USA that needed £30 in VAT and other charges paying before it could be delivered. Parcelforce has a website on which you can do many things like tracking parcels and managing accounts, but the only options in the letter for payment were to send a cheque or pay by phone, 0870 number provided.
Because I wanted the goods delivered tomorrow, I opted for the 0870 route, and initially it looked as though this wouldn't cost too much. The automated response offered me five options and when I pressed the number for 'make a payment' the system asked me to key in my delivery reference number, card number, finish date, start date, issue number and security code. I patiently tapped in these details and for each item the system read the input back to me and asked me to confirm that it was correct by pressing '1'. When the information had all been entered, the system read out my postcode and the amount I needed to pay, both of which I confirmed by pressing '1', then asked me to wait while payment was taken. The whole process took a little over 5 minutes in all, and seemed very efficient. However, after a few seconds the system's voice announced that my payment had failed and that it was putting me through to an operater who would take payment manually. For the next half hour I listened to lively music interrupted every minute or so by a message telling me that no operators were available and I was being held in a queue. After this time had elapsed, I lost patience, rang off and used this website to find the geographical number for Parcelforce.
The response to the geographical number was a complete contrast to the 0870 number. The phone was answered after about ten rings by a switchboard operator who put me through to the correct operator (no waiting in a queue at all) who established my identity and took my payment in about two minutes flat. Significantly, she did not need to record the start date and issue number of my card in order to put the payment through - something that had taken about a minute to input and confirm on the 0870 system.
The discrepancy between my experiences with the two numbers makes me suspect that large corporations are deliberately setting up their 0870- accessed automated systems to delay the consumer and profit themselves. This is not only a flagrant breach of the consumer's trust, it is also a sheer waste of everybody's time. The simplest way of stopping this kind of abuse would be legislation that prohibits companies from being paid a proportion of the revenue that they generate on their 0870 numbers. If they themselves were not profiting, they wouldn't spend time and money setting up systems that deliberately keep their customers hanging on the phone, and the country's efficiency would improve all round by not having so much time wasted. Do we have any hope of such legislation being proposed, perhaps by a private members bill? Are there any legal / political experts out there with some good ideas on how a campaign for legislation could defeat the timewasting inefficiency of our non-geographic number system?

[quote author=PennyMunn link=1156981492/0#0 date=1156981492]This morning I had an 0870 experience that convinced me that legislation is needed that forbids companies from profiting from their non-geographical numbers.
I had a letter from parcelforce about an item I'd ordered from the USA that needed £30 in VAT and other charges paying before it could be delivered. Parcelforce has a website on which you can do many things like tracking parcels and managing accounts, but the only options in the letter for payment were to send a cheque or pay by phone, 0870 number provided.[/quote]

Pennymum,

Unfortunately Parcelforce are some of the most evil - known to mankind when it comes to having low value goods delivered from outside the EU quite deliberately brought to the attention of HM customs to have duty charged.

Some while ago I ordered an infra red security intruder detector that play a recording of a barking dog (the house concerned has been broken into once a year for about the last 10 years) from a firm in the USA that was the only one even prepared to deal with a UK credit card holder and they did not give me a choice of carriers.  Whatever carrier they used in the USA unfortunately had Parcelforce as their UK agents.

Suffice it to say that the item only cost about 80USD but Parcelforce then went out of their way to notify HM customs so they could then impose their £11 customs duty collection fee for paying HM customs plus VAT and some other customs duty stuff that took charges to about £16.  There was a card suggesting I had to pay this money in advance before they would deliver it rather than that I could ask them to come to the door and then pay them y cheque or credit card when I knew the goods were intact (all of which delayed delivery of the goods by several days compared to them bringing them straight to the door and asking for payment).  I emailed their senior management about the 0870 number and the delay in delivery etc but got nowhere.

I would contrast this with a radio I bought last year from a company called Worldspace in Dubai worth 99USD that was delivered within 2 days of ordering by Fedex (Federal Express).  Basically the item was just delivered by the courier straight to my door and although it was declared on the shipping documents as being worth 99USD no duty was charged by customs at Stansted.  I in fact also had to pay a subscription of 83.88USD to Worldspace too but as that went straight to the company in Dubai and the service comes down from the satellite in space clearly nothing is being imported into the UK there so that value was not declared on the import docs.

If anyone is buying anything from the USA I would do everything in your power to avoid Parcelforce who will always ensure that you are charged customs duty so they can then impose their large flat fee for collecting it.  Sadly another example of ripoff Britain.

As for this whole scam being stopped by legislation sadly its not going to happen as the government regulator Ofcom has spent the last two years deliberately avoiding the extensive campaign from this site demanding all these ripoff NGN numbers are banned and in the end their only concession is requiring 0870 numbers to be charge at normal rate from Feb 2008 (if that date doesn't go backwards as it almost certainly will) but permitting 0844 numbers at up to 5p per minute to continue without any price disclosure and also to allow 0871 numbers at 10p per minute to replace 0870 so long as there is some disclosure on the websites etc that they cost 10p per minute to call.  And I bet staff on these lines will still claim its National Rate even if they don't put in any written communications.

Hi

Write to Fred Goodwin Chairman of Natwest - say that he has had a recent letter from a customer and that you are not alone on this issue.

Let me know what happens

bobby

Hi Geo

I understand that you wrote to Fre Goodwin - BUT did you ask him,
1. the Natwest and RBS are breaching EU legislation and uk legislation by failure to disclose before hand on 0845 and 0870?
2. That mislead consumers that the costs is of that of a normal call in breach of the EU Directives and s1 Misrepresentation Act.
3. Ask how is RBS and Natwedt going to comply with EU and UK Legislation?
4. Why is RBS and Natwest profiteering out of Consumers in breach of legislation?

I have a reply back from his office - which says:
"Turning to your comments on 0845 telephone numbers, the cost of such calls is determined by your network supplier, to who you will need to refe to find out the price they charge"

This statement was wrong in Law as it is the business who has the 0845 number to state the price of the call to the Consumer.

The person for the Chairmain is BIll (sorry i cant recall his surname) - I challeged him verbally and it did not know and said "he believed". I have asked him to supply evidence.

Please do the same without refering to me - his number is 0207 672 1796, fax 0207 672 1994.  

Sent a copy to Sue Cook at the OFT and copy to your MEP and MP.  Also take it to the FSA. By Natwest claim it is National Rate - is misleading you as a consumer by "failing to disclose the cost of the Premium rate number and misleading you aand mis-represntation. Work out the cost of ths calls - charge £14.00 per letter, charge for you time and that you are been victimised and discriminated by Unfair Consumer practices and ask that you be compensated for the dis-stress caused.  Wait for the reply

let me know what reply you get.

Bobby

if you send me a copy I will take it up with RBS/Natwest

bobby