http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2389087,00.html

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A website set up by a computer expert in his spare time lists cheap alternative telephone lines and is getting 10,000 hits every day

AT AN outlandish 9p per minute for telephone calls that are usually answered by a computer, 0870 might be best described as the international dialling code for rip-off Britain.

But a computer expert has found a way to circumvent that national-rate number and is sharing his secrets with 10,000 people every day. The website www.saynoto0870.com lists 5,000 firms that publicise expensive numbers that often cost three times the cost of a call to a landline number. Callers enter a company name and the website reveals a local geographical number and sometimes even details of a free phone line for a business.

A search by The Times immediately found that TicketMaster’s information and booking line 0870 4000700 can be reached on 0161-385 3500. Similarly Barclaycard’s card protection service on 0870 0100578 can be reached on 023- 92652222 and even by freephone on 0800 603060.

British Airways advertises its general helpdesk on 0870 8509850. But it can be reached more cheaply on 0191-490 7901. Its executive club has a freephone number: 0800 123111.

The site was founded by a publicity-shy government computer expert who wants to be known only as Daniel from Lancashire. He set it up five years ago after being incensed at how big companies ripped off their customers.

He now believes that his website is saving people as much as £1 million a year on phone bills, calculated on the assumption that the 10,000 people who visit it each day then make one ten-minute call to a normal rate number instead of an 0870 number. The call would cost 30p rather than 70p from a BT phone, saving 40p a person, or £4,000 a day for 10,000 weekday users.

Daniel said: “Calling 0870 is the biggest rip-off in telecoms. I started the website so I could keep my own list of cheaper numbers. Then I let people add their numbers and it has taken off. Doing the site takes up all my spare time but I do it because it’s rewarding. I get e-mails all the time saying ‘Thank you — you have saved me so much money’.”

Calling 0870 on weekdays costs 7p a minute from a BT phone and up to 9p from other providers. Charges are even higher from mobile phones.

What is galling for the caller is that businesses using 0870 numbers share the revenue with the number provider and pocket as much as 4p a minute themselves. Calling a normal number costs just 3p a minute from BT and less from some other providers. Prices for 0870 numbers are reduced during evenings and weekends.

The success of the website and a postbag of consumer complaints have already prompted Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog, to announce plans to cut 0870 prices.

However, consumers will have to wait until January 2008 for calls to cost the same as dialling 01 or 02 numbers.

Karen Darby, the chief executive of a price-switch website, Simply Switch, said: “Saynoto0870 is up there with the best examples of consumer backlash. It puts the message out that consumers will not accept expensive 0870 calls. The different costs mean it’s like signing a blank cheque every time you call a number.”

A spokesman for British Airways last night defended using the 0870 number and said that it helped to offset a small percentage of the costs of running UK-based call centres.

“If anyone has a query, we urge them to call the 0870 number as the call-centre staff can then direct them to the best possible number,” he said.

There was an outcry after the July 7 bombings in London last year when the casualty information line supplied by Cable & Wireless to the government-funded Police Information and Technology Organisation was an 0870 number.
In the three days after the attacks more than 100,000 people called in and were charged up to 10p a minute from a landline and up to 40p from a mobile. People abroad were unable to get through at all.

The Government has since ordered that any future casualty information bureau should be on 0800 lines with a separate 0207 number for callers from abroad.

There are 600,000 different 0870 lines

Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog, says that not all are used as telephone providers buy up numbers and sit on them

Consumers spend at least £1.5 billion a year on 0870 calls: this is £1 in every £5 spent on landline calls

A daytime call to an 0870 number on BT’s most popular package costs 7p per minute compared with 3p a minute for calling a regular geographic number

In 2004 the Government urged its own departments not to use the numbers

The Department of Health has banned GPs from using income generating numbers

The Home Office uses 0870 numbers, as do the Passport Agency, Criminal Records Bureau and Work Permits UK, the Foreign Office, the DVLA, the Environment Agency, Land Registry, Ucas, Sure Start and Teacher Training Agency
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This is wonderful publicity, but it is a pity that the journalist could not
have been a little more accurate. The article would have made much more of an
impact if it emphasised that many subscribers (the majority, perhaps?) have a
'calling plan' where calls to geographic numbers are included in the plan. That
makes the extortionate cost of NGN calls even more of a rip-off. I also agree
with JRawle - it's all very well to say that "The Department of Health has
banned GPs from using income generating numbers" but it hasn't. It has merely
advised doctors not to use 0870 or 0845. As we all know, they have immediately
been switched to 0844....which are even worse! The Department is guilty of
toadying to the company that supplies the line.

Perhaps a few letters to the editor of the Times, pointing out some of the
errors and expanding on the issues may be worthwhile? Now that the floodgates
have been opened, there is a far greater chance of them being published (and it
would appear that the Times has not been sucked into the 0870 scam - another
good reason for the editor being more likely to publish reader's letters)

It was also mentioned in a BBC video here which is very hypocritical of the considering 99.9% of their numbers are 0870 anyhow and they refuse to release a geographical.

It's mentioned in the Daily Mail here as well.