How can I find out the local number of my doctor's surgery Lingfield Surgery?  They have two non-geographical numbers - 0870 428 0666 and 0844 477 8677.  I don't see why they should be making money out of their patients' on telephone calls.  The area code is 01342.  Can anyone help?

[quote author=Annev link=1164754094/0#0 date=1164754094]How can I find out the local number of my doctor's surgery Lingfield Surgery?  They have two non-geographical numbers - 0870 428 0666 and 0844 477 8677.  I don't see why they should be making money out of their patients' on telephone calls.  The area code is 01342.  Can anyone help?[/quote]

I am sorry to hear you are in the hands of one of these disgraceful doctor's surgeries.  It is simply incomprehensible to me that anyone providing a public service like this to the sick and elderly can use these scam numbers, especially when you consider the even more exorbitant charges imposed from Payphones and/or Pay As You Go mobile phones which our poorest citizens are likely to use.

Unfortunately the company behind the numbers your doctor is using is a company called NEG which is one of the most ruthless and unethical sellers of these numbers in the United Kingdom.  And when your doctor's whizzkid practice manager was conned into signing up for these numbers NEG would have told him to disconnect his old 01/02 numbers and instead get 01/02 numbers supplied by them for which only they know the real numbers of.

The disgusting lies peddled by the company that sold your doctor these services can be read at www.negtec.co.uk/surgeryline.htm  As you can see they now have over 1 million patients forced in to using their swindling services.  So 1 in 50 people find that their doctors use numbers provided by these shysters.

The only way ahead is to complain to your Member of Parliament and suggest to him that the telecoms regulator Ofcom is failing in its primary duty under the Communications Act 2003 to look after the best interests of uk citizens and uk consumers by ensuring proper price competition over phone calls and proper information on the cost of phone calls.  This is in the jargon a case of social exclusion because the high cost of these phone calls is most disadvantageous to the least well off in society.

So I would suggest the following:-

(a) Write to your MP using www.writetothem.com saying you believe that Ofcom is failing in its principal duty to protect the public by allowing these numbers to be used and their not even having to be called Premium Rate.  You could also suggest that Ofcom is failing to properly enforce the EU Miselading Advertising Directive over the cost of phone calls.  You should ask him to refer this matter to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for investigation as they are the only body that has the power to call Ofcom to account for its actions and putting the interests of business profitability ahead of the interests of sick doctors patients.  Also you might like to highlight the alarming cost of calling these numbers from overseas which are near £1 per minute by most means compared to only a few pence a minute by the cheapest means to UK 01/02 numbers

(b) You should I believe complain to your Patient Healthcare Trust asking for an explanation of how they can let your doctor use these unaffordable ripoff numbers and reach deadlock with them.  Once again this gives you an opportunity to then complain to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. In fact I think it would be best to reach deadlock with the patient healthcare trust on the matter and then go to see your MP about it.  A face to face visit at his weekly constituency surgery is probably better than a letter if you want to make sure he takes action.

Make the point to him that Ofcom has been handed the duties of the Office of Fair Trading on telecoms and broadcasting but for mysterious reasons it does not seem to be pursuing the best interests of UK citizen consumers on the same reliable basis that the Office of Fair Trading normally does.  Therefore the actions of Ofcom (who are stacked from stem to stern with senior ex telecoms industry people) need to be investigated and called to account by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

I hope this helps.  Unfortunately the doctor's 084/7 scam is one of the most unpleasant and disgusting which is why the evil firm behind it absolutely refuses to reveal the alternate 01/02 numbers.

Victors_Bruvver wrote on Dec 12^th, 2006 at 1:43pm:

The cost of calling 0844 numbers from BT residential landlines varies between ½p/minute and 5p/minute (plus BT's new 3p 'set-up fee' of course). 

It'll be no surprise to anyone here if the one your surgery has been conned into using is one of those costing 5p/minute (to maximise profits). Check it out HERE.

Some foreign telcos won't connect calls to UK 08 numbers - probably because the charges are so many and various and it's not worth the trouble.  Others will connect but charge premium rates (you cannot just assume £1/minute - you'd have to check with the particular telco in the particular country).

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 12^th, 2006 at 6:50pm:

Aren't the sick 'vulnerable groups' any more?

In other words, NHS PATIENTS wanting to contact their NHS GP!

dorf wrote on Dec 12^th, 2006 at 9:54pm:


My dear dorf,

It is good to see you making a return to this forum but don't you think you are going a little OTT in suggesting ALL our politicians have always been useless and ALL of them have been unprincipled.  What about Winston Churchill for instance.  I think you confuse Tony Blair and David Cameron, who I agree are entirely cynical and self centred careerists with not a bone of principle in their body, with ALL politicians.

I agree with you that with David Cameron at the helm of the Conservative party there is no hope that electing the other lot will make a blind bit of difference but I suspect that in the end he may cause a revolution in the Conservative party that wants to make them select another Conviction Politician of the Margaret Thatcher kind.  I am not even convinced that Cameron will be Tory leader at the next election depending on how disastrously his popularity collapses during the next year or two.  Also if he upsets some people enough then perhaps something more damaging on his drug taking past (or could it be the present also) may be released into the public domain.

The big problem is New Labour and their smoke and mirrors philosophy but I agree it is disappointing that for the time being the Conservatives are copying them.

Judging from your above comments perhaps you can reveal whether you are perhaps in the 20% of the UK population who never or almost never vote in elections?  Have you ever voted and if so when was the last time you did so?

Hi GoNGM,

I am still posting here from time-to-time when an issue on which I feel strongly arises. I was perhaps going a little over the top for effect, but I do feel very strongly about the treachery of successive politicians of all parties for some while now, of which these abuses are a direct example and result. We have to be careful here though since you have swayed the point somewhat from the abuse of the poor and vulnerable being hardest hit by these scams for example with doctor's surgeries to specifically politics and we will get off topic if we completely follow your line. 

There is no mention in my post of "all politicians being useless and all of them being unprincipled". I believe the serious problems of treachery in politics latterly commenced with Heath and continued with Thatcher (despite the fact that I am distinctly right-wing and actually dislike Socialism intensely). The problem was that she said all the right things before she was elected but once in power did completely and almost continuously the opposite. That was why I like others was fooled into voting for her government in her first term, which I subsequently very much regretted! Since and including Heath I therefore do believe there has been a stream of increasingly unprincipled political leaders of both parties who have systematically wrecked this country and committed treachery. (This is why the greater part of the electorate are now so increasingly disillusioned with politics and do not vote at all any longer, so I am clearly not alone!)

This whole current deceit of stealth taxes and pretence is a final extreme example of this unprincipled politics and fundamentally the root of what these telephone scams are about and why they are continued and proliferate. It is because of this that I am convinced the only way now to fight them is via parliament and the EU. By their deliberately deceitful nature and the confidence trick profile of it all they clearly portray themselves as quasi-criminal and if perpetrated in any other way than via the telephone system would be in fact illegal. They are thus a contravention of the Human Rights of all citizens, and most all the poor and vulnerable, particularly when it is the principal duty of Ofcom to protect the citizen consumer; I believe they are therefore also illegal under EU law due to their intentionally "stealth" nature.

As we all know, Ofcom are failing completely to execute their principal duty. The reason, apart from their "commercial" allegiance, which we know of, is political control by the current government to force and proliferate their stealth tax strategy via the telephone system wherever possible; and they clearly do not care that this hits the poor and vulnerable hardest!

It is clear to me therefore that the only way forwards is via political means, which is why the only way ultimately to protect the poor and vulnerable and to ensure that all telephone access to GPs, NHS hospitals, other NHS facilities, NI contributions offices, Child Benefit offices, tax credits offices, HMRC offices, DLVA offices, Job Centres, employment-assistance offices, passport offices etc. is at normal geographic rates will be to address the political and EU law aspects of these things and ultimately force justice and fairness to be applied despite the current generation of treacherous politicians!

catcoddler wrote on Dec 13^th, 2006 at 5:57pm:


The first port of call would be to address your concerns over 084/7 calls and Ofcom's failure to properly encforce Fair Trading rules and Competition rules (normally enforced for other industries by the OFT and the Competition Commission who have had to give up their powers on telecoms and broadcasting by act of Parliament - Communications Act 2003 - to Ofcom) and the EU Misleading Advertising Directive to your Member of Parliament via www.writetothem.com

You should say to your MP you feel that Ofcom has consistently failed to fulful its principal duty to protect the UK citizen consumer as required in Section 3 (i) of the Communications Act 2003 and ask for him to refer the matter and Ofcom's failures to act to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for investigation.  Perhaps it might help first to write to ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk setting out all your concerns over the failure of Ofcom and its not protecting the citizen consumer over proper disclosure of 084/7 call costs before someone calls the numbers and asking him what he is going to do about it. Assuming the answer is a polite brush off  then you can consider you are deadlocked with Ofcom and refer the matter to your MP for investigation by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.  You might also like to address these issues via www.writetothem.com to your MEP expressing your concern that Ofcom does not appear to be enforcing the provisions of the EU Misleading Advertising Directive over UK citizens knowing the cost of making phone calls before they make them and knowing what calls are standard rate and what calls are premium rate involving revenue share.

I hope this provides some helpful pointers.

Hi catcoddler,

The problem in a nutshell is that NGNs other than 09 (e.g. 0844, 0845, 0870, 0871, 070 PNS) are being used as Premium numbers in all but name, deliberately so as to fool those members of the general public who have not yet become fully aware of what is going on (which seems to still be the vast majority). The main reason this is such an attractive abuse to major telcos, companies with call centres and the government is that call queuing is specifically prohibited on 09 NGNs. The largest amounts of illicit revenue are thus being milked from the unaware public by means of call queuing, which in fact results often in a potential for more revenue to be made than with an 09 Premium number under the same individual call scenario, This is why those with a vested interest in the scam do not want the gravy train to stop!

Ofcom have deliberately made decisions which to the unaware appear to be addressing these problems for the citizen consumer. However their complete response is in reality a smoke screen, as is their continuous and total approach to these abuses. They have fronted a change in 0870 so that even supposedly aware journalists have written that the 0870 scam is going to be ended by Ofcom. This is completely untrue. Ofcom are in reality well aware that the focus is call queuing. This is the real reason that they resist taking the action which they know they are duty-bound to take under their terms of reference. So what they are actually going to do is yet again by stealth to attempt to fool the unaware. The abuse of 0870 will still be allowed with call queuing providing that an announcement of the call cost per minute proceeds the call. The abuse of 0871 will still be allowed with call queuing, but ICSTIS will be responsible for control of those numbers. (It is not, as far as I am aware, totally clear yet exactly how this will be administered since it will become a complete anomaly - a premium line under the auspices of ICSTIS with call queuing allowed, when all Premium numbers have call queuing prohibited!) Generally all other abuses will be allowed to continue, but supposedly Ofcom will look again at areas like 0845 and 0844 in a few years time. No doubt someone more knowledgeable on these things will correct me if I have made any serious mistake or omission in my attempt here to summarize these things.

So putting this all together with my previous two posts I trust you can see how these abuses are being used by the government as an extension to their stealth tax deceitful structure, particularly hitting the poor and vulnerable as we discussed earlier.

Most of those of us who have been campaigning from the beginning to right these abuses have firmly now concluded that communicating with Ofcom about these things and what needs to be done is an utter waste of our time and efforts, for the reasons in my earlier post. The only way forwards is now therefore a political campaign since in reality these abuses are breaking both UK and EU law. As NGMsG states here this means consulting MPs and MEPs, taking a combined legal action to the EU court if necessary and using the Parliamentary Ombudsman via your MP. I believe though that the action of individual protesters is unlikely to achieve much. In the end I believe it will be only by group action that this battle can be won. For that we have to become properly organized and collaborative. I hope that is of some help.