I have sent the following message to everyone on my personal email list.
"We, the British Public, are being ripped off by many Corporations, large and small, overcharging us on phone calls to them.
They are using high charge call numbers 0870, 0871, 0845 and 0844, calling them wrongly national or local rate. The truth is they are much higher than current normal rates but more importantly they are excluded from all call packages. Packages such as BT Together, Talk Talk, OneTel and most Mobile phones inclusive calls. On a mobile these numbers can cost you 20-30p per minute instead of being free within your call package.
You might think this is small beer but if you are kept waiting for only 10 minutes, listening to irritating music and spurious messages, a call can cost you 1, 2 or 3pounds. Multiply that by the number of times you phone a call centre for your broken washing machine, the Bank, Building Society, Insurance Company and countless other organisations and information or breakdown lines and you could be paying hundreds of pounds a year. Even Government Departments and Agencies are are perpetrating this scam -- DVLA, NHS Direct, Revenue & Customs, BBC, Police, Jobcentres, the Pension Service, even Doctors using 0844!!
This is a major scam on the British Public.
You can do something about it NOW by signing the Petition against 0870 numbers on the Prime Ministers website:-
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/saynoto0870/
Cut and paste this URL into your browser to go straight to the Petition. Read the Petition and the section giving "More details from the petition creator". Then sign the petition -- follow the directions given on the website. Simple.
This Petition deserves the support of all . Please forward this message to at least 10 of your friends and contacts. Many thanks.
If you are fed up with being ripped off by these 0870, 0871, 0845, 0844 numbers you can very often find a normal geographic number by using the following excellent website:-
http://www.saynoto0870.com/Good Luck"