lucaltmann wrote on Jan 31
st, 2007 at 9:58am:
Perhaps you shouldn't take our righteous anger on this topic too personally.
Our anger is mainly with Ofcom who many of us took long hours responding to the several consultations of on this subject only to be resoundingly ignored.
The point about 084/7 calls is not just that the calls cost extra but that it is an industry built on blatant and straightforward consumer deception and deceit about the costs of the calls and claiming that lower rate premium rate revenue share calls are "local" or "lo-call" rate and "national rate" when they are no such thing. Our anger is about the failure of the regulator to put these services on the 09 prefix code which the public clearly identify as premium rate. That is what happens in the USA for all such calls.
Ofcom has unfortunately been given the normal powers of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission for telecoms and broadcasting issues but it blatantly isn't enforcing them in respect of ensuring the public understand that these calls are not standard rate calls and are not misdescribed. Also under Part 3 (i) of the Communications Act 2003 Ofcom's principal duty is supposed to be the protection of the citizen consumer (See
www.ofcom.org.uk/about/sdrp/). But under Stephen Carter Ofcom completely failed to act against his old mates at NTL (where he used to work) and other telcos ripping off consumers over 084/7 calls despite endless consumer pressure to do so. 084/7 calls are worth over £1 billion a year and are over 25% of UK call values, which is why the senior telco executives who have infiltrated Ofcom to stop their industry being closed down have refused to let it die. Ofcom acts against things which don't cost companies serious money but look exciting presentationally (eg junk food adverts to kids) but it refuses to tackle the big scams worth billions to the telecoms industry. It even has a regular Focus Group with the telecoms industry to discuss how to minimise the impact of any changes to 084/7 call charge structures from which consumer interests are excluded:-
See
www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/nts_focus/notes/See also these references as to why 084/7 are not Local/National Rate including the very interesting comments of Ian Livingston, CEO of BT Retail:-
The view of a county council trading standards department
Para 1.3 Page 1 of
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/oftel_0845/responses/leicester_cc.pdfand
the view of the CEO of BT Retail, Ian Livingston
http://business.scotsman.com/banking.cfm?id=764772005and
two recent guidances from the Advertising Standards Authority
www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Hanging+on+the+telephone+on+and+on+and+...www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Stop+the+call+confusion.htmand
the Parliamentary Early Day motion deploring the use of 0870 telephone numbers by government departments
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=28872%09%09%09%09%09%09%09&...; amp;SESSION=875
and
Another guidance from the Committee of Advertising Practice of the Advertising Standards Authority
www.cap.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/CAP+rings+the+changes+for+telecoms+prov... and Pages 5 and 6 of the below minutes from my own district council where we agreed policy to stop the future use of 0845 and 0870 numbers.
www.molevalley.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/s/Council_Minutes_190705.pdfAnd the most recent ASA guidance saying that Inclusive call packages must not fail to disclose that 084/7 calls are excluded from them.
www.cap.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2006/Ringing+the+Changes.htm