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.pdf

and
the view of the CEO of BT Retail, Ian Livingston

http://business.scotsman.com/banking.cfm?id=764772005

and

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.htm

and

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.pdf

And 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

NGMsGhost, LMAO =  Laughs My A***e Off 

lucaltmann wrote on Jan 31^st, 2007 at 10:33am:


But there aren't any voice value added services on 084/7 numbers that is the whole point.  They are just normal call centres and company switchboards formerly on 01/02  numbers.  The value added services are things like quiz tv prize lines, legal advice lines and sex chat lines (which no one has to call and there is lots of competition on) are all on 09 numbers.

Dial up is the only value added part of 0844/0845 but they could all be easily shunted on to another range without any issue.  Ofcom uses fast collapsing dialup as an excuse to hang on to 0844/5 revenue share for several years more to shore up this whole sad and deceitful industry.  Tell people it is an 09 call with a call price announcement that it is a higher rate with a payment to the company you are calling and no one running these lines will be able to get away with it any more.

Quote:


Yes I do.

The odd American company operating in the UK, like MBNA the credit card operator, still sticks to the universal practice of offering 0800/800 numbers for all their UK points  of contact and organisations like John Lewis and Nationwide actively shun the use of 084/7 as much as possible because of their more consumer rights minded customer base.  The camera company Olympus even offers an 00 800 customer support line that can be called free from anywhere in the western world.

If 084/7 had not been missold on the deception of being normally priced calls due to a weak and corrupt regulator this scam industry would never have taken off.

09 calls clearly revealed as premium rate are a quite different consumer issue as they do not involve deception and misselling.

The other key issue is call queuing on 084/7 with people often having to queue for 30 minutest at £2.10 or £3.00 call value with no rules banning queuing (as there are on 09) and no indication of how long the call will be.  This incentivises call centres to understaff them and run them inefficiently to cut costs as much as possible while maximising call revenue.

I agree with all you say NGM, the whole 087x/084x scam is based on deception.

I have just received a 24 page booklet from Barclays Bank entitled “Overdraft Payment Protection”.  On the back cover, and printed in large blue type is the statement:

The booklet appears to have been printed 11/06.

This is once again a clear false statement and is intended to mislead customers that calling 0870 and 0845 will cost customers no more than usual numbers beginning with 01/02.

Daytime calls to 0870 are usually charges between 7p to 10p/min and calls to 0845 cost between 3p to 5p/min.  Daytime calls to 01/02 numbers cost from 0p to 3p/min regardless of UK location or distance.  Calls to 084x/087x from mobiles and pay-phones are astronomical compared with 01/02.  A slice of the extra call cost goes to the Bank. The deception is clear.

If I stole money from the bank by deception I would end up in court.  The Banks steal millions from customers in clandestine telephone revenue, but the regulators do nothing.