Heinz wrote on Mar 22
nd, 2007 at 1:22pm:
OTOH, Virgin Media customers, apart from being charged £5
per month extra if they don't pay by DD (as opposed to BT's £1.50 per month) are now to be treated to a 'follow the leader'
change to per minute billing from 1/5/07. That'll mean a less than a minute chargeable UK 01/02 call will cost an incredible 9p (6p connection and 3p for the first minute).
The more this happens the more I become convinced that the whole industry is corrupt and needs investigating by the Competition Commission or whoever.
IMO people's inability to do simple maths and prefer to take note of promotional material that paints a nice tidy picture which only includes headline rates and charges has a lot to do with it. To the providers' benefit "whole minute billing" is 'boring'.
It will be good to see a programme like Panorama do an investigation on this. Instead, we are all tangled up in the premium rate antics of the mainstream broadcasters in this country. The fact that many people are scammed by reverse billed SMS messages is not interesting to the media.
The fact that BT has increased its charge for non-direct debit customers from £1 to £1.50 is big news, but VM's £5 gets no mention!!!