Yes, it would be interesting to see how much revenue they will generate from "concerned parents" etc etc. Unless the document contains any kind of monumental discovery, I'm sure I could live without reading it - got far too much work to be doing without having to read a gawd-awful consultation document from PhonePay-whatevertheyarecallednow. That said, I've just noticed that the report on the 0871 consultation on their website is also classed as "CONFIDENTIAL"...

jgxenite wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 11:56pm:
I did have a laugh about Reality's response to ICSTIS Q9:

<<
Q9. Undue delay.
We agree with ICSTIS that this is largely a customer service and not a premium
rate issue, and that ICSTIS involvement should therefore be minimal. If companies
provide a level of customer service that is not appropriate for their customer, then
this is likely to be reflected in their long term competitive market position. It should
also be recognised that there are many ways in which customer contact can be
made, including internet, post and phone. These are all issues which the market is
best left to resolve and ICSTIS should not be involved in these discussions. We
believe that Option D represents a fair approach, though ICSTIS should only get
involved where there is clear intention to defraud callers through long delays. (It is
worth noting that Government helplines are among the worst offenders on call
queueing)
>>


Thus failing to understand that, due to every Tom, Dlck and HMRC using NGNs, there is effectively no 'competitive market position', either in the public or private sector.

idb wrote on Nov 21^st, 2007 at 12:39am:


"Slater-Thomas has a gift for spotting and exploiting opportunities in the telecoms market." Being in the telecoms industry, I suspect "exploiting" is part of the job description.

Didn't ICSTIS (or whatever they call them now) claim something like the use of 0871 wasn't that great hence why it isn't really enforcing any consumer protection methods.

So 0871 isn't that popular why the need to create 0872 and 0873?

And again if 0871 isn't that popular why when scanning the shopping channels on Sky or the ads in magazines, or most travel companies advertise an 0871?

OfCoN has today (5th February 2009) announced that the useless new weak as water regime for 0871 numbers and for 09 numbers costing between 6p and 10p per minute will be introduced by its buddies PhoneScamsPlus as of 1st August 2009

OfCoN claims that this means consumers will "be able to complain about excessively long call waiting times".

Well they may be able to complain about them but long queues will not be banned and presumably nothing will be done about them unless PhoneScamsPlus receives 10,000 complaints a week.

OfCoN also claims that consumers will "be better protected from scams".  One wonders how they will be better protected when the 0871 code allows for deliberate consumer confusion with 0870 calls that are now part of inclusive call packages and when there are no price warning pre announcements before being connected to these numbers.

See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/087prs/087statement/ for more OfCon lieing and obfuscation designed to hide the fact that it did a complete U-Turn on its earlier promise to UK citizen consumers that 0871 numbers would be subject to the full 09 PRS regulatory regime.

jgxenite wrote on Feb 5^th, 2009 at 12:01pm:


The totally ineffective new PhoneScamsPlus regime is actually to take effect on 1st August 2009 instead of being endlessly postponed as it has been up to now.  Surely that's a fairly major What's New?

jgxenite wrote on Feb 5^th, 2009 at 12:11pm:


I really don't see the point of your post jgxenite.

Regardless of whether or not it is actually effective the transfer of responsibility for these numbers to PhonePayPlus is a major change in regulation.

Also excess queues on 0871 will need to start being reported to PhonePayPlus after August 1st to try to encourage enforcement action.  Only problem is that I highly doubt any members of this forum will be calling these numbers and the people who do call them will be wolly unaware of the new regulatory regime.

jgxenite wrote on Feb 5^th, 2009 at 12:19pm:


But all you have actually managed to do jgxenite is to clutter up the thread with a load of irrelvant posts that detract from discussing the fact that OfCoN is now trying to slip this through just when BT's inclusion of 0845 and 0870 calls in call packages will make it even easier than ever to con consumers in to calling 0871 numbers without them realising that they are charged at a much higher covert premium rates.  Also OfCoN have gone on back on the idea that there should be call cost announcements for these numbers again making the scamming even easier than ever.