Fife Council has recently imposed new 0845 numbers on its tax payers. Details are here. They've even gone to the expense of designing a logo for it!

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...At the expense of callers that is. These "changes" are presumably the opening up of competition. So by getting 0845 numbers they can effectively bypass this and charge pretty much what we all paid before these "changes". Still, the council gets its "improved communications system".

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What planet are these cretins on? 

Does anybody know if anything came of OFCOM's consultation about this? From the linked page:

• 0845 and 0870 services are often advertised as local rate and national rate calls respectively. However increasing competition for fixed-line telephone calls has resulted in a broad range of prices and discount call packages for local and national calls to geographic numbers. This means the cost of calling an 0845 number can be higher than the cost of a local geographic call, and the cost of calling an 0870 number can be higher than the cost of a national geographic call.

I thought I remembered reading a while ago that they had actually issued Official Advice in some form, saying that companies shouldn't use misleading phrases like "for the price of a local/national call", but I can't find any references to that now.

Can anybody help?

Source: Fife Council

http://fifefire.gov.uk/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.display&subjectid=A91694...

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Council explains telephone call costs

Archived news: published on Monday 26 Nov 2007 by Fife Council

Fife Council is reassuring the public that calls to it on its existing and new 0845 telephone numbers are not costing premium rates.

Customer Contact Manager Donald Duff said he understood how people could be confused about call costs and which of these are not classed as premium rate numbers.

"I cannot stress enough that 0845 numbers are not like those used for telephone competitions or helplines which can cost upwards of 75p a minute. Fife Council does not make any money or profit from calls to 0845 numbers.

"More than 550 of our main buildings ranging from schools to swimming pools as well as sections dealing with adoption to allotments still have local telephone numbers and dialling codes," he explained.

Donald added: "Our advice would be if you call us or any other 0845 numbers regularly check with your telephone service provider as to what is most suitable package or deal for you."

He explained calls to 0845 numbers typically cost a maximum of 2-5p per minute at peak rate and 1-2p per minute off peak - depending on a person's telephone supplier.

Full information about the new numbers is available in the '2007 Useful Guide to Council services and our new numbers' or the BT Phone Book.  A 2008 edition of the 'Useful guide will be available next Spring.

Main Fife Council telephone numbers are also available online at www.fifedirect.org.uk
>>

Fife Council has swapped 0845 for 0345.

CJT-80 wrote on Oct 11^th, 2013 at 10:40am:


What do they say about calling from outside the UK?  Do they give an 01 or 02 number to call instead or simply warn that the 03 number may not be cheap at all but instead massively expensive?

I have just been charged an outrageous 15.40 Euros per minute for calling Plusnet's UK 03 number for technical support by Orange Spain.  It was fortunate there were only 4.50 Euros on my SIM card and so the call only lasted 12 seconds before it was cut off.  If My Orange Spain account had 50 Euros credit on it I could easily have lost all of that money.  It seems impossible to find a Chief Executive's Office at Orange Spain to complain about such matters.

The terminating Plusnet number is run by Virgin Media but no doubt they will pass the buck to Orange Spain who have already passed the buck to the UK phone operators.  And will useless Ofcom get involved even though their GC17 seems to be being breached.  As I am only an individual and not a company of course they will find away to avoid being responsible for the matter.

The number in question of 0345 140 0200 can be found via www.plus.net/home-broadband/contact/ ; My normal UK calls to UK numbers starting 01 or 02 with Orange Spain on their SIM Mundo cost 1 Euro cent per minute plus 30 cents connection fee.  03 calls are classed as Premium Rate and charged at the same level as an 09 sex chat line at 15.4 Euros per minute!!!

From http://movil.orange.es/tarifas/llamar-a-otro-pais/tarjeta-sim-mundo/

fijo desde0,01€/min. ocultar detalle

Reino Unido Local Rate 0,11€/min.

Reino Unido Personal 0,19€/min.

Reino Unido Premium 15,4€/min.

Clearly there was no way I expected an 03 number to be charged at Premium Rate and nor was there any price warning given by Orange Spain before I called the number.

I think Fife Council need to be warned about this problem and encourage to take it up with their telecoms supplier.