As far as I'm aware, the only case where this happens is with certain "geographic alternatives" to BT dial up numbers. Except for those, I thought this was not allowed at all, otherwise it would corrupt the whole telephone system. Do you know what the alternative number was that your colleague rang?

There are some sly unexplained and unpublicized issues occurring now, so this is probably what is happening as reported here. My wife purchased a calling card for overseas calls at cheaper rates. This was a pre-paid card where you called an access 0800 number, and as you used up the credit on the card it kept a tally of your diminishing credit.

When she made a series of foreign calls, using this 0800 number, the credit on the card did not reduce and she was puzzled. When I then received our telephone bill it became apparent what had been happening. All of the foreign calls had been charged to our telephone number directly despite the fact that she had dialled a 0800 number from our telephone. I queried this on my bill and the teleco (Primus) could not or would not give me an explanation. They claimed the calls had been dialled on our number directly, but we knew this was not so since my wife had dialled an 0800 number for each of these calls. So somehow there is a device which is now sometimes clandestinely arranged to detect when an 0800 number is dialled to make calls, and to circumvent that, then dialling the number direct from the line via the telco. Either they are detecting the particular 0800 number (like some mobile operators were doing with specific changing 0800 numbers), or they are detecting what is dialled afterwards, and if it is a complete telephone number they switch it to be dialled direct through them! In the 0870 number case, I presume they are doing a similar thing, but detecting that the routing is to the same connection as the 0870 number, and then charging it as if the 0870 number had been dialled.

As I say, my telco would not admit to this fraudulent practice, but we are not using these calling cards any more. It seems that my telco is only doing it with 0800 numbers dialled, not with codes for 1899 etc. They still work OK. They do not have any right in our contract agreement to do this, since we do not have an integral contract including line rental, but still use BT.

So it is clear that there are new tricks and scams now emerging all of the time. I think that because Ofcom have shown and proven their total disinterest in regulating as they are supposed to do, telcos now feel (understandably) that they can now get away with any new scam, even if in reality it is illegal and fraudulent! The problem reported here when actually dialling a Geo number is a similar example of what is now going on. Soon there will be no relationship between the number you dial and the charge rate, since as usual Ofcom do nothing to halt these abuses, nor to punish the perpetrators. This seems to be the hidden and deceitful objective of Ofcom in all of these abuses, which increasingly are now becoming totally fraudulent and criminal. If the policeman is asleep the criminals will have a paradise of anarchy in which to perpetrate their crimes. That is what we have in the UK.

I think we have a case of lack of information here.

First of all, as jgxenite & avnm say, we need the whole story, ie. the numbers that were involved. That way we can investigate fully.

jgxenite wrote on Nov 29^th, 2007 at 2:20pm:

Contrary to info I found when researching Dial up internet numbers, I was told that BT will charge you the appropriate amount the call would have cost using 0845. However I call these numbers ALL the time and have NEVER had this happen before.

To the best of my knowledge (& experience) and after talking to BT & Pipex, they DO NOT charge you the same (as the NGN), put the NGN number on the bill, or anything similar.

The NGN is linked to the Geographic number, NOT the other way round so you can have numerous NGNs linked to the same number (eg. a Switchboard).

I'd be interested in that number you used (& the NGN) so let us know ASAP.

DaveM wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2007 at 2:19pm:


If you look up the price list for, eg, BT Together Option 2 you will see that e.g. evening calls are 0.00p/min for "Geographic Inland Direct Dialled PPM Prices (except calls terminating on Internet Service Providers)calls" (Table 1a)

Table 1b, "Prices of calls to the Channel Islands and calls to Internet Service Providers using geographic numbers" shows calls are 1.70/2.00p/min (exc/inc vat).  Compared to 0.425/0.500p/min (exc/inc vat) for "Local NTS" i.e. 0845.

It states specifically "Calls to identified Internet Service Providers using geographic numbers will be charged at the rates shown in Table 1b. A list of these numbers is available on bt.com."  I've not found this list yet this evening. (I have seen in in the past, prior to the last redesign.)