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Abbey - 0551 numbers (Read 91,980 times)
sherbert
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #45 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 10:02am
 
loddon wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 9:26am:
I think it a great pity that Abbey (now calling themselves Santander as if they wish to extinguish all mention of any Britishness about their name or organisation and to remove any last vestiges of our British heritage and culture in favour of an amorphous and vanilla flavour across Euroland)   


......and they are continuing to do so with other banks........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316083/As-Santander-buys-million-RBS-Na...
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NGMsGhost
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #46 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 10:49am
 
loddon wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 9:26am:
I think it a great pity that Abbey (now calling themselves Santander as if they wish to extinguish all mention of any Britishness about their name or organisation and to remove any last vestiges of our British heritage and culture in favour of an amorphous and vanilla flavour across Euroland) seems to be falling over itself in its desperation to rip off and scam its customers by eliminating the use of all normal geographic numbers and getting all confused over their use of 0845 and 0551 numbers.


loddon,

I appreciate where you are coming from with your views on the loss of the historic Abbey National brand but we must face the fact that this was actually lost when they were taken over by Santander and Abbey shareholders like myself found we now had Santander share certificates and were paid foreign Spanish dividends with Spanish withholding tax (although still paid in sterling as the only concession).  So given the history of other larger multinational expansion programs the rest was surely inevitable as with the case of the Midland brand (the friendly Griffin being a particularly charming television advertising character) being subsumed by HSBC.

Whilst I agree it is a shame a once fine British financial services institution (one I had my first savings account opened with at the local branch at age 7) has been sold off to an institution in another European country I personally find this in your face rebranding (which Santander did delay for several years) to be more honest and straightforward than say BAA/British Airports Authority still calling itself BAA rather than Ferrovial when the only thing that is now British about this subsidiary of Ferrovial is the physical location of the airports of its UK brand.

As a longstanding NatWest customer I personally regard the retention of the NatWest brand and the associated advertising straplines for the brand as actually being a deliberate attempt to hoodwink NatWest customers that something they are familiar with and attached to still exists when they are actually now a banking customer of the Royal Bank of Scotland (and/or subsequently of HM Government depending on your point of view).  To my mind NatWest died when Royal Bank of Scotland took it over and a much better NatWest cash machine interface was lost by being replaced by that of the new parent bank.  Later numerous other anti customer policies designed to extract a few pennies more profit from them were rolled out by Sir Fred Goodwin and the yes men who comprised the rest of his board.

Getting back to topic Dave has no justification for listing the 0551 numbers in the 01/02/03 column (which are numbers guaranteed to be charged at any telecoms provider's geographic calling rates by regulatory dictat whilst 0551 numbers are not) but seems to be finding it difficult to admit that he has made a mistake and apply the necessary corrective action to the database.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #47 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:24pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 10:49am:
[
I personally find this in your face rebranding (which Santander did delay for several years) to be more honest and straightforward than say BAA/British Airports Authority still calling itself BAA rather than Ferrovial when the only thing that is now British about this subsidiary of Ferrovial is the physical location of the airports of its UK brand.


NGMsGhost,
Thanks for your supportive comments.   I felt Abbey National really showed it had lost its way when it dropped "National" and its longstanding logo and adopted an all lower case weak and wobbly looking name in random assorted pale and putrid pastel colours which accurately reflected the abysmal lack of confidence and direction that must have infected the Board.   It was inevitable they would go under.

I agree that the use of the parent company name is more honest than the pretence practiced by the Spanish owners of Scottish Power, another example, but I am lamenting the disappearance of Guardian Royal Exchange, Equity & Law and others into Axa, Commercial Union, General accident and Norwich Union into Aviva, and many more examples in our daily life which I feel all contribute to a steady and even accelerating rate of attrition of words names and phrases which are part of our established national character.   I do not lament the loss of one or two odd names, so much as the wholesale decimation and the fact that so many of our important national companies are now foreign owned such as all the major energy companies.

At least your Natwest account will now be re-branded openly with Santander Wink Roll Eyes Sad

Getting back to the matter of 0551 numbers my view is that the only numbers which appear in the 01/2/3 column should be those which are definitely charged at the same rate as 01/2/3 numbers.   If 0551 numbers can be charged differently then they must belong somewhere else, perhaps adding them to the 0844/5 column, if not in the Other Info column.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #48 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:39pm
 
loddon wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:24pm:
At least your Natwest account will now be re-branded openly with Santander Wink Roll Eyes Sad


Do you know something that I don't or have missed during my absence in Spain (ironically enough) for part of the summer?

Quote:
Getting back to the matter of 0551 numbers my view is that the only numbers which appear in the 01/2/3 column should be those which are definitely charged at the same rate as 01/2/3 numbers.   If 0551 numbers can be charged differently then they must belong somewhere else, perhaps adding them to the 0844/5 column, if not in the Other Info column.


Agreed.  I look forward to Dave acting on the widespread consensus shown on this matter by other longstanding forum members.

So far as Iberdrola is concerned do you suppose that they felt that Spanish Power might not have the same ring with British consumers as a thrifty Scottish image?
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« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:41pm by NGMsGhost »  

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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #49 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:50pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:39pm:
loddon wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:24pm:
At least your Natwest account will now be re-branded openly with Santander Wink Roll Eyes Sad


Do you know something that I don't or have missed during my absence in Spain (ironically enough) for part of the summer?



Yes mate, you are now using Santander!!  Shocked Shocked  See sherbert's latest posting above.
 
Quote:
  So far as Iberdrola is concerned do you suppose that they felt that Spanish Power might not have the same ring with British consumers as a thrifty Scottish image?


Yes, Iberdrola could have been more honest but chickened out.   Why can we British not produce our own energy?   I thought that Energy was supposed to be an asset of national and strategic importance. Shocked
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« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2010 at 3:06pm by loddon »  
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #50 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 3:31pm
 
Look at this comment!!

"AND just why is it that Santander seem to be the ONLY bidder? Are the EU trying to give them a monopoly position in the UK?
Vince Cable should be stepping in on this but seems to be concentrating on incoherent ramblings. I have already closed my membership of the Lib=Dems - UKIP here I come.
- roy, billericay, 29/9/2010 7:49

Santander is, as you say, the ONLY Bidder. Why? Santander is owned by the Spanish Government and all of it's Debts are underwritten by UK Banks from whom they have borrowed. Apparently Santander will not fail as the Spanish Government will be responsible for paying back the Debts. However, were Santander not a Government owned Bank, and failed, the UK Banks would also fail as they are the biggest lenders.

Santander are buying on borrowed money from the very Banks they are taking over. More like a Political carve-up to destroy the UK Banking system. Lloyds/Halifax/BOS is next on the list for the carve-up under the Monopolies Commission sell-out.
- Lizzie M., Alexandria, UK., 29/9/2010
"



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316083/As-Santander-buys-million-RBS-Na...
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #51 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 4:57pm
 
After all of this agreement, perhaps we need a spiky contribution. When Daily Mail readers are cited as an authoritative source of opinion, I must be expected to react.

I am sure that every generation laments the passing of names it has grown up with. Many of those mentioned above were the product of amalgamations of once proud individual institutions, whose passing was lamented by a previous generation.

Some of the comments made and quoted above beg the questions of whether or not one supports the free movement of capital between nations and the direct involvement of governments in the financial services and utility sectors.

Those who may welcome the contribution of Santander to motor racing surely cannot be surprised or unhappy at the fact that it can only achieve its return on this investment by the branding of its interests.

The sense of regret that I have relates to the fact that many of those named above were once owned mutually or publicly. The tipping point was that of nationalisation / de-mutualisation. If one accepts that an institution exists in the open market, I cannot see how one may dictate from where it may obtain its capital, or seek to deny whoever may acquire a controlling interest the right to exercise their will over its branding and operations.

I can understand why we seek to relate the misuse of non-geographic telephone numbers to other gripes that we may have, as it is always good to find any supportive evidence for one's views about an organisation. I cannot however find a general connection, as many of those I fight most strongly over this issue are those who I otherwise support.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #52 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 5:50pm
 
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 4:57pm:
After all of this agreement, perhaps we need a spiky contribution. When Daily Mail readers are cited as an authoritative source of opinion, I must be expected to react.




Do we assume from your extremely patronising comments SCV, that the Great British Public should only take notice of Times and Telegraph readers?

The Telegraph and the Times sells about 1.2 million  daily between them and the Mail is the second largest selling paper (after The Sun sells about 3 million) sells just over 2 million.

So, from what you are saying is that the Mail readers do not know what they are talking about and the minority who do?
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« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2010 at 5:51pm by sherbert »  
 
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #53 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 6:41pm
 
sherbert wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 5:50pm:
Do we assume from your extremely patronising comments SCV, that the Great British Public should only take notice of Times and Telegraph readers?


No you have SCV all wrong sherbert.  It would only be letters to The Guardian and The Independent that he would deem as being worthy of being taken sufficiently seriously in politically correct circles.

Doesn't that surely come across loud and clear in virtually of all his lengthy pontifications that would I am sure land him a job as an Ofcom consultation writer at the drop of a hat were he to ever consider applying for the role.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #54 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 7:05pm
 
You are probably right NGMsGhost and if that is the case it means SCV's comment is even more ludicrous as those two papers together sell less than half a million copies a day.

Apologies for making such a stupid error in my previous post  Grin
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #55 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 7:28pm
 
I would hope to judge any comment on its intrinsic merit, regardless of the source. All organs of the media contain both drivel and perceptive writing. Some have a bigger circulation than others, for a variety of reasons. I hope we accept that one is free to choose one's newspaper, rather than only the wisest amongst us being permitted to buy those with the largest circulation.

It is common currency that Times and Telegraph readers hold views to what could once be called the right of centre, Independent and Grauniad readers to be driven by political correctness and Mail readers to be petty-minded haters of the both the state and disorder. I could go on.

Two quoted pieces which switch in an instant from condemnation of an alleged authoritarian conspiracy to a demand for state intervention in what is essentially a free market situation are typical. I am disappointed that it is only my introductory remarks, rather than the substance of my comments, which attempt to address the topic of the thread, that excite a response.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #56 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 7:43pm
 
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 7:28pm:
I hope we accept that one is free to choose one's newspaper, rather than only the wisest amongst us being permitted to buy those with the largest circulation.


I regret to report that I dispensed with purchasing a daily British newspaper quite some years ago in favour of television and radio news and free news on the internet.  I do always reliably purchase a daily English newspaper for the expat market when I am staying at holiday residence overseas.  One of the main reasons for this is because I am much more interested in local community affairs there than I am back at home and because the said newspaper has cleverly refused to make most of its more useful local content available on the internet even though it does have a website.

I cannot actually see why people would purchase a newspaper any more unless they were either internet illiterate or they perhaps have a long train journey each day.  And lower cost mobile internet is surely now beginning to destroy even that part of the market.

I say all this with a sense of regret since one of my close relatives works for a major national newspaper but the writing is surely on the wall with tablet look devices with long battery lives starting to appear any my relative believes they can redeploy their skills in to editing content on websites as and when the time comes.

I note that SCV does not take any issue with my suggestion that The Independent and The Grauniad might be rather closer to his own reading tastes than The Times or The Torygraph.
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #57 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 8:52pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 7:43pm:
I note that SCV does not take any issue with my suggestion that The Independent and The Grauniad might be rather closer to his own reading tastes than The Times or The Torygraph.

If one is sufficiently interested in my comments to attempt to divine some understanding of the author, then this conclusion is hardly of earth-shattering brilliance. I cannot however see how our choices of newspaper, political affiliations or whatever other loyalties we may have should have any bearing on our ability to discuss issues.

If we keep our little swipes at others declared positions to the margins of our discussions, maintain good humour and keep essentially to the topics under discussion, then any soggy liberalism that may be found within my arguments can be attacked as a weakness in those arguments. I would hope to address other contributions similarly as we engage in discussion of the topics raised. I cannot see what relevance the circulation figures of various journals may have to the content of my comments on the issues being discussed in this thread. Yes I did refer to the Daily Mail, as others have seen fit to quote from it. That was not however the essence of my contribution, but we have allowed ourselves to move well off the subject.

I will attempt to draw us back by re-stating my point that I see no connection between the general conduct of an organisation and a decision to adopt revenue sharing, or as in the case of 0551, expensive non-geographic, numbers. Centralisation of telephone contact is naturally associated with use of non-geographic numbers and this can be either positive or negative in terms of service levels, often depending on the type of service required. Because awareness of the 03 range is well short of what it should be, "non-geographic" still tends to mean "revenue sharing", but prior to 2007 this was the only option available.

I maintain that it is a combination of ignorance, lethargy, a reluctance to make what many still see as a "pioneering" move to 03 and an unwillingness to incur the costs of a number change that leaves so many on 0845 numbers. The benefit in terms of subsidy is modest when taken in context, although there is a visible cost (for many) in moving to 03. Although when looked at properly the increased cost incurred by some BT customers is not really an issue, it appears to be so.

I maintain that one does not have to have a black heart and be motivated by insatiable greed to operate a 0845 or 0551 number. It is however generally a bad decision that needs to be carefully reviewed and changed at the most suitable early opportunity. I believe that the need to make this change is more important for the public sector and also this is where, as has been seen already, it is more likely to be achieved. I do not in any way exclude the private sector and (assuming present plans are executed) will shortly be seen making this point in public.

(I continue to be re-assured that when the Ofcom consultation is published in around a month's time it will contain some radical proposals to seriously address the issues that we are campaigning on - many for much longer than I. I continue to be convinced that progress from there will be slow and difficult and I hope that we will all be ready to engage in a proper and positively focused battle.)
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« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2010 at 9:04pm by SilentCallsVictim »  
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Re: Abbey - 0551 numbers
Reply #58 - Sep 29th, 2010 at 11:31pm
 
loddon wrote on Sep 29th, 2010 at 2:50pm:
Yes mate, you are now using Santander!!  Shocked Shocked  See sherbert's latest posting above.


No my dear old chap (less of the mate stuff please as I really don't think that's the kind of language normally favoured between saynoto0870'ers) it seems that you are very much mistaken and that as an English (with the University of Exeter branch, although it has sadly currently moved to a Portacabin for two years while the original branch is reconstructed within some ghastly new shopping mall on the campus) NatWest customer I will be remaining firmly in UK government and NatWest branded hands for the time being at least until George (nee Gideon) Osborne can find someone else offering him an attractive enough deal to flog us off to.

Quote:
Santander has bought all 311 RBS branches in England and Wales, and seven NatWest branches in Scotland, after the state-backed bank flogged its assets to satisfy European competition rules.


So it is only the Scottish aspect of RBS that is to be expunged (perhaps because they have correctly recognised that this is where the rot set in) and one could argue that there is now a strong case for rebranding the whole parent operation as NatWest to eliminate the unhappy memories associated with the out of control Scottish lairds.

So far as Abbey National is concerned I closed my childhood savings account some time in the 1980s not long after I started working when some aspect of the terms and conditions were made very much worse and I decided that I was better off with National Westminster Bank (as it then was).

In regard to your being upset about all the familiar institutional names of your childhood now being swept away I wonder if you have perhaps considered applying to the BBC for a part in their next series of Grumpy Old Men? Grin
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« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2010 at 11:55pm by NGMsGhost »  

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